I am hardly surprised to read today’s news that the House Republican leadership is losing floor votes due to mini-revolts within the party. With 87 freshmen and a large contingent of Tea Party types who came to Washington with a head of steam and little loyalty to the Republican establishment, it always seemed dubious to me that anybody short of Joseph Stalin was going to be able to keep this coalition together. And you can say all the mean things you want about John Boehner; he is no Joseph Stalin.
Four weeks in, and not everybody in the Republican caucus is going along with what was supposed to be routine vote to temporarily extend anti-terrorism provisions in the Patriot Act. Though surely the bigger issue is that the party’s most conservative members are demanding $100 billion in domestic cuts instead of the mere $40 billion originally planned. My prediction: this is but a preview of a coming internecine war within the Republican Party.
The reasons for this are straightforward. By taking back the House on the wave of the mad-as-hell Tea Party voters, Republicans got a radical faction that demanded and frankly expected something big and revolutionary to happen. And if they didn’t get that something big and revolutionary they would damn well yell and scream trying.
As I wrote back in November: “Good luck, Speaker Boehner: If you aren’t aggressive enough, you will lose the mad-as-hell Tea Party voters. But if you are too aggressive, you will lose the majority of independents who are worried you are going too far. And you’ll need to please both to keep your majority.”
Being minority leader is easy, especially in the House. The instructions are simple: Vote no. Always. Do everything you can to embarrass and undermine the majority party. And if you throw enough sand in the gears, you can successfully campaign on how ineffectual the majority party has been. Stay disciplined. You will have your chance.
Being majority leader is hard. Once your team is in power, everybody has their ideas about what they want to do, and everyone thinks it’s their turn now. Being majority leader is especially hard when a significant part of your caucus is backed by an angry base hungry for a purifying hot tub time machine journey back to 1789, when America was a small upstart nation of farmers and healthcare involved leeches.
I suspect what we are seeing is just the beginning of a coming crack-up. And a lot of this is going to be over spending cuts.
The main fault line is not hard to follow: Republican leaders like John Boehner have been around politics long enough to know that when you start cutting (or even threatening to cut) programs, people who benefit from those programs get upset. Really upset (see: attempt to privatize Social Security).
But the Tea Party base is riled up, and whatever Republican leaders propose, they are always going to be convinced that MORE is needed. Here are some of what I take to be representative comments from a National Review article on how Republican leaders are trying to come around to the $100 billion in cuts:
“Slash? Considering the size of our current and projected debt, $100 billion is but a nick.”
“back to 2008 level is at least 500 billion in cuts. Promise is not kept”
“I smell a rat. It’s inconceivable that more money cannot be cut from this bloated budget.”
So, stay tuned. These folks are not motivated by practical or even political concerns. They are motivated by a kind of messianic ideology. These are the people who don’t believe in compromise. So once more, good luck Speaker Boehner. Though really, I don’t think even luck can save you now.
