The Götterdämmerung Caucus
by Tom Sullivan
Politico put it succinctly:
House Republicans are in a historic state of chaos, torn between two ideological poles with no clear sense of who will serve as their next leader, and no idea of their governing agenda with several legislative battles in the coming weeks.
One of those poles is the House Freedom Caucus. Think Progress looks at why it has so much clout:
The House Freedom Caucus, a relatively new group of about 40 Republicans loosely associated with the Tea Party, has an extraordinary amount of power in this process. Any potential speaker needs the support of 218 Republicans on the floor of the House. There are currently 247 Republicans in the House. That’s a large majority but without the Freedom Caucus, no candidate can get to 218.
But the internecine Speaker battle is a Mad Magazine-ish case of “What They Say…and What They Really Mean”. According to Jud Legum, "The Freedom Caucus says they are just fighting for arcane rule changes that will enhance 'democracy' in the House." But what do they really want?
Yesterday, Politico published the House Freedom Caucus “questionnaire” which it described as pushing for “House rule changes.” The document does do that. But it also does a lot more. It seeks substantive commitments from the next speaker that would effectively send the entire country into a tailspin.
The Freedom Caucus wants to guarantee its ability to use the threat of triggering a "recession comparable to or worse than 2008 financial crisis” over raising the debt ceiling to secure "significant structural entitlement reforms" (read: cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid).
The Freedom Caucus wants the next Speaker to commit to passing "all 12 appropriations bills" (no omnibus) to maximize extremists' ability to extract maximum concessions in extended fights over each one. And to commit to shutting down the government "unless President Obama (and Senate Democrats) agree to defund Obamacare, Planned Parenthood and a host of other priorities." Or else they'll hold their breath until our faces turn blue.
No wonder Rep. Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the Speaker race and Rep. Paul Ryan is trying avoid having the job thrust upon him. The Washington Post calls the caucus' approach "nihilism vs. a willingness to govern." Legum writes:
The agenda of the House Freedom Caucus makes a difficult job effectively impossible. Agreeing to their demands means presiding over a period of unprecedented dysfunction in the United States.
That is a polite way of saying what nobody wants to say out loud: the Congress is being held hostage by a doomsday cult. If the Freedom Caucus doesn't get its way, it will ride like jilted Brünnhilde into the flames and burn the place to ashes if it cannot return God's Own Party to the Rhine gold standard, or something. Or something like one of those dreary murder ballads. They really do love their country. And if they can't have her, then nobody can.