The Worst Clown Show in Washington
The only upside is that House Republicans are hurting their own party.
Back in 2011 — another year in which a Democratic president faced a new Republican House while his party held on to the Senate — a year of obstruction and dysfunction led analyst Norm Ornstein to write an article titled “Worst. Congress. Ever.” While there is no perfect metric by which to judge, he had a good case at the time. But even the Obama-era shenanigans look like sober and responsible governing compared with the clown show going on right now on Capitol Hill.
Before we explore precisely why this Congress is so bad, we should be clear that the problem is not Congress per se. In fact, there are really four separate Congresses: House Republicans, House Democrats, Senate Republicans, and Senate Democrats. It’s the House Republicans who have reached previously unfathomable heights of destructiveness and buffoonery. Blaming “Congress,” like blaming “Washington,” is not just inaccurate but actually serves the purposes of demagogues like Donald Trump, who want people to believe that the system is so broken that only a strongman wielding unaccountable power can fix it.
Democrats witnessing the internecine squabbles and regular pratfalls that have characterized the House since Republicans took it over in January are right to be thankful that if nothing else, at least they aren’t facing a shrewd and skilled opponent. Republicans couldn’t settle on a speaker, trading one incompetent for another; were yanked by their extreme right into a series of government shutdown crises; launched multiple absurd impeachment probes aimed at both Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; passed almost no legislation in the year since they took over; and are so transparently cynical on what they claim is the issue they care most about — immigration — that they are poised to turn it into an advantage for the president.
That’s not even to mention their maniacal pursuit of Hunter Biden, which quickly became such an obsession that it crowded out any other kind of oversight to which they might have subjected the administration. The mafia could have set up a casino in the basement of the Department of Agriculture, and we’d never know because all House Republicans care about is getting their hands on more of Hunter’s dick pics. That investigation, led by Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer, has been such a farce that even some of his fellow Republicans are losing faith in Comer’s ability to discover anything that could actually damage Biden.
Do they actually believe this stuff?
Though there may have been some Republicans who sincerely thought that if they just pored over every time Hunter bought a cup of coffee or a spent a night with a sex worker they would find a million-dollar payment to Joe Biden from the People’s Liberation Army (or whatever variety of corruption their fevered minds imagined), I suspect most viewed the investigation as a show, one that would damage Biden merely by the insinuations and accusations being thrown about whether it found anything or not. This, after all, was the impulse that led to Donald Trump’s first impeachment: He wanted the Ukrainian government to begin a sham “investigation” of Biden, which could then be used to discredit his likely 2020 opponent.
But there’s a difference between a show and a clown show, which is where Republicans ended up. And that has made them, and not Biden’s imaginary misdeeds, the story.
There’s a history to this scenario; it dates to the Clinton years, which is not coincidentally when conservative media (in the form of talk radio and eventually Fox News) began swallowing the Republican Party. Republicans were so convinced that Bill Clinton was not just corrupt but a figure of almost limitless evil that they pursued every allegation anyone made about him, no matter how preposterous, up to and including murder. Rep. Dan Burton — who eventually chaired the Oversight Committee, the position Comer now holds — was so convinced there was a conspiracy involving Vince Foster, the Clinton aide who took his own life in 1993, that he staged a backyard reenactment of Foster’s suicide, complete with firing a gun into a cantaloupe.
Just like today, that mania was encouraged by forces outside Congress who were even more unhinged than the members inside. While there’s a case to be made that all the investigating and accusing created a damaging air of corruption around Clinton, one that eventually helped bring down Hillary’s presidential bids, it also did enormous harm to Republicans’ own prospects.
It’s all about the incentives
To return to the present, Republicans have been convinced for some time that shouting about open borders and a supposed invasion by dusky foreigners will be the key to winning in November. This is a dubious proposition politically, but they’re sure it will work, and so is Donald Trump. But making it an issue requires convincing people, including reporters, that they are actually eager to solve the problem they say is so urgent.
I have been saying forever that in fact, Republicans will never reform immigration law; here’s a piece I wrote making that argument in 2018, and here’s one from a couple weeks ago. Everyone seems to finally be getting the idea, because Republicans are being so stupidly obvious in their bad faith. Senators from both parties have been working on a deal that would enhance border security, but other Republicans are not even hiding the fact that they will reject it not because they don’t like what it does but because if it passes, someone might give Joe Biden credit. Which is why Trump is now pressuring Republicans to reject any deal no matter what it contains, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has told his colleagues they can’t address the issue until Trump is president again.
The idea that Republicans are not sincere about this and are just playacting when they put on their shirts with tactical pockets and trek down to the border has become too clear for anyone, including reporters, to deny. Which means that we’re moving toward a situation in which every GOP complaint about the border will be presented alongside the fact that they could have done something about it, but chose not to.
How do we get a House Republican caucus with this unique combination of bad faith, stupidity, and incompetence? Let’s break down some of the factors:
A political incentive structure that rewards extremism: Congress has always had its share of nincompoops, but something changed after the 2008 election and the rise of the Tea Party. The 2010 midterms saw the election of a wave of Republican members who got elected precisely because they were far-right outsiders with no relevant experience; not only didn’t they understand how government works, they didn’t care. They came to Washington not to pass legislation and solve problems but to burn the place to the ground. Each subsequent election has seen more and more of these people elected. And since gerrymandering means most of them come from securely red districts and fear only a primary challenge from the right, there’s nothing for them to gain by seeking to legislate responsibly.
A media incentive structure that rewards bombast and punishes reasonableness: Both parts of that equation are important, though the former gets more attention than the latter. Everyone understands how conservative media turn halfwits like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz into celebrities: The louder and more provocative you are, the more likely you are to amass a social media following and get on Fox News. At the same time, one of the roles right-wing media serve is to identify and punish those who fail to toe the line. Crafting a bipartisan compromise that gives Republicans much of what they want on any issue, especially one important to the base, is grounds for a cry of treason and immediate expulsion from the good graces of the right. There are some Republicans, especially in the Senate, who feel insulated enough to buck the right-wing media, but there are not many in the House with the courage to do so.
A capricious and vindictive god-king: Donald Trump rules by fear, of course, but as the election approaches he is paying even more attention to what’s happening in Congress, as evidenced by his intercession to kill an immigration compromise. As GOP members fall all over themselves to provide extravagant displays of lickspittlery that will win Trump’s momentary favor, they only get dumber and less likely to make wise decisions, which often require not doing what Donald Trump thinks at any particular moment is good for Donald Trump.
Will there ever be a responsible, effective Republican Congress again?
At this point it’s hard to imagine how Republicans could pull themselves back to something resembling responsible governing, at least in the next decade or two. The party would have to have an ideological reorientation away from Trumpism, which looks like it will be a durable political philosophy whether Trump himself wins or loses in November. The conservative media will continue to push in the direction of extremism. It’s not as if a wave of level-headed Republicans will start winning House primaries any time soon.
It may be that the best we can hope for is what we’ve seen for the last few decades: a cycle in which a brief but productive period of complete Democratic control of Congress is followed by a period of lunacy and crisis once Republicans take back one or both houses, which then helps usher in another brief and productive period of Democratic control, and so on. It’s a political version of eternal return, in which we are condemned to live our lives the same way over and over for all eternity. Except as the current bunch of Republican clowns has shown, things can always get worse.