In the world of dysfunctional leadership, it is often the stinkiest pigs that are unable to discern their own aroma. While failed leaders often excel in seeing the faults of others, they are seldom able, or willing, to acknowledge their own shortcomings. 1
Show me a dysfunctional organization and I’ll show you a dysfunctional leader! -Dr. Joseph H. Fleishman
The story of the Republican Party’s internecine warfare amongst themselves with the grave, serious, and unprecedented detriment which it poses for the United States of America simply cannot be understated.
Presently Congress as a whole is effectively at a standstill that threatens the stability of first and foremost her Citizens, who unarguably deserve far better than the extremist ideological dysfunctionalism that has taken hostage of the legislative branch; followed closely by the significant disunity of the states themselves due to the partisan divide created by the dynamics of red vs. blue loyalties all of which is further exacerbated within battleground purple states is unacceptable. All of this together serves also to undermine the power and standing of our country within the larger global international community; creating further tension that has negative impacts on any number of foreign policy matters, which as distant as foreign affairs might be to the average American, actually matters a great deal for every citizen, from the White House in Washington, D.C. to the Farm houses of the Midwest.
How then can any concerned citizen do anything about this situation? It should go without saying that voting and ballot boxes are penultimately the first line of defense against this very kind of nightmare, but those things like all things that subscribe to the American ideals of law and order are themselves subject to the rigidity of times and dates and as such do not provide the immediate relief that so many earnestly crave and desire. So then what else can we do to directly motivate the 535 members of Congress, the 9 Supreme Court Justices, and the 2 Executive Officers, the President and the Vice President, who all together constitute the Federal Government to redress the problems of an impotent Republican Party in the House of Representatives? Telephone calls, letters, emails, etcetera all also take time too.
In the meantime though perhaps the most important work anyone can do is to try and understand the causes that have now blossomed into the causalities that litter the floors and halls of Congress. In doing so they will gain first for themselves a more nuanced understanding of just exactly where to direct their attentions and efforts for precision problem solving, then secondly by way of their grassroots messaging to their representatives, senators, Justices, and Presidents, assert clearer more forceful demands for the corrections so urgently needed to restore order and its consequent return to a progression of policy-making back to some semblance of balance that is needed to end the standstill in Congress.
Towards the goal of producing a better understanding of the current paralysis of the policy-making process it is imperative to consider the studied analyses of genuinely trustworthy and highly educated individuals who, and organizations that, support and advance the objectives of the liberal consensus born with “FDR’s New Deal”, for it has been this consensus that has produced from its genesis, as discussed by Dr. Heather Cox Richardson the author of DEMOCRACY AWAKENING: Notes on the State of America, “the urban Democratic experiment of the 1920s applied to the whole nation.” An experiment wherein “Democrats used the federal government to regulate business; provide a basic safety net, largely through work programs; and promote infrastructure, much as city bosses had pioneered… It created what economists called the “great compassion compression*++,” in which wealth and income distribution became much more even, dramatically reducing economic inequality.” 3
The Republican Party’s movement conservatism, academics, backers, legitimate & dark money investors, market-makers, non-profit organizations, partners, & think tanks, etcetera vie for control of the federal government with their extensive tacit support system that provides so many of the elements needed to conduct the battles for people’s minds’; such as noted in an article published by the New Yorker titled “The Big Money Behind the Big Lie: Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy are being promoted by rich and powerful conservative groups that are determined to win at all costs” by Jane Mayer, this lengthy article goes into great detail as it describes the many things that both legitimate and dark money supply with the goal of shaping knowledge for the purposes of influencing the minds of Americans against their own self-best interests. In their efforts to surreptitiously obtain votes as noted in the article with a quote from “Jonathan Rauch, of the Brookings Institute, recently told The Economist4, “We need to regard what’s happening now as epistemic warfare* by some Americans on other Americans.” Addressing the matter of the epistemic warfare the article’s author notes what “Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said of the campaign, “It’s a massive covert operation run by a small group of billionaire elites. These are powerful interests with practically unlimited resources who have moved on to manipulating that most precious of American gifts—the vote.”5
So too also the Democratic Party’s liberal consensus has its support system. We the People are also by extension in partnership with this support system; I am thinking in particular of the immediate context of this brief essay that I have penned for publication here on Substack and the many liberal writers and readers here who all together comprise a new paradigm of learning and knowledge creation, transmission, and preservation of a developmental epistemology that continues to grow in strength and size to combat and oppose the metaphysical epistemologies of Republican movement conservatism in the epistemic warfare that they have consciously and unconsciously engaged, in service to their deity focused paradigm, for make no mistake about it, the “faithful” are determined to be obedient unto the command of Genesis 1:26-31 which is to dominate all of the earth and its inhabitants. It is especially important to also understand that for the “faithful” in particular those of the theological persuasions of Calvinism truly believe that the more they possess the more then do they consider themselves justified in their actions, for if their “God” is with them and it commands them to “dominate” all things then their worldly gains are but evidences of the virtuousness of their obedience to it, as they bow and pray to their creator.
At this point in this essay I am going to turn your minds over to an important piece of writing that is found online at the Niskanen Center, “a nonprofit public policy organization dedicated to strengthening liberal democratic governance and promoting widespread prosperity and opportunity.6”
It is incredibly timely, from my perspective, and is invaluable for helping to understand the profound*+ Republican Party’s profound dysfunctionalism during this current 118th House of Congress (2023-2024).
