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Go Home Boehner Uses Partisanship To Defeat Tactical Radicalism

JONATHAN CHAIT JULY 27, 2011

Boehner Uses Partisanship To Defeat Tactical Radicalism

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

The passage of John Boehner's debt ceiling bill appears to mark the crossing of a certain intellectual threshold for ultra-conservative House Republicans. Until very recently, they've been proclaiming that failing to raise the debt ceiling would not have important drawbacks, and/or that the 2010 elections afforded the Republican Party the right to impose its agenda without compromise. Now, suddenly, almost nobody is saying those things. Consider this quote from one right-winger:

“At the end of the day, it’s nowhere near what I want. It’s not even close to the numbers we want. It’s not perfect. But when we only control one-half of one-third of government, we can’t expect to be perfect,” said New York Rep. Michael Grimm

Or this:

One of those members, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R., Texas) told reporters that while he would like to “snap my fingers and change the world like ‘I Dream of Genie’ of Samantha on ‘Bewitched,’” Republicans “need to take what we can get.”

What explains the sudden onset of sweet reason? it seems that Boehner successfully appealed to the GOP's sense of partisanship. Selling a compromise with Obama as a necessary step toward the fulfillment of one's agenda in a power-sharing arrangement is hard. Selling an attack on Obama in those terms -- even one that does far less to reduce the size of government -- turns out to be pretty easy. Here's the Weekly Standard:

To vote against John Boehner on the House floor this week in the biggest showdown of the current Congress is to choose to vote with Nancy Pelosi. To vote against Boehner is to choose to support Barack Obama.

Not very subtle! And here's right-wing frosh Allen West:

Boehner Plan is not a perfect bill. However, the fact Pelosi, Reid and Obama hate it doggone makes it perfect enough- where is their plan?

Now, for reasons I'll explain in a follow-up post, the Boehner plan is totally unsupportable. But once you've gotten the right to cross the philosophic threshold Boehner has, the next step is a lot easier. Boehner will lose plenty of conservatives if and when he cuts a final deal, but he'll gain Democrats. The key step was breaking down the right's default denialism and sense of entitlement to total victory. That's achieved.

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13 comments

I did not enjoy roller coaster rides when I was a child, no matter how much I tried to behave like my friends who would laugh and smile at every turn. If Mr. Chait is correct, and the Speaker's proposal "is unsupportable" regardless of whether it goes on to the Senate, I don't recognize any achievement.

- Doug12

July 27, 2011 at 3:06pm

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"What explains the sudden onset of sweet reason?" Because by any measure, they've won and the final deal will be an(other) extraordinary move to the Right. They're not thick. They're just pretend crazy. How did you lose this!

- IggyPop

July 27, 2011 at 3:11pm

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The frequent, sudden changes in direction of comments from GOP reps is enough to give one mental whiplash. Do any of these people actually think for themselves? Are they all just following leaders willy-nilly, like schools of fish? Is it all carefully scripted theater? Do most people at large see through it? I'm perplexed.

- ramcat

July 27, 2011 at 3:16pm

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"one-half of one-third of government" and they can force the debate like this? And we thought what they did with just the minority in the Senate was impressive in Obama's first two years. What would this crew do if they had the full congress or the WH and Senate or the WH and all of Congress?

- IggyPop

July 27, 2011 at 3:21pm

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IggyPop Last time the Republicans had control, we cut taxes with no visible benefit to the economy, we invaded a country for unknown reasons, and we had a huge recession where the perpetrators were rewarded with a bailout. I am not sure what would happen if that crew had the WH and all of congress, but it can't be good.

- Nusholtz

July 27, 2011 at 3:50pm

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You phrase this as though Boehner had already gotten his plan through the House. I'm not aware of any such vote, nor of indications that he's secured the Republican votes he needs for passage. Some Republicans are falling in line, but that was always going to happen. The question is, are enough of them?

- Dausuul

July 27, 2011 at 3:52pm

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JC's point is a subtle observation but an important one. No, this is not a huge reversal or a victory for the Dems. But it might be a blink. The difference between what we've heard for weeks -- "no way no how never over my dead body" -- and "I hate this steaming pile of feces but I'll vote for it 'cause Nancy hates it" is not inconsequential. Now there's a crack where Boener might be able to insert a wedge and open it up a little more.

- Ouroboros

July 27, 2011 at 3:56pm

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You have to admire them though Nush. There's something about their increasingly dystopian vision and their voracious, foaming mouth, winner-takes-all, go f*ck yourself pursuit of it. The ultimate villian. They could be in the next Bond movie.

- IggyPop

July 27, 2011 at 4:12pm

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Say what? I think you're overthinking this (and definitely under-writing it).

- mlottman

July 27, 2011 at 5:15pm

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Iggy, your thick lenses are even more fogged up than usual. The radicalism on the starboard side is real.

- liberalref

July 27, 2011 at 5:41pm

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Iggy What I admire is Karl Rove who could take a decent honest man like Gore and paint him as a liar and then, from an office in the Whitehouse on taxpayer salary, take a celebrated soldier like Kerry and paint him as a coward. Or I admire Bush's unsurpassed ability to speak with conviction without making any sense, like "We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." Invading Iraq to stop Al Qaeda in Pakistan has got to go into a Hall of Fame for Military Manuevers.

- Nusholtz

July 27, 2011 at 5:53pm

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Certainly has Nush. You can just see Dubya pitching it as a flanking maneuver to the bewildered brass.

- IggyPop

July 27, 2011 at 6:05pm

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So who do you admire? A rock-ribbed Republican Speaker who risks his position to try to steer his caucus, which, no doubt, has its fair share of loons, toward a solution, or a President who never leads, who undercuts his own Senate Majority Leader's proposal, and whose only fixation is his own re-election? The last reasonable man? The post-partisan? I remember JFK's civil rights speeches re the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama. I remember LBJ, before a joint session of congress, saying "we shall overcome". They faced a political hit from their then base to lead. Then there is poor Harry Truman desegregating the military in 1948 before his re-election campaign. This fakir is an embarrassment to their memories. Liberals always look for a hero. He ain't it.

- lsernoff

July 27, 2011 at 10:44pm

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