He had been warned that he would not have the sufficient votes to be elected. But he preferred to put everyone before their responsibilities. In the aftermath of last November’s midterm election, the meager Republican victory offered only ten majority seats to the party of the American right. From the outset, election analysts and power experts within the Republican Party had predicted that it would be difficult for Kevin McCarthy, Republican Minority Leader since 2018, to impose himself in a group where the Trumpists had the means to rebel. In fact, McCarthy tried three times yesterday to thwart this balance of power. He needed at least 218 votes to win, he never succeeded. Worse, the Trumpists have regrouped behind a rival candidacy, that of Jim Jordan, one of McCarthy’s allies but above all one of the most vocal supporters the Trump since 2016. This elected official from Ohio has constantly supported the former Republican president in his denial of the official results of the presidential election of 2020 and has always refused to cooperate with the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the capitol assault from 6-January.
McCarthy had yet tried to give pledges to his opponents internally. First by symbolically uninstalling all the metal detection gates around the offices of the Capitol when they had been placed there to strengthen the control of visitors, employees and elected officials after the tragic events of two years ago. The Trumpists wanted to turn the page in their own way and show that Congress had again become the House of the people. McCarthy followed them in this process but she brought him nothing. No more than its compromises on the changes of rules in order to allow the majority to disavow its leader and to change it during the legislature. For Donald Trump, McCarthy is unreliable, too consensual, not involved enough in a frontal strategy of revenge vis-à-vis the Biden administration. Trumpists want a fighting opposition, not a House majority capable of finding bipartisan deals with Democrats when needed or to heal some of the wounds of the extreme polarization of the Trump years. We thus had a very bad experience in the Trump camp, the vote in the House of the end-of-year finance law of more than a thousand billion, with a dozen Republican votes, in particular to validate unprecedented aid to Ukraine from more than 45 billion dollars for the year 2023.
Congress is paralyzed
Among the 20 Republican slingers, 16 are elected from previous elections and four were elected last November. Unsurprisingly, there are representatives of states where Trump has hard cores such as Texas, Florida or Arizona. In those three states alone are half of the elected rebels who challenged McCarthy. The four Trumpists elected last November are Josh Brecheeen of Oklahoma, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, and Keith Self of Texas. All are staunchly anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage, but Ogles also stood out for his plan to cut all federal funds for Public Education and Brecheen a supporter of teaching creationism in schools.
No one knows at this time what McCarthy will become. In the meantime, the Congress is paralyzed because the Chamber cannot work without a president and an agenda and without even the Commissions themselves being chaired. Can this showdown last? Can the Trumpists settle into a form of blackmail by demanding powers or initiatives from McCarthy that he is at this stage reluctant to decide, for example a commission of inquiry into the business past of Hunter Biden, son of the president, or on the “theft” of the 2020 presidential election? Will this paralysis make certain elected Republicans reflect on their ability to join, even piecemeal, the camp of reason by voting with the Democrats? It should be noted in any case that opposite, the Democratic camp has shown itself to be extremely disciplined. The dolphin designated by Nancy Pelosi , Hakeem Jeffries received all 212 Democratic votes. It must be said that this elected African-American New Yorker is consensus in the party and among elected officials, from the center right to the most progressive wing.
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It is still too early to conclude from this episode that Donald Trump or Joe Biden will come out of it stronger or weaker.
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It is still too early to conclude from this episode that Donald Trump or Joe Biden will come out of it stronger or weaker. It will just be noted that at the same time, the President of the United States was to inaugurate today the reinforcement of the bridge which connects Kentucky and Ohio, two Republican states. The $1.5 billion project passed through last year’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. The president of the Republican minority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, elected from Kentucky, will be present at this ceremony, a sign that the leaders of the two major parties and democratic institutions are able to agree on projects of general interest. This gap in perceptions between what works and what blocks is not in any case likely to seduce public opinion wishing to see its institutions operate effectively. Especially in a context where everything will now be read through the prism of the 2024 presidential election. Donald Trump is already a candidate there and his influence on the party will be measured by his ability to resolve the crisis. which he himself has just created in the Chamber. Joe Biden has said himself that he will decide by February, possibly during his two-year presidency on January 20.
Doers and Talkers
It is customary in the United States in the political arena to compare “doers” with “talkers”, those who do and talkers, sometimes forgetting that this simplistic opposition can hide actors who are wrong and lawyers concrete solutions. But today, the gap between this Biden administration, which acts, sometimes with a sense of compromise and method, and the Trump camp, which has never lived up to its name as the “No” party so well, is too glaring not to be underlined. .
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the gap between this Biden administration which is taking action and the Trump camp which has never carried its name as the “No” party so well is too obvious
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After “USA 2008”, “Oval Office” seasons 1 and 2 during the Obama presidency, then “Trump Power” from 2016 to 2020, this new blog by François Clemenceau aims to analyze all aspects of the Biden presidency. : political, economic, diplomatic, which naturally implies the debate and the actions of the Republican opposition. find ici previous episodes.