Two years after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, some of the same far-right Republican members of Congress who refused to certify the lawful election of President Joe Biden are waging a new attack on democracy by throwing the U.S. House into chaos.
The anti-democratic cancer inspired by the twice-impeached, disgraced former president continues to metastasize. A majority of the 20 GOP members of an insurrectionist caucus who repeatedly blocked California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to be House speaker are election deniers. Several even sought pardons for their votes on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the presidential election. They still have paid no real price for their sabotage.
As tempting as it may be to gloat, Democrats should pump the brakes on celebrating the self-destructive Republican disarray on the House floor, where McCarthy had lost 14 votes for speaker before winning. This small cabal of “Never Kevin” rebels is just getting started, halting the people’s business and taking Congress hostage to their anti-government agenda.
The cost for the United States is way more serious. Biden was right when he called the spectacle “embarrassing,” and he wisely warned that “the rest of the world is looking” to see if we can “get our act together.” Allies have been watching U.S. conduct warily since the Trump years, wondering whether American democracy is back and stable, or if it remains broken. Authoritarian governments in Moscow and Beijing must be cheering the historic dysfunction.
Not since before the Civil War have this many ballots been needed to elect a House speaker, and none of the business of the House — from swearing in the new members to making critical national security decisions — can be conducted until one is selected. The record was held by the 34th Congress, which took two months and 133 ballots to elect a speaker in 1855.
The consequences of the current string of votes for speaker brought legislative business to a standstill, prompting a group of GOP House members with military experience to warn that the prolonged impasse was a threat to national security and U.S. veterans, holding up committee work and halting intelligence briefings.
Given recent history, none of this should be a surprise, but a leaderless House is one more reminder of the damage America suffers from the destructive intraparty schisms and scorched-earth tactics of the last decade.
Voters in November’s midterm elections demonstrated again the country remains closely and bitterly split between Republicans and Democrats. But now a new era of divided government is underway, with different parties controlling the House and Senate by narrow margins.
The GOP, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, spent days destroying itself on live TV, obviously worrying many right-wing warriors. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned that the GOP is in “the greatest danger of meltdown that it’s been in since 1964.” Gingrich recently told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that the choice was between “McCarthy or chaos.”
Even with a McCarthy win, the rebels seem bent on creating more gridlock, self-destruction, even economic turmoil. On Friday, most of the rebels finally switched their votes back to McCarthy, but a hard-core group of obstructionists held out longer. If they are willing, even eager, to paralyze the House now over the speaker vote, imagine what they could do to America’s credit rating when the debt ceiling comes to a vote later this year and they push Republicans not to raise it, risking default. Other countries will be watching.
Many Democrats may consider it entertaining to watch the GOP in full kamikaze mode. But hold the popcorn; there’s too much at stake. Incoming Republicans have arrived determined to launch investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings, the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Biden team’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. They threatened to impeach Biden.
The opposition Democrats’ greatest strength right now is they offer a successful record of accomplishment from the last Congress and a contrast to the chaos on Capitol Hill. The image of Biden, recently standing with Republicans and Democrats announcing sorely needed funding for a bridge between Kentucky and Ohio, was well planned for Democrats. Biden should keep showcasing the substantive fruits of his bipartisan deals like that, forged with moderate Republicans in the last Congress. Voters aren’t blind.
Biden marked the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection Friday by awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to 14 election workers, public officials and police officers who held the line on that infamous day and defended democracy. It’s well deserved and sends the right message.
Actions have consequences. The recent report of the Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol referred four GOP members of Congress, including McCarthy and two of his rebel rivals, to the House Ethics Committee for defying subpoenas from the committee. With Republicans in the majority now, that referral may languish.
It’s hard to feel sorry for McCarthy. Like many of the extremists who objected to him for the speaker’s role, it’s only fair to remember he was one of 139 House members who bowed to Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud and voted to object to the peaceful transfer of power.
Hundreds of Trump’s foot soldiers who attacked the Capitol are being prosecuted. Their leaders deserve no less. Presidential candidates and election deniers who continue to spread toxic lies against America’s democracy — even if they are in Congress — should be looking over their shoulders at the long arm of the law.
