‘Rule or ruin philosophy that governs the MAGA right’ has hijacked the House

The right-wing extremists never had a plan to win power. Now mainstream Republicans are petrified.

Another day, another round of votes, another meeting in the House basement. And nothing is fixed.

This has been the perpetual state of the US House of Representatives this whole past week that began with Rep Jim Jordan, the man once called a “legislative terrorist,” seeming almost destined to take the speakership, culminating in the triumph of radical Republicans and ending in dramatic fashion on Friday afternoon. During a secret ballot, Republicans rejected Mr Jordan as the party’s nominee for speaker.

This had come after Mr Jordan had lost a third ballot to become speaker, with three Republicans from districts that voted for President Joe Biden adding to the tally against him.

Shortly thereafter, the House GOP conference once again met in a conference room in the lower corridors of the Capitol as two aides pushed a cart of bags from District Taco, a serviceable but by no means great Mexican spot on the Hill.

This cycle has repeated itself too many times over since Republicans took the House majority in January. But hardly anything ever comes of these meetings except for more bickering within the conference. For the longest time, the hard-right faction refused whatever Republican leadership was begging them to take.

The radicals would spit out what the GOP would offer and ultimately, the Republicans would give them whatever they wanted as a means to acquire power or pass legislation, as was the case when Kevin McCarthy ultimately won the speakership.

If that didn’t work, the House Republicans would eventually relent and ask the Democrats to bail them out, as was the case with the debt ceiling and the continuing resolution to keep the government open.

The roles were reversed this week when the hard right wanted power and got on bended knee asking for establishment Republicans — by no means moderate but who still understand governing to recognize the radicals would be a disaster for governance — to give them power.

They did not seem interested in hearing out those who object to Mr Jordan’s speakership. To them, the only way to end the morass in the House is for Republicans to simply vote for the nominee.

“We need to go into numerous votes,” Rep Ralph Norman (R-SC) told me, adding that people who were opposed to Mr Jordan’s bid for speaker were doing it because they are mad at the eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy.

And why wouldn’t the other Republicans be? The eight Republicans, led by Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL), lobbed a molotov cocktail into the House of Representatives and ground it to a halt.

They then stamped their feet and threw a tantrum to oppose Majority Leader Steve Scalise even after he resoundingly beat Mr Jordan, forcing him to pull out of the running because of the fact he did not have the support of 217 members, all the while knowing Mr Jordan also couldn’t get to the magic number.

That doesn’t seem to bother the radicals. Rather, they seem wholly convinced that Mr Jordan should be installed simply because the base of the GOP likes him. Rep Eli Crane (R-AZ), one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr McCarthy, told me that Mr Jordan is the second most popular Republican, seemingly to imply that he sits only behind Donald Trump.

But simply being popular with the base does not warrant whether someone must be speaker, especially since many of the Republicans who oppose Mr Jordan represent not bright red districts but purple districts where they have to appeal to independent and Democratic voters. To them, being tied to Mr Jordan would be a political albatross and the lack of consideration means his opponents have no reason to change course.

This also comes as the House still has to pass spending bills to avoid a government shutdown as well as the fact that many Republicans hope to pass an aid package to Israel and Democrats and a handful of Republicans want to pass a Ukraine funding bill. None of that matters to the radical right though. As Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told me, “There’s a rule or ruin philosophy that governs the MAGA right and whether they’re gonna win and control everything or they are going to have tantrums and just burn the house down.”

Finally, enough Republicans pinned the radicals into submission. As friend of the Inside Washington newsletter Rachael Bade of Politico’s marquee Playbook newsletter reported, 112 Republicans voted to kick Jordan out. That means many of the people who cast their ballot for Mr Jordan on the floor only did so because they felt they had to, not out of any fealty to Mr Jordan. Being forced to do something is never a way to gain respect.

Everyone knows that there is only one way to resolve the standstill: team up with Democrats to empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry to pass bills while the GOP finds someone who can win a majority of the vote.

Republican elites finally worked up the courage to push back the radicals. And who could blame them given that some of the Republicans who opposed Mr Jordan have received death threats and Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry called the threats a “red herring”? That minimising their safety only hurt the radicals case and gave the rest of the GOP all the more reason to kick them out.

There seems to be no end in sight for the Republican civil war and the ramifications it holds for everyone else. The only thing that can be done is to see how much of the furniture gets burned as the House remains on fire.