House Republicans will be ruled by chaos, self-promotion, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. That means the upcoming two years could either be highly entertaining or terrifying.
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Two years ago, after the GOP won control of the House of Representatives, we wrote a column predicting 24 months of “craziness and Hunter Biden.”
Now that we have reached the end of the 118th Congress, we can confidently say that there was plenty of both (although a bit less Hunter than anticipated because Republicans mysteriously lost interest in him when his dad announced he would not seek reelection).
Obviously, we’re not expecting a pat on the back for this one, because foretelling chaos in a House that is “run” by Republicans is like predicting that there will be two teams in the Super Bowl and that one of them will win.
All the ingredients for total dysfunction were there: a tiny majority, an impotent speaker (who needed 15 rounds of voting to be elected and didn’t last a year), lots of lawmakers more interested in performing than legislating, a general disdain for government, and no positive vision for America.
In the end, the House GOP primarily provided us with lots of entertainment. And, because Democrats controlled the Senate and the White House, even the dumbest things Republicans did caused no real damage.
So, what’s going to happen in the next two years?
Well, things are going to get more insane, a whole lot dumber, and much, much scarier.
There are a few reasons for that.
First, everything that made the last two years so dysfunctional is worse now: The majority is smaller, the speaker is perhaps even more impotent, all those performers have gotten more ridiculous, and their disdain for government has grown.
Therefore, on the one hand, there will be a lot more entertainment. Who knows who is going to be speaker? Not us, and certainly not House Republicans. And what kind of craziness will Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) get involved in, or what stunt will Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) come up with/engineer to get attention? It’s anybody’s guess.
To be fair, we won’t have former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who was one of the most amusing lawmakers over the past couple of years, anymore. However, since his ethics report is going to be released any time now, he’ll at least entertain us one more time.
There is a downside though.
Because if House Republicans were to get their act together, they would be able to do some real damage.
Ordinarily, that would be a big if. As we noted above, they don’t care much for government or legislating, and whoever the speaker is will have very limited control over the Republican caucus.
However, this week has made it abundantly clear that it won’t be the speaker who is calling the shots.
That would be Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
But, before we get to them, let’s first look at why modern-day Republicans are perhaps the worst legislators in US history.
There are three main reasons: The first is that they hate the federal government. That’s not exactly the greatest attitude to have when you are part of the federal government. They also seem to hate half of the people in the country, which is also bad if you have the power to write legislation that affects all Americans.
The second reason is that there is now a massive right-wing mediaverse that rewards clownery and stunts. So, if you are some backbencher from St. Petersburg, FL, or a poseur from Frankfort, KY, you can build a massive following just for saying and doing outrageous things.
And that’s probably quite a rush.
One minute, you write a stupid tweet, or you make an ass of yourself in a committee hearing; the next minute, you are on Fox News.
Finally, House Republicans have unprecedented job security.
Across the country, the GOP has gerrymandered congressional districts so effectively that the vast majority of them can count on being reelected no matter what.
In fact, 90 percent of Republicans won their seats by more than 10 points last month.
With that in mind, they neither have to try all that hard nor do they have to care. And, the more extreme they are (and taking into account the benefits of incumbency like name recognition and campaign donations), the less likely it is that a primary challenger poses a real threat. After all, it’s usually the most fervent supporters of a party who bother to show up for primaries, so an extremist has less to worry about.
Take the example of Greene in Georgia. Nobody is going to out-crazy her, and that’s clearly what her constituents want.
That’s where Trump and Musk come into play.
Because either one of them can probably doom most incumbents with one social media post.
It’s a power both of them are very aware of.
This week, Musk torpedoed the initial continuing resolution that congressional leaders had negotiated to keep the government in business; like some old-time political boss, he stated that “any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024
It’s not an empty threat because, on his own, he can take away the fundraising edge incumbents usually enjoy.
For example, he could give $5 million to the primary challengers of any of the 170 Republicans who ended up voting for a “clean” version of that bill (a forgivable offense in Musk’s view, so they don’t have to worry until he wants them to do his bidding again). Considering that it costs an average of $2 million to win a House race, that’s a lot of money.
That’s chump change to Musk, who could fund 75,000 campaigns with $5 million each and still have a few billion dollars left over.
Obviously, Trump doesn’t have that kind of money (and even if he did, he wouldn’t want to spend it), but he has unprecedented sway over GOP lawmakers.
As someone who is half mob boss and half messiah, he is both revered and feared. Oh, and Republican voters will believe anything he says.
So, if you end up on his bad side, one “Truth” can put that cushy congressional job in real peril.
Fortunately, Trump isn’t terribly bright and Musk doesn’t seem to understand how the government works, which might limit their damage.
On the other hand, they both also have the confidence of rich narcissists.
And that brings us back to the beginning. The next two years in the House could be absolutely hilarious. Maybe Republicans won’t even manage to elect a speaker. That sounds ridiculous, but it took them three weeks to replace Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)… and those were three pretty funny weeks.
But they could also be really, really bad.
Since we are in the prediction business, we’re gonna say that the upcoming House session will be 40 percent hilarious, 40 percent insane, and 20 percent terrible.
The best-case scenario would be if the infighting begins right away, and if Trump and Musk give Republicans conflicting marching orders. That would be pretty funny.
But, in the unlikely event that House Republicans get their act together, roll up their sleeves, overcome their differences, and try to pass real legislation, we are all in for a long two years.
