Republicans Enter 2023 on the Defensive

     2022 was supposed to be a "Red Wave." Pundits, pollsters, podcasters, politicians, and personalities nationwide predicted it. Then the results came in, and it was instead the best midterm results for any Democratic president in modern history. Republicans were flabbergasted and humiliated, but that was far from the beginning or the end of this humiliation.

     After ousting John Boehner and Paul Ryan, the GOP turned to Donald Trump as their savior. He lost the popular vote in 2016, lost the House "bigly" in 2018, got impeached twice, and then lost his office and both houses of Congress in 2020. Even after the humiliating defeat of 2022, he decided a run for the presidency would be a good idea. What's happened since has been the dismissal of his lawsuit against the DOJ over the Mar-a-Lago documents case, the release of his embarrassing tax returns, his dinner with white nationalists, and his Trump NFT fiasco in what liberal and conservative scholars and political operatives all agree has been the worst start to any presidential campaign ever.

     Trump, of course, is not the only baggage the GOP has to deal with. Jim Jordan, one of a handful of far-right members who has made it to Kevin McCarthy's right hand, tweeted in his capacity as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee last year, "Kanye. Elon. Trump." In spite of Trump's many failures, after that tweet, it was Kanye who led to it being taken down. His aforementioned dinner with Trump and Nick Fuentes, his tweet of a Star of David melded with a swastika, his donning a "White Lives Matter" t-shirt, and his interview with Alex Jones in which West praised Hitler led to "Ye" losing his shoe deal, being banned from Twitter, and generally seeing his career very publicly melt in a matter of a few weeks. Elon hasn't been much better. His purchase of Twitter and series of fumbles and bad decisions since then has, as he points out, led him in a span of one year from being the Time "Man of the Year" to losing his spot as richest (and soon perhaps second-richest) man in the world, cutting Twitter's value in half, losing $200 billion for the first time in human history with an 80 percent decline in Tesla stock, and other financial and reputational woes that have led him to the point of desperation.

     Even more relevant to the House GOP's problems is George Santos, a representative-elect from the state of New York who has not just embellished but flat out lied about the majority of his life, from his sexuality to his education to his work experience. Suffering a series of evictions and the subject of a criminal investigation in Brazil and now multiple in the United States, he has entered office with the shroud of corruption hanging over his head. Dodging a mess of reporters intent on hearing from him, he spent the first day of the 118th Congress alone near the back of the chamber, saying nothing to but to cast his votes for Kevin McCarthy.

     It is Kevin McCarthy who poses the biggest problem for the House GOP of all. Not five, not 10, not even a dozen, but 20 House Republicans voted for Andy Biggs, Jim Jordan, and others to serve as the Speaker of the House; McCarthy could afford just four defections. On a day in which the new majority is usually celebrating and the new minority somber, the roles were reversed as Democrats smiled, chatted, and even ate popcorn, enjoying the show of McCarthy failing three rounds of balloting. Kevin McCarthy was the first person not to win their post on the first ballot in exactly 100 years and only the second since the Civil War. Kevin McCarthy already failed in 2015 to get the Speaker gig, and it appears he may fail again in 2023. His only options are to negotiate a coalition government or give key prizes to Democrats, drop out of the race, or strip himself of nearly all power and job security in order to earn the gavel he has craved since Barack Obama took the oath of office.

     It appears that, even if Kevin McCarthy can sway the majority of the holdouts, there are a handful for whom this is personal. Matt Gaetz said that it would take until the cherry blossoms bloom in Washington, D.C. to pick a speaker. Until this impasse is resolved, House Republicans can't make rules, take office, take assignments, form committees, hold show votes on their legislative agenda, or begin their phony, politically-driven "investigations" of the Biden administration. Until a solution is found, the House is frozen.

     The Senate Democratic majority, meanwhile, is moving forward. The leadership has been selected, with Chuck Schumer being re-elected to his position as the first Jewish Senate leader and Patty Murray of Washington becoming the first female president of the Senate. The senators have been sworn in, the rules have been passed, and the finishing touches are being put on the organization of the Senate before the work begins. This presents a political problem for Republicans in the 2024 elections: over the next two years, Americans will get to see the juxtaposition of the orderly and productive White House and Senate and the infighting, factional, partisan warfare-waging GOP-led House. The GOP won 18 seats in districts that were won by Joe Biden; that is twice their majority. If they continue on this path, one in which they can't even agree on a speaker, they are going to turn off those who voted them in under the misguided impression that they would lower gas prices or bolster national security. If they continue on this path, they will also lose the support of the far right, those who voted with the expectation that Joe Biden would be taken down by a politically-lethal and unified GOP.

     It doesn't look like it's going to get much better. The investigations into Donald Trump and George Santos, among others, are going to heat up. The infighting on the floor of the House will only get worse. Republicans enter 2023 on the defensive, and, unless something changes drastically, it's going to cost them dearly in 2024 and beyond.