Ahead of the 2022 midterms, I predicted that a Republican majority in Congress would result in two years of “mind-numbing, gut-churning inanity, the kind that becomes a weariness seeping into your bones.” That prediction has been largely vindicated, and yet somehow reality has proved even worse for the House GOP. Everywhere you look in the halls of Capitol Hill is a string of failures for the supposedly ascendent MAGA Republicans.
Victories for the far-right have been few and far between, even as they’ve slowly lowered the bar for themselves further and further. In fact, their biggest win to date has been a case of friendly fire: removing Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. The House Freedom Caucus, for all its wailing and gnashing of teeth, has yet to find much traction in their efforts to hold must-pass bills hostage for conservative wins. Even with two members on the all-important Rules Committee, which determines the flow of bills onto the House floor, they’ve been unable to block spending bills that lack their lengthy list of anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion and anti-education policy riders.
Victories for the far-right have been few and far between, even as they’ve slowly lowered the bar for themselves further and further.
As for the “gut-churning inanity,” it was clear from the start that the GOP would be less focused on policy wins this term than using the House’s investigative powers to antagonize the Biden administration. Accordingly, they launched several red-meat-producing probes under the auspices of “accountability.” Unfortunately for them, their efforts haven’t just been laughably ineffective, they’ve been dreadfully uninteresting as well.
The House’s Weaponization of the Government subcommittee, under Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, showed early on that it lacked the goods to back up any of its claims of conservative victimization. Their most recent hearing was about the FBI’s financial investigation into Jan. 6 rioters, but, for some reason, the headline witness was YouTube weirdo and psychologist Jordan Peterson. Despite this stunt casting, the hearing passed with little notice.
Other investigative efforts have been similarly unsuccessful. The impeachment inquiry into Biden, which McCarthy launched in an attempt to placate the far-right, has run into several brick walls. That’s unsurprising to any remotely fair-minded observer, given the total lack of evidence that Biden abused his office. Even House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has been forced to admit that an impeachment vote is unlikely. Meanwhile, their attempts to muddy the water around former President Donald Trump’s criminal indictments haven’t gone beyond sending letters accusing those prosecuting him of nefarious goals.
Yes, Republicans managed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by one vote for the crime of carrying out Biden’s immigration policy. But the Senate is sure to quickly dispose of the charges rather than carrying out the lengthy trial that Republicans were hoping to use as a platform for attacking Biden. It doesn’t help their argument that Biden has been negligent on border security when the GOP tanked its own border security bill with Trump’s encouragement to keep the issue alive for the fall.
And looping back around to McCarthy, even bagging that trophy hasn’t worked out great for the chaos caucus. Though he’s resigned from Congress, McCarthy is still feuding with the members who gave him the boot. Meanwhile, his successor as speaker, Mike Johnson, R-La., has opted to largely follow McCarthy in taking the path of least resistance to preventing government shutdowns. On multiple occasions, he has relied on mostly Democratic votes to give bills the two-thirds majority they need to dodge the Rules Committee. Conservatives are deeply unhappy, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., already has filed a motion to vacate the chair, the same procedure used to oust McCarthy.
But Johnson currently stands a better chance of surviving such a tactic. McCarthy went down in flames in large part thanks to Democrats voting against him as a bloc. Johnson hasn’t made a habit of reneging on deals like his predecessor and has shown himself to be less afraid of earning the ire of the Freedom Caucus than McCarthy was. But yet another Republican’s early resignation has dropped his majority down to one vote, and with more possible exits between now and November, he’s going to have a harder time than ever trying to get even messaging bills passed ahead of the election.
It’s all schadenfreude-worthy, but unfortunately, this no time for a victory lap by Democrats.
It’s all schadenfreude-worthy, but unfortunately, this no time for a victory lap by Democrats. Wisdom would dictate a group of politicians taking this many L’s would be chastened; in an older, simpler time, they might even feel demoralized enough to feel shame about their tactics. But it’s far more likely that they’ll apply the same comforting balm that the right-wing has used for decades now: convincing themselves that the current leadership just isn’t pure and conservative enough.
This means that rather than rethinking their approach, MAGA Republicans are poised to double down on their bet that Trump retakes the White House next year. If that’s the case, much like the man they’ve chosen to deify, all the grievances and failure will just become grist for the mill for whatever retribution they seek to enact. The lesson won’t be that that they’ve overreached in their efforts to lie and reshape reality in front of us; it will be that they didn’t try hard enough.