In a paper presented last year to the Midwest Political Science Association, professors Matt Grossmann (Michigan State University) and David Hopkins (Boston University) empirically demonstrated what most people in Washington already know. To wit, the Republican Party is primarily a vessel for an ideological movement while the Democratic party is a less ideological coalition of left-leaning politicians and interest groups seeking government favor.
What makes the Grossmann and Hopkins paper interesting, however, is their analysis of how each party’s political culture influences how they go about the business of governing.
The Democrats operate in a fashion consistent with the popular understanding of politics. Grossmann and Hopkins argue that:
Because [Democrats] are primarily motivated to engage in party politics in order to make concrete programmatic demands on behalf of their members, left-leaning officeholders, activists, and voters are more likely than conservatives to take a close interest in the substantive details of the legislative process and are more willing than their counterparts on the right to compromise in order to win partial achievement of their policy goals if the alternative is simply inaction.
Within the GOP, however, the constant tension between doctrinal purity (enforced by an influential cadre of movement leaders devoted to publicly policing ideological orthodoxy) and the need to compromise in order to pass legislation makes it difficult to move an ambitious conservative agenda through Congress. There are never enough purists to overcome Senate filibusters or override presidential vetoes. Republicans who respond by looking for compromise to marginally improve existing laws are savaged by ideological policemen for compromising on principle. Paralyzed by their inability to pass meaningful legislation, Republicans spend most of their time on “messaging” bills and resolutions that have zero chance of enactment.
Defensive operations, however, are made easier by the party’s adherence to doctrine. Ideological policemen keep potential defectors in line. Compromises aren’t necessary to hold the legislative chokepoints that allow small groups of ideologically united minorities to hold off legislative majorities. This likely helps to explain why the Left has had a more difficult time over the past several decades passing legislation to expand state power.
Republican political behavior, however, does not make sense given their stated objective; rolling back the size and scope of government. That requires legislation. Legislation requires politics. Politics requires compromise. And compromise requires the party to abandon rigid commitment to principle.
Fortunately for Republican officeholders, their ideological base does not punish them for failing to deliver the goods. Ted Cruz will never provoke a Tea Party challenge for failing to roll back government. He will provoke a challenge, however, if he fails to demand unachievable political outcomes.
Rhetorical commitments aside, the GOP is functionally the party of the status quo. Their strategies and tactics optimize defensive operations but they make it nearly impossible to undertake offensive operations. If slowing the pace by which government grows is the objective, then Republican modus operandi makes sense. If reversing the tide of government is the objective then Republicans are their own worst enemies.7
As can be seen above in Taylor’s commentary the Republican Party is “a vessel for an ideological movement” and is in rigid adherence to a Republican “doctrinal purity” that stands in a 180 degree contrast to the ability of Democratic legislators “to take close interest in the substantive details of the legislative process and are more willing than their counterparts on the right to compromise in order to win partial achievement of their policy goals if the alternative is simply inaction.”
When I first read Taylor’s commentary not only did I immediately think of the current ongoing fiasco of the House Republican Party’s breakdown I also recalled some of the statements and sentiments expressed by Spencer Chretien the Associate Director, of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project at The Heritage Foundation, also known as Project 2025; in a brief commentary that he penned originally for The American Conservative Spencer opens with the following statement:
With the Biden administration half over and with the immediate dangers inherent to one-party rule8 in Washington behind us for now, it’s past time to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right. For decades, as the left has continued its march through America’s institutions, conservatives have been outgunned and outmatched when it comes to the art of government.9
Moving on through two more paragraphs he lays out his lamentations about the state of the Republican Party and its decades long ineffectiveness and then presents some concise details of the plan by which Project 2025 partners hope and intend to bring an end to liberal dominance in the federal government. It is a worthwhile short concise introduction into the world of the “massive covert operation” described by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse earlier above in this essay.
Robert J. Rei, October 21, 2023
[Publisher’s note: November 22, 2024
This piece, while dated, is still timely in its topic focus, and useful for understanding the dysfunctional behavior evident in the stairwells, hallways, chambers, bathrooms, and assemblies, of Congress which zookeepers can only stare upon with a most alarmed bewilderment. For a more detailed and focused look into the House of Congress and its messiah of insanities—see the following essay—>]
"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." -Aldous Huxley
(Asterisk * denotes my emphasis| *+ word order errata correction| *++ word correction, wow, I honestly have no idea how I missed this error, for some reason the word “compassion” was stuck in my mind when I wrote this piece. Fortunately,
Heather Cox Richardson, DEMOCRACY AWAKENING: Notes on the State of America (New York, NY: Viking, 2023) 235 [This link leads to the book’s Amazon sales webpage; This is NOT an affiliate-link and I DO NOT receive any compensation for any visitors to the webpage or sales of the book, RJR.]
The “one-party rule” Chretien is referring to here is what might have been a political party super-majority, that might have come into place had the 2022 congressional elections resulted in a House democratic majority as well as in the Senate in tandem with a democraticly led White House Presidency; with a congressional & presidential majority assumedly one of the first orders of business would have been to address, correct and redress the quasilegal installment of three conservative justices of questionable character and qualification during the 45th Administration when the White House was occupied by the now multiple federally indicted defendent D. J. Trump. Specifically: Neil Gorsuch, April 10, 2017; Brett M. Kavanaugh, October 6, 2018; Amy Coney Barrett, October 27, 2020.
