Partisan turmoil rages in Washington, despite the Democrats’ technical control of both houses of Congress and President Biden’s many calls for working together.
Both parties are struggling with internal schisms.
But the Republican divide is deeper and wider, in large part due to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the freshman House member who Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls a “cancer” within the party: .
Greene is a proponent of the phony QAnon conspiracy theory and other far-right fringe notions that Donald Trump ushered into the party.
Another major figure in what CNN calls the “Republican civil war” is Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was among 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for encouraging his supporters to raid the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Greene and Cheney “represent rival visions for a party torn by the toxic but still powerful influence of Donald Trump,” CNN says.
On Thursday, the Democratic-led House will vote on whether to strip Greene of her two committee assignments, “forcing congressional Republicans to take a public stand on the Georgia freshman who endorsed conspiracy theories and calls to execute Democratic politicians before she was elected,” reports the New York Times.
In a rare instance of a leader in one chamber of Congress commenting on activities in the other, McConnell “dismissed Greene’s statements as ‘loony lies’ that have ‘nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party,’” the Washington Post reports.
Cheney stands on the side of orthodox GOP conservatism. But that doesn’t fly with Trump’s still-active radical base, and more than 100 members of the House Republican Conference have expressed support for Cheney’s removal from her leadership role.
Meanwhile, the divide between Democratic progressives and moderates more comfortable with bipartisanship threatens President Biden’s hopes for reaching a deal on the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill he has proposed, and which Democrats on the left like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) support.
It’s a popular proposal, given that it would mean putting hundreds more dollars in voters’ wallets, but Republicans want to spend only $600 billion, leaving a huge gap.
“How much is bipartisanship worth?” a “longtime Joe Biden adviser” asked Politico on Tuesday night, before answering his own question: between $200 and $300 billion, a compromise that mean a price tag of roughly $1.25 billion.
However, so large a compromise may not be on the table for this White House, as Biden himself told Democratic leaders, rejecting the GOP plan as “just not in the cards.”
The same Biden adviser who spoke with Politico was surprised by the negative tone of a Monday night White House statement that noted “many areas which the Republican senators’ proposal does not address” and said Biden “will not slow down work” and “‘will not settle’ for anything too small.”
Returning to the Republicans, it has fallen to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to try to talk some sense into Greene.
“During a two-hour meeting Tuesday night with Greene, McCarthy explained to her that her controversial past statements were coming to a head,” and that is harming the party, reports Politico.
McCarthy gave Greene several options, Politico says, including denouncing QAnon and apologizing for her other extremist statements; removing herself from two House committees, as the Democrats wish, or facing removal by her own GOP leaders.
But none of that seems to have appealed to Greene, so McCarthy “called a late-night meeting with the panel that designates committee assignments to discuss removing Greene” — and thus avoid a House vote on the matter, as Democrats intend to do if the matter can’t be resolved.
Such a vote would put every Republican Hosue member “conference in a very difficult position — having to take an up-or-down vote” on Greene, one unnamed House Republican official told the Post.
“The volatile state of the GOP is evident in the way that Cheney faced far more public criticism from her House colleagues than Greene,” CNN says.
Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the No. 2 GOP leader, said House Republicans face a simple choice: “Do they want to be the party of limited government . . . or do they want to be the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon?”
