The Republican party has always been somewhat splintered, but the recent race for Speaker of the House (finally won by Paul Ryan) on Capitol Hill revealed just how fractured the party has really become. For a while, the former Speaker of the House race resembled a comedic series of errors more closely than it resembled an actual political race. The drama all started when Speaker of the House John Boehner decided to heed more conservative members’ calls to step down. Shortly after, majority leader Kevin McCarthy entered the race and then unexpectedly dropped out after running for one week. The Republicans then moved on to Ryan, who decided to run after the GOP factions agreed to stick to guidelines he set up. Ryan ran against Daniel Webster, a hard-line conservative who had the support of the Freedom Caucus, a group of senators who — wait for it — are also extremely conservative.
In order to understand why so many members of Congress drop out, one must understand the role of the freedom caucus, which was formed in January. The Freedom Caucus is a group of 30 to 40 hard-line conservatives, many of whom are members of the Tea Party. The Freedom Caucus was actually partially responsible for starting the downward spiral because they threatened to use “a rarely used procedural move” to remove Boehner from his position. In response, Boehner stepped down. While this may seem like an illogical move, it actually gave the Freedom Caucus a chance to elect a Speaker of the House whose views were more in line with theirs, as indicated by the crop of extremely conservative candidates, such as Webster, who entered the race. That said, the chaos that ensued after Boehner stepped down may be causing some members to rethink their actions. Although this group is relatively small, it still has enough members that it could have denied the majority needed to elect a Speaker of the House, a threat which hung over the entirety of the race.
In order to get elected, a prospect had to have a stance that appealed to hard-line conservatives and moderate Republicans — an almost-impossible task. We’re talking about conservatives who have demonstrated a willingness to shut down the government if their demands aren’t met. Anyone who falls in their favor is probably going to have trouble appealing to more moderate Republicans. As a result, the Republican Party was caught in something of a catch 22. In order to have a chance of being elected Speaker, candidates had to have the support of both sections, but a person who had the support of one faction was unlikely to have the support of the other faction.
Luckily, this can be done, as demonstrated by Ryan, who managed to wrangle support from both the Freedom Caucus and general Republicans and as a result on Thursday was elected the new Speaker, But it points to a worrying trend. Members of Congress are being given the mandate by the American people to have every condition met and refuse to compromise. This has had disastrous results and has hurt the country as a whole. If the American people want to have a government that can function, they must start electing members closer to the middle who are willing to compromise instead of digging in their heels and refusing to budge.