MPs vote on the speaker of the House of Representatives.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
Washington The name Kevin McCarthy may not be familiar to every reader, but that is likely to change soon. The 57-year-old Republican MP from California is making history in the United States. However, not a hero story, but one of a disaster.
What happened on Capitol Hill shows the world that the world’s largest democracy is still politically unstable, even with Donald Trump no longer in the White House. The Republicans’ struggle for direction is taking on absurd features. He could paralyze political Washington for days – with consequences for the coming years.
The occasion was the constitution of the new US Congress on Tuesday. The US Republicans have recently won the majority in the House of Representatives and McCarthy wanted to be elected the powerful “Speaker of the House”. The Speaker of the Chamber of Congress is the third-highest-ranking office in the United States, previously held by Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
But instead of seizing the opportunity for more influence, Republicans presented the world with a kamikaze action. More than a dozen opponents from his own party refused to vote for McCarthy, and the members of the far-right Freedom Caucus failed vote after vote. There hasn’t been anything comparable for a hundred years, and the work of the MPs is paralyzed for the time being.
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Regardless of how the drama ends, Republicans have already blown their chance for a fresh start. They seem at odds, without a compass, and not very trustworthy. The midterm elections had opened up many opportunities for them. Parts of the party have recognized that Donald Trump has become a burden and are reorienting themselves. Major donors are turning their backs on the ex-president, and soon the first presidential candidates are likely to challenge Trump directly.
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But the ultra-hardliners in Congress prefer to make an example of McCarthy rather than focus on their true political opponent: Joe Biden in the White House. The iron-fisted Trumpists want more nationalism and more protest, not a pragmatist like McCarthy. The dissenters have nothing to gain except media attention and the cheers of a radicalized base thirsty for a riot.
The Republicans are certainly not capable of winning a majority with such a chaotic overall picture. They always denounce Washington as a swamp that burns money and does little for the people. But at the moment it is mainly the Republicans who are wasting time and putting on a spectacle that fuels disenchantment with politics.
The entire party is to blame, which for years has chained itself to a populist like Trump and cultivated copies of him. Now the ex-president is hanging on like a log and the Trump imitations are playing out their power before it dwindles even further.
Those who followed what was happening in Congress on Tuesday saw the world turned upside down. Republicans were in no mood to celebrate, despite having more power in the House of Congress on paper. The Democrats, on the other hand, were in a very good mood. They just had to watch as their competition dismantled themselves.
The theater gives a foretaste of the 2024 presidential campaign. The White House calculates that the split between the Republicans will benefit the Democrats. If the Republicans don’t get their act together, that’s likely to happen.
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