House Republicans’ majority is falling apart

A television network boss once told me there is no political talk show that will get better ratings than a videotape of any politician tripping and falling.

That’s still true.

American television networks can’t pull their cameras away from the stumbles and the screaming on public view as the result of the GOP’s likely nomination of Donald Trump for a second term as president.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) took a face-first fall on live television two weeks ago when he called a vote to begin impeachment proceedings against President Biden’s secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. In rushing to please the Trump-extremists in his caucus, he failed to realize that he did not have the votes. On a second try last week, they impeached Mayorkas by a single vote. It was a transparently empty act that said less about the secretary than it did about their own bumbling.

The entire GOP House caucus is now locked in this fall-on-your-butt loop of dysfunction.

Currently, close to two dozen Republicans are making it clear they can’t take more of the sad comedy. They are leaving their broken caucus. 

This month’s surprise announcement of the departure of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) adds to a pattern of evidence that the generation of center-right, George W. Bush era conservatives is coming to an end.

Next came the retirement announcement from House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.).

The same pattern was evident this month when Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) announced plans to leave. Gallagher’s decision to quit was described by the news section of The Wall Street Journal as “a blow to the establishment wing of the Republican party, which had hope he would have a bigger future in politics.” The Journal’s editorial page stated that Gallagher was “a rare member these days who wants to do something other than promote his social media brand.”

This pattern of serious Republicans leaving Congress started when Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the GOP congresswoman with the longest tenure in the House, announced late last year she was quitting. Granger is chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

In January, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) announced his departure from the House after 14 years in Congress.

It wasn’t that long ago that Bush-era GOP stalwarts like Karl Rove were talking about a “permanent Republican majority.”

But today’s Republican House is bleeding from so many falls. And with 18 Republicans in districts won by President Biden in 2020, they look to be bleeding away their majority. Already, 18 current House Republicans are headed out.

The despairing state of the GOP’s House majority is tied to Trump’s self-serving focus on extreme right politics.

Ronna Romney McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, is reportedly also leaving under pressure from Trump loyalists who deem her insufficiently supportive of Trump’s presidential bid.

State Republican parties are also in disarray as a result of Trump loyalty tests.

In Florida, Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, the state Republican parties are falling apart amid battles between Trump supporters and conservatives alarmed that his extremism hurts down-ballot Republicans. 

“We’re basically just acting as if there’s no state party,” a Michigan Republican operative told NBC. 

Trump loyalist Kari Lake, now considering a run for the U.S. Senate after losing a bid for governor, recently threw the Arizona GOP into chaos by releasing a recording of the state party chairman offering her a  lucrative job if she passed on a Senate race this cycle.

Yes, Lake so mistrusts her state party that she secretly recorded the party chairman offering what sounds like a bribe.

At the end of last year, the Arizona party reported having less than $15,000 in the bank. What a perfect microcosm for the broken status of Republican party politics nationwide.

The top-rated, televised example of the party taking public falls comes from news coverage of the House.

Having failed to generate a red wave in 2022 midterms, the House GOP has its feet tied up by far-right’s demands, because they need every vote just to maintain their majority.

When Speaker Johnson and the House GOP embarrassed itself on the failed effort to impeach the Homeland Security secretary, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) joked: “I’ve never missed George Santos more.” Santos had been expelled while under indictment for fraud.

Gaetz’s quip was a practical reminder of how thin the GOP House Majority is: 219 Republicans, 212 Democrats and 4 vacancies. 

Even when presented with an immigration reform bill endorsed by border guards, the Chamber of Commerce and the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, the bill was rejected by House Republicans.

By following Trump’s lead, Johnson found himself unable to accept a bill to increase the number of border security patrol agents; funding to speed the handling of asylum claims; and power for the president to close the border during any surge of illegal crossings.

Now the House GOP faces a possible failure on funding for critically important U.S. allies in Ukraine and Israel, again because of opposition from Trump.

With Trump likely to be at the top of the GOP ticket in November there is no rush of serious Republican newcomers running for Congress. They are fearful of shackling themselves to this sinking ship.

But Trump will not be around forever.

Most alarming is the prospect that the post-Trump generation of Republicans will be rooted in what remains of the party in Congress, especially the House.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.