The Anti-Institutionalists

I love s**t shows,” one House Republican told a Politico reporter amid the chaos consuming the typically routine vote for speaker at the start of a new Congress, “and this is a s**t show to behold.” Maybe this revealing quote was designed to be tongue-in-cheek, but it reflects a truism about the House Republican conference. A governing party would try to avoid acting in ways that invite such graphic metaphors. Its members might even feel a measure of shame in bearing witness to a “s**t show” of their colleagues’ making. But this is not a governing party.

The House GOP leader, Kevin McCarthy, lost three consecutive votes for the speakership on Tuesday amid the objections of a handful of members of his conference. To survey the arguments made by his opponents, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the GOP’s mutineers have as much of an ax to grind with McCarthy as with the concept of congressional leadership itself.