Hard-Right Weakens Itself

Credit the Democrats. They were the adult party in the room. Despite a substantial part of the hard-left in the party (including sadly, but not surprisingly, my own congressman) that voted against the deal, there was never any question that the Democrats would assure the votes to keep us out of default.

Moderate Republicans also did their part. But whatever grumbling there might have been on the hard-left, they never threatened to plunge the nation into crisis. It was the hard-right Freedom Caucus, led by the likes of Texas Rep. Chip Roy, that tried to derail the whole thing. (To their credit, three of Wisconsin’s far-right congressmen did not join Roy. See below.)

Not only did they fail, but it appears that Speaker Kevin McCarthy will survive. So, he’s shown that he has some room (maybe more than some) to maneuver around and without them and sometimes in open defiance of them. In short, the hard-right looks pretty weak right now.

In addition, they did not endear themselves to the American people. Nobody outside of the extremist echo chamber wanted to risk default and few wanted the deep cuts the hard-right was demanding. Americans don’t like deficits, but they really don’t like cuts to programs they enjoy or higher taxes they don’t enjoy. So, unfortunately, deficits are the political point of least resistance. We don’t want to cut most spending and we don’t want to pay for it. You would have to believe that at some point there will be a reckoning for deficit spending, but I don’t know. We’ve been doing this for a very, very long time and not much has come of it. We’ll see.

In my book McCarthy’s stock has gone up a whole bunch. I didn’t think much of the guy to begin with and then I thought he looked pathetic pandering to Roy, et. al., to get the Speaker’s post. But, in retrospect, anybody who was going to be Speaker under those circumstances was going to have to give away a lot to the hard-right in that caucus. As it turned out, he bargained his way into the job and then adroitly found his way through his first major challenge, the debt ceiling, in a way that did little, if any, damage to the country.

Credit also Biden who, if past is prologue, will get absolutely no credit in the polls for his masterful handling of his end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Also, it shouldn’t go unsaid that he stood up to his party’s hard-left and yet held the party together. They would huff and puff, but they would not crash the plane. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a President as skillful who gets less credit for his accomplishments.

And finally, as I wrote the other day, let’s hope this dramatically increases the influence of reasonable centrists in both parties. I wouldn’t count on it, but a guy can hope, can’t he?

Have a nice weekend.

Postscript: Strange bedfellows. It’s not likely you’ll see a mix of votes like this again any time soon. Here’s how the Wisconsin delegation voted.

For the Biden-McCarthy package: Sen. Baldwin, Reps. Fitzgerald, Steil, Gallagher, Grothman and Van Orden.

Against the package: Sen. Johnson, Reps. Pocan, Moore and Tiffany.