'Alice in Wonderland politics': How GOP went from 'disciplined machine to dysfunctional malaise'

08 October 2023

In a Sunday, October 8 report from The Guardian, Washington DC Bureau Chief David Smith points to the Republican party's regression over the last 13 years — going from lawmakers "effective at wielding power and pushing through laws relating to everything from foreign wars and domestic surveillance programmes to Medicare and the No Child Left Behind schools policy," to lawmakers at the center of "chaos."

Referring to U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) recent ouster as House Speaker, Smith notes that, at one point, "he had an advantage: with Democrats in control of the House, Republicans had reason to bury their differences and unite in opposition to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But last year's midterm elections sowed the seeds of his downfall."

He writes, "Republicans emerged with a much thinner majority than opinion polls had predicted. In January it took McCarthy 15 rounds of voting to be elected speaker after cutting a deal with the far right, including a rule change that would let any member of the House to seek his removal. Nine rocky months later, after averting a government shutdown with Democratic help, he became the first speaker in history to be ditched."

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Smith adds, "It seems likely to get worse before it gets better," noting, "A long, divisive struggle could ensue while Democrats remain united, making a mockery of the temptingly alliterative headline 'Dems in disarray'. Now the roles have been reversed. Even Trump wondered aloud: 'Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves?'

"I'll be really candid," Smith notes U.S. Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) told CNN in an interview. "I think if we had stayed together in the meeting last night, I think you would have seen fists thrown. And I'm not being dramatic when I say that. There is a lot of raw emotion right now."

Director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, Larry Jacobs said, "We now see [that] the kind of authoritarian populism that talks about taking control, bringing order and strongman rule is an utter fiction. We are in some very weird Alice in Wonderland politics here. The problems created by the fanatics in the Republican party have created a disorder that they are claiming they can solve."

Although some House members blame U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) — who pushed the motion to oust McCarthy — is to blame for the party's current dysfunction, Democratic strategist and ex-Breitbart News spokesperson Kurt Bardella insisted, "Matt Gaetz isn't the cause. He's a symptom of the complete radicalisation of not only the Republican party a the conservative rightwing media sphere in general. Their deliberate decision to amplify the most extreme voices and give them a platform and give them a microphone and give them an audience every single night of the most ardent Republican primary voters to watch it, absorb it, paved the way for the chaos that has engulfed the entire Republican party right now."

Regarding the party's "downfall," Smith notes:

Congressmen Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan smile out from the cover of Young Guns, their co-authored 2010 book about the next generation of conservatives. 'This isn’t your grandfather's Republican party,' said publicity material at the time.

Thirteen years later, the trio is neither young nor the future. Cantor ('the leader') became Republican leader in the House of Representatives but lost his seat to a nascent rightwing populism. Ryan ('the thinker') became speaker but retired early to escape a toxic political relationship with President Donald Trump. And this week McCarthy ('the strategist') was ousted by some of the extremists he helped elect to Congress but could not tame.

The men's careers chart the Republican party's journey from disciplined machine to dysfunctional malaise.

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), according to Smith, said, "All three of them were chased out. Speaker Boehner, Speaker Ryan and now Speaker McCarthy have all learned the same lesson: you cannot allow the hard right to run the House, or the country."

The Guardian's full report is available at this link.

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