House Republicans closed out the week by canceling votes on two party-line funding bills in the span of 48 hours, a setback for new Speaker Mike Johnson and a sign of persisting dysfunction in the chamber ahead of a key funding deadline.
They pulled a transportation-housing bill late Tuesday as some coastal Republicans opposed cuts to Amtrak. And they yanked a financial services and general government measure on Thursday morning that included divisive anti-abortion language.
It’s a step backward for Johnson, R-La., who had hoped to show progress on appropriations bills championed by his party’s conservative wing in order to secure their votes to pass a short-term bill that would keep the government open beyond the Nov. 17 deadline.
Apparently voters have wisened up, because the shutdowns seem to hurt Republicans more than Democrats.
McConnell claimed as much, and I’m inclined to actually believe him since there’s bipartisan agreement and compromise going on in the Senate. He seems to genuinely want to keep the government funded, which suggests there’s truth to what he’s saying.
McConnell may be a hateful, duplicitous ghoul, but he’s not a complete nihilist like his house bedfellows. He knows the game to siphon wealth from his constituents to his donors depends on actual stability and prosperity.
The old guard Republicans know the GOP platform is actually counterproductive. And they know that this new class of true believers and actual fascists are going to bring it all down eventually, either by actually destroying the planet, or sufficiently repulsing too many voters.
I don’t think they care about destroying the planet. In the short term, the bullshit they’ve been pulling has been flipping local elections… And without the ability to gerrymander, Republicans are fucked on a way shorter time frame