Did we just witness the end of the Republican party?

[drwex]

Last night Speaker Boehnor lost on his "Plan B". He lost so badly he couldn't even bring it up for a vote. He lost because (a) he couldn't get any Democrats to break ranks and support him and (b) his own party wouldn't back it. The questions now are "what does he have left?" and "who is in control of the House right now?" The questions are related and I want to take them in reverse order.

The House situation reminds me of what you see in multi-party countries. There you will find minority parties representing extreme views of some sort that can't capture anything near a majority but since the votes are split up there is a need to form a coalition in which the minority parties are given (some) power in exchange for supporting (most of) a mainstream party's program.

In theory this is a good system but in fact what often happens is either paralysis or worse the minority party is able to wield influence far beyond its size by the threat to bring down the coalition. The paralysis situation is what happened in the UK in the last election and was resolved by the first cross-ideological coalition government there in approximately forever. The held-hostage situation is what we saw in Israeli politics for decades, where ultra-Orthodox parties got ridiculous concessions out of the government as well as control over important ministerial posts that their popular vote base would never have gotten them.

Now in the House of Representatives we have four parties: Machine Republicans represented by Boehnor and the majority of Republicans; the *Con (NeoCon, SocioCon, Tea Party, etc) party, composed of Tea Party and social conservative allies; Machine Democrats, represented by the President and his center-right faction; and Libdems or New Dems, the actual liberal/progressive wing of the party.

For the moment Libdems and Machine Dems are holding solid, as you saw last night. That alliance is going to crack soon, though, as Obama is going to put Social Security and Medicare up for cuts.

The MR and the *Con have been at war since 2010. The problem is that they represent vastly different constituencies. I believe it was Pew who came out with a recent poll on the tax-hike issue and found that about 54% of Republicans nationally agree with the notion that tax hikes on the wealthy and expense cuts need to be balanced as part of any deal. However, in RINO districts something more than 60% of respondents are completely opposed to any tax hikes whatsoever. Say what you like about the *Cons in Congress, but they are faithfully representing their constituents.

The problem is, then, not that "the country" is divided on this issue. The country, taken as a whole, supports Obama's center-rightist positions. The problem is that through gerrymandering, demographic shifts, and historical trends, the *Cons have become a de facto minority conservative party. And there is just no history in the US of how to do coalition politics, so the Republicans are in disarray. Boehnor tried accommodating them and that failed; he tried bringing them to heel and that just failed. So what does he do now?

Option one is he packs up and goes home. I doubt it, but he for sure has his eyes on Jan 3 when a new Speaker will be elected. The election for Speaker is a preview of the fiscal votes because the entire House votes on the Speaker. If the *Cons and MRs can't cut a deal there is a very tiny possibility that the minority Democrats could elect a Speaker. That would be funny, but it'll never happen. But it shows the way forward.

If Boehnor wants to hold onto his job he has to do it by bringing along enough Democrats to make up for the *Cons who are mad enough to take him down. Surprisingly I think he's more likely to get support from the Libdems who would rather see Boehnor (or any other MR) in charge than one of the Tea Party kooks. To bring them along he'll have to offer something, and my guess is that what he offers is a promise to play ball with Obama.

It's worth realizing that before Plan B came up, Obama and Boehnor were remarkably close - closer than I ever thought they'd be. Boehnor has moved off the dime on tax hikes and Obama is going to put up every social welfare program beloved of the Libdems for cutting. Both will probably appear patriotic by "sparing" the military. A deal is still possible if Boehnor can weld a coalition together. That's his second option: a coalition that will both keep him as Speaker and back his compromise with Obama.

The third option is capitulation. He can go to his caucus and say "I'm sorry, I've learned my lesson, I'll go back to orthodoxy." This empowers the *Cons without him losing his seat. He would probably shuffle around some committee assignments but most critically he'd have to back away from his near-compromise.

This is the option I fear most because it means not only are we going over the cliff but we'll probably crash the economy as well. It's been obvious for a while that the *Cons would rather see everything burn than give Obama even the time of day, but I thought the MR would be able to pull it out. Now I'm not so sure.

Comments

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Nitpick: you're being needlessly confusing by reversing the meaning of "RINO" as typically used both inside and by observers of the american conservative movement. It's generally used by cultural conservatives and activist/teaparty types to describe moderate/machine/"Rockefeller" republicans. (In much the same way that the lib/left wings of the Democratic party tend to describe the moderate/southern/"Blue Dog" democrats as DINOs.)

Given that vehement anti-tax leanings have been pretty much at the core of the GOP party since at least the Reagan administration, I'd be inclined to go with their usage.

