The dysfunctional House Republican caucus finally chose a new speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), but that's no guarantee the chaos will evaporate.
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) barely won the gavel in a 220-209 vote, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board cast doubts on whether the untested 51-year-old, who's only been in Congress since 2016, is up to the "unenviable job of herding the cats, snakes and peacocks in the GOP menagerie."
"The question is whether the Republican malcontents will let him govern in a way they refused his deposed predecessor, Kevin McCarthy," the editors wrote. "It won’t take long to find out. Government funding expires Nov. 17, and America’s friends in Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan need military help to defend themselves."
McCarthy averted a government shutdown last month "that would have backfired on Republicans," the board wrote, but he was punished with a revolt that ultimately cost his position and eventually put the gavel in Johnson's hands – and while he's already proposed a roadmap for passing spending bills and rebuilding military deterrence, he has no experience raising money or recruiting diverse candidates to help keep the GOP majority.
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"Democrats are already branding Mr. Johnson a MAGA ideologue, which is unfair," the editors wrote. "But he will have to explain his view of the 2020 election, given that he pushed an implausible lawsuit at the time asking the Supreme Court to decertify results in four swing states. When a reporter Tuesday tried to ask him a question on that, Republicans hooted it down, which isn’t a great start for retaking the suburbs."
Three weeks of House chaos has dented the Republican brand, and now it's up to the inexperienced new speaker to wrangle those warring factions into an effective coalition.
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"The hard reality is that the GOP’s narrow majority puts him in the same precarious position as his predecessor," the editors wrote. "If the agitators want Speaker Johnson to succeed, and voters to keep them in power, they will spend the coming days working to fund the government and pocketing incremental conservative wins. If they don’t, they deserve to lose, and they probably will."
