Forgetting History ?

(Forgetting History ?)

There is a saying that those that forget the past are condemned to re-live it. In an un-welcome case of DeJa'Vu, House Republicans are again at the precipice of another government shut-down because there is dis-cord within the House GOP. It took three weeks after the ouster of Kevin McCarthy and with newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson, it would seem that it was an easy exercise to pass the remaining spending bills and send the package off to the Senate and have them sort things out.

But what is clear is that House Republicans learned nothing from the Speaker fight. With the four seat Majority, Republicans are acting like they can dictate terms that will allow significant spending cuts and border security. Republicans do not have the power, Collectively, the House Conference should have recognized that fact and acclimated themselves to that reality.

It is good to pretend. President Biden has the same problem. However, what was in the news was that credit agency Moody's downgraded U.S. credit rating from "stable" to "negative." The inability of Congress to pass its budget issue is a contributing factor to the down-grade. So, and in a scenario warned previously, Speaker Johnson will need Democrat votes to pass a continuing resolution that avoids a government shut-down. Which, in this case, will fall at the feet of those obstinate House Republicans.

It has recently been noted that the Republican Party has not won a major election since 2018. The GOP bloodbath from last week is indicative of the problem, that Republicans have making assumptions of their base that might not still be applicable. Clearly, there has been an ideological shift of some sort of some portion of what traditionally get called "Republican" voter. One mis-perception is that they are not as rabidly pro-life as conventional wisdom might have held.

One can suppose that there have been "classical" definitions of conservative. Or liberal for that matter. However, one must also remember that the ideological spectrum is not a line but a circle. The Fascism of Hitler meets the Communist Dictatorship of Stalin, two faces of the same coin, or the Extreme Right and the Extreme left.

Republicans can be conservative without being extreme, A fair portion of the Party is composed of the so-called MAGA crowed, the "America First" promoted by former President Trump. The most intransigent House Republicans follow this model and would close the government out of principle. For his part, Trump has suggested the same thing.

For the here and now, however, Speaker Johnson needs to rally his Conference as much as he can and deliver something fewest strings attached. That be called the Art of Compromise.