With regard to the fiasco currently underway in the American House of Representatives, in which the front-runner to replace Representative Boehner as Speaker of the House abruptly dropped out after some of his remarks were widely interpreted to indicate a House Committee was actually being used to interfere with the political fortunes of one of the Democratic candidates, Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog has come up with an interesting rumor:
Finally, I heard one rumor a short while ago, which is admittedly hard to believe, about some less-conservative Republicans turning to Democrats to try to elect a “coalition-style Speaker,” in a scheme that would disempower the chamber right-wing extremists.
It’s far-fetched, to be sure, but after the last 13 days, it’s now best to expect the unexpected.
Far-fetched, unlikely, and quite fascinating, especially if it came from a moderate Republican member of the House. I think that, if this actually was attempted, successful or not, it would signal the beginning of the official breakup of the Republican Party into separate parties, which I’ll call the GOP (constituting the moderates) and the Conservative Party (for the radical far-right). The latter would, for the most part, be composed of those who have hijacked the GOP’s party machinery and name and have followed an agenda of no compromise and no governance (and pursued the long-time “starve the beast” approach to shrinking government).
Then we’d find out if the theory that many Republican voters simply pull the lever for the Republican candidate (or just hate liberals for changing the legal & cultural landscape, making them uncomfortable) regardless of candidate identity, or if they’re just that radically conservative. Given recent disaffection amongst Republican rank and file (see here, or just consider who’s front-running the Republican Presidential nominating process), my nearly evidence-free guess is that the GOP (moderates) would eventually trump the radical right as the latter discover they can’t win elections without the former, nor can the former win elections without the latter, and the GOP would simply refuse to vote for the radicals. As the radicals melt away or grumpily return to voting for the moderates, the more conservative Independents and Democrats will begin voting for the GOP and we’d return to what we had, roughly, in the 1970s – two mildly honorable political parties close to the center, and a horde of disaffected radicals – on both ends of the spectrum. The question then becomes, how would the GOP safeguard itself against another takeover attempt?
And this is what you get when political amateurs invade politics and governance: fabulous theater. If you think our government is a brittle contrivance, balanced on a knife edge, then you may not agree with me. I remain confident that we’ll get over this radical right wing shit and get back to doing what we do best. (You can fill in the blank!)