[drwex]

Yeah, I thought about that, but I couldn't come up with a better name. The popular press has been calling them "Tea Party Republicans" which describes a chunk of it but misses out on the social-conservative element and the extreme conservatives who did not get Tea Party backing. I don't like giving the Tea Party more credit than is due. What would you call them?

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Republican factions:

Establishment - incumbents, their hangers-on, traditional countryclubbers (cut taxes, avoid fuss)
SoCon - social conservatives (abortion fanatics)
Tea Party - budget worriers
PaleoCons - isolationists (troops home now)
NeoCon - world fixers (troops back into Iraq for more influence) (influence at all time low)
Libertarians - used to be a faction, now out of party or split between TP/Paleo
RINO - run as conservative, then votes for all the bipartisan compromises. Lots of overlap with Establishment

[drwex]

That's more or less what Dr Memory was saying. I will go back and edit.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

I find the falling apart of Plan B being considered a big deal baffling. Reid was never going to let it come up in the Senate, so it was never a serious option. This all strikes me as Yet More Political Posturing. Which is all the politicos really want.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Which backfired big time, considering that even more people will pin the failure of the budget negotiations on Boehnor

[drwex]

It was partly posturing - which I regard as necessary since Boehnor needed to (re)establish his cred - and partly a test case. The other alternative was to bring an actual compromise measure to the floor and get shot down on THAT, which would have ended things. Boehnor's move was risky but he thought he had the votes and it would have shown that he was a guy who could do a deal. I believe that Machine politicians of all stripes are about doing the deal and after Boehnor had to walk away from the Grand Compromise with Obama pre-election he needed (and still needs) to show that he can get a deal done, which can only be accomplished if he can line up the votes.

His ability and credibility are damaged, but the potential for a deal is still alive. Boehnor is a crafty man and in a way I respect his willingness to take a shot in the face like this.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

He can be crafty, but he does not have clout anymore with the lame-duck Congress. Also, he has to be crafty considering that (1) he's only after Joe Biden in terms of line of succession, (2) he thinks he's more powerful than the vice-president, and (3) unlike Obama, he's in constant re-election mode since he had to do that every two years. After all, his constituents can still keep him, but the House can just choose another Speaker.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Your content doesn't match up with your title very well. Sure, the Speaker is failing and the organization is disorganized. Are you expecting that to lead to all those tens of millions of voters giving up on politics and letting the Democrats be the only party putting up candidates?

If something ends the Republicans as we know them it would have to be some big reshuffling that changes which factions belong to which party. Possibly a SoCon/black/union Tory Party vs a Tea Party/Hispanic/liberal Whig Party.

[drwex]

We're in a situation where the Republican party is cannibalizing itself. Whatever emerges may be named "Republican" but I don't think it'll be the same party as before. I don't expect them to disappear as a named entity, but it's clear they're not a unified entity we ought to be calling by a single name anymore.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Neither major party has ever been "unified." GM factory line workers don't have any interest in common with inner city blacks. Neither do newly naturalized Hispanics have any with Sierra Club members. Both sides of the aisle are driven together by fear of losing power and Duverger's Law.

[drwex]

I so fundamentally disagree with your statement that I don't know where to begin. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Didn't someone once say something about "a House divided"?

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

You said "The MR and the *Con have been at war since 2010. The problem is that they represent vastly different constituencies. I believe it was Pew who came out with a recent poll on the tax-hike issue and found that about 54% of Republicans nationally agree with the notion that tax hikes on the wealthy and expense cuts need to be balanced as part of any deal. However, in RINO districts something more than 60% of respondents are completely opposed to any tax hikes whatsoever. Say what you like about the *Cons in Congress, but they are faithfully representing their constituents."

I think the MR and the *Con have been at war since before 9/11, possibly since before the 'Moral Majority' constituted themselves back when I was in college. The MR couldn't win elections without pandering to the *Cons and now the *Cons think they actually have the power because they deserve it (or, depending on your variety of *Con, were 'ordained' to it). If someone could put a lid on the crackpot media outlets (aka Faux News) and the crackpot talk show hosts (RL to name one), maybe the middle of the country could pull itself out of its collective tailspin and realize they've been fed a witches' brew of lies, near-lies, half-truths, and manipulative propaganda so they could waste their votes on the current House majority. Sure, the *Cons in Congress are representing the rabid fear-crazed masses that threw them into power, but what about all the *other* people in those districts? The *Cons haven't a clue how to do the *job* -- mainly, they need to STFU about the partisan crap they've been slinging before the election and represent *all* of their constituents.