The Practical Reality

I’ve been an ideologue and ideologically committed my entire political life. I consider myself a Christian and a conservative before I consider myself a Republican. I was an elected Republican, but a conservative one.

I’m old enough to have witnessed a bunch of people come into the GOP who claim conservatism and do not know what it is. I’m old enough to have seen the House Freedom Caucus lead a rebellion against Speaker Paul Ryan and witnessed Donald Trump help crush the rebellion and prop up Paul Ryan. Ron DeSantis, as an aside, helped lead that rebellion.

I’ve seen conservatives stand firm and get sequestration even as Republican leaders complained and sought to undermine it. And I’ve seen conservatives fracture in shutdowns and betray each other. I’ve seen senior members of the movement decide it was time to cash in and grift out. I’ve seen young hucksters wrap the label of conservatism around themselves and prey on retirees for cash, showing fabricated results in return.

I’m so old, I remember when CPAC was a gathering of actual conservatives and not a grift operation with a gay cruising scene on the side.

Now I see the House Freedom Caucus negotiate in good faith with House Leaders to get a continuing resolution with absolute real cuts in spending — not cuts in future growth, but cuts in actual, real spending now. And I’m witnessing a half dozen conservatives turned populists decide they’d rather shut down the government than take real spending cuts as an opening offer to the Senate.

I’m amenable to a government shutdown. I’ve never opposed a government shutdown. But the ideologue in me is tempered by reality. Let’s just examine where this goes.

The half dozen have failed to unite the whole of the actual conservatives in the House, let alone the GOP. They have the power to shut it all down, but what is that going to do? It will ultimately lead to the House GOP moderates siding with the House Democrats. Together, they’ll cut a deal with the Senate that not only opens the government, but grows the government. Wait till you see how much more they give Ukraine then.

The populist half-dozen to dozen members will scuttle the opening negotiations that started with an eight percent real cut to government. And in return, they do not really have a unified plan. They are, themselves, fractured in what they want. Some just want to spite McCarthy. Some want to kill Ukraine funding. Some want what even they cannot articulate.

If they are going to make this work, they need the House Freedom Caucus on board to bring a larger show of unity. They need to find some Senators willing to fight with them. And they need a unified, articulated plan and list of demands.

Right now, less than a dozen populists are leading the government to a shutdown without a real plan, list of demands, and plot to get the House GOP united with an assist from Senate Republicans.

It looks more like performance art than a master plan.

These populists will get the GOP blamed for the coming recession and the lack of FAA tower staff that brings the aviation industry to a ground stop. If they have a real plan and can build some unity within the greater conservative movement within the House, they need to get going.

Otherwise they risk helping the Democrats in persuading the public that the GOP cannot be trusted. And, worse, they risk growing government in a bipartisan effort. Time is running out for the right side of the House to get on the same page.

The House Freedom Caucus got the whole of the House GOP to agree to eight percent in real world, current cuts — across the board except defense and veterans affairs. Sure, they won’t get it in negotiations with the Senate. But that was the unified first step that united the whole of the House GOP as a strong opening negotiating position.

So if this shutdown proceeds, I hope Matt Gaetz and the others can present some workable plan that actually cuts the size and scope of Washington. Otherwise, what are we doing other than peeing in the wind?

I’m an ideologue whose zealousness to die on the ramparts has been tempered over the years by the reality that way too many of the Generals are, well, Washington Generals who perform just to lose, but make a killing on their FEC reports.

I’d really like to cut the government, not prop up grifters who promise, perform, and always fail.