Republicans self-destruct again in US Speaker saga

Image source, Reuters

The Republican nominees for Speaker of the US House have developed the political lifespan of mayflies.

Tom Emmer barely had time to bask in his five-round secret-ballot victory for the speaker’s gavel on Tuesday before it all came crashing down.

Setting the charges and pushing the plunger was a familiar Republican demolitionist, Donald Trump.

Just yesterday, the former president had pledged to stay out of the Republican speaker’s race. Within minutes of Mr Emmer’s coronation as speaker-designate, however, he dropped a scathing post on his social media website.

He called the third-ranking House Republican “out of touch” with voters and a Republican-in-name-only “globalist” whose selection as speaker would be a “tragic mistake”.

Mr Trump’s endorsement may not have been able to help Jim Jordan win the speakership last week, but his anti-endorsement still packs a punch.

Within the hour, hard-core conservatives – including Marjorie Taylor Greene and the usual cast of right-wing firebrands – were pledging to block Mr Emmer if his nomination reached a vote on the floor of the House.

It’s a phenomenon Republicans, both in Washington and across the US, know all too well. And it is one of the main reasons the party continues to tread lightly around the former president, even if behind closed doors (and in secret ballots for House speaker) they have their doubts.

And so the Republican cycle of anger and retribution continues.

Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the speakership after 10 months by a handful of right-wing rebels. The first pick to replace him, Steve Scalise, was blocked by an even larger number of conservative true-believers. Mr Jordan, who followed, was torpedoed by centrists and institutionalists, many frustrated by Mr Scalise’s treatment.

Mr Emmer was undone by the same group that sank Mr Scalise. Next man up could be Mike Johnson, the Louisiana congressman who finished second behind Emmer and is the pick of the hard-core right.

Whether the Republicans who blocked Mr Jordan and backed Mr Emmer will return the favour to Mr Johnson remains to be seen. He isn’t as well-known or as inflammatory as Mr Jordan, who made plenty of enemies in the House of Representatives, but revenge can be a powerful motivating factor.

And the tradition that leadership elections are definitive, that the majority pick of Republicans is then supported by the entire party, has been so shredded that it could be fired from a confetti cannon.

All it takes is a handful of Republican dissenters, along with all the House Democrats, to prevent the next speaker-designate from winning the gavel and keeping the House of Representatives in this legislative purgatory.

For the moment, the American public seems blissfully uninterested in this very inside-Washington drama, giving Republicans more time to figure a way off the merry-go-round of political futility. But without a resolution, a government shutdown in mid-November is all but guaranteed.

And that is when voters might take note – and start assigning blame.