For years, I stalked the halls of the Capitol amid the end-of-budget follies of Congress, waiting along with other reporters for a breakthrough to end the

last

false crisis. It’s hard for me to remember a budget fight as politically self-defeating as the one now splitting the House, waged by stupid people for stupid reasons.

And if I think that sounds too harsh, I’ll point to New York Rep. Mike Lawler, speaking to reporters about his fellow Republicans who provoked the current chaos: This is stupidity, Lawler said. It’s a clown show, he added, the inevitable result of running crazy for Congress.

Yes, the lunatics are completely in charge of Kevin McCarthy’s asylum, aka the House of Representatives. Speaker McCarthy

(R-Bakersfield)

definitely

not

under control, so Congress is heading for an almost certain government shutdown late next week. He is essentially in a box, with no way out that does not risk being captured as speaker in a right-wing coup.

Even if he survives, McCarthy could lose the presidency after the 2024 elections: Republicans in the House of Representatives, MAGA chaos and extremism (Impeach Joe Biden! Culture wars!) threaten to cost them the slim majority they have achieved last year.

you I think they would learn from the example of Senate Republicans, who have offered a contrast of pragmatism and relative moderation. (

OKAY OKAY,

There’s Alabama’s Senator Tommy Coach Tuberville, the one-man threat to national security.) The same political analysts who are now lowering House Republicans’ election chances have made Senate Republicans prefer to go from minority to majority in 24.

McCarthy is trying to take advantage of the fact that his majority is in danger

that both are Republicans in the House of Representatives

hang together, otherwise too many hang separately to correlate

the idiots.crazies.

But there is no reasoning with the unreasonable.

There is no plea for unity with narcissistic ideologues, like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who are more concerned about their own MAGA fandom and Fox News hits than they are about the country or their vulnerable party colleagues in swing districts.

Take it from the frustrated conservatives behind the Wall Street Journals editorial page: Too many Republicans these days apparently come to Washington mainly to blow things up and count their TikTok followers.

Republicans’ worsening prospects in the House of Representatives for 2024 are the parties’ longer-term concerns. This is McCarthy’s immediate dilemma: Given the nihilists’ knee-jerk opposition to virtually all spending, he will ultimately need Democrats’ votes to pass government financing legislation acceptable to the Senate and President Biden.

As things stand, he can’t muster enough Republican votes to pass even a 30-day stopgap measure to keep federal operations funded past September 30, when current spending ends with the budget year. Such measures have generally been relatively uncontroversial

in

budget wrestling matches, allowing negotiations to continue without interruption.

But compromising to get Democrats’ votes is anathema to the extremists: They have vowed to force a vote that would dethrone McCarthy if he did.

Poor Kevin. If he doesn’t make deals with Democrats, he and his party will be blamed for a shutdown and all the late federal payments, lapsed services, disrupted public works and closed federal offices that result. But if he makes a deal, he could very well emerge as a speaker. Don’t feel sorry for him though. McCarthy sold his soul for his dream job, and for the mutineers who now want to sink him.

In the end, they will definitely lose. The government must continue, and the president, the Senate and, yes, a bipartisan composition of members of the House of Representatives will ultimately ensure that it does, however long that takes. You would I think the renegades of the House of Representatives would care if they look stupid. The legislative dynamics here are so basic, so Civics 101, as the Journal noted in the editorial, and yet some of these Republicans in the House of Representatives just can’t seem to grasp it.

Think about it: the

kamikazes extremists

will not simply let Congress buy the time it needs

ed

to reach a final agreement. They want to hold the fights now, with only a week to go before midnight, September 30th

above the level of program expenditure

and divisive amendments on aid to Ukraine, abortion rights and immigration. That makes a shutdown almost inevitable.

The extremists appear to believe that they have unlimited legislative influence to translate their far-right demands into law. They do not. The Naysayers’ madcap efforts were summed up in this headline in Politico: House GOP at open war over doomed spending plan. Let’s just say they somehow managed to gain the upper hand in their home base, the House of Representatives, only to be stopped cold by the Democrats in the Senate, backed by some Republicans. senators, and the veto-wielding Biden.

Perhaps they could take a refresher course on how a bill becomes law. Or check out the classic Schoolhouse Rock! video sing-along version. Or simply visit the House’s own website, where the clerk has a useful introduction for primary school students.

The naysayers don’t care if they fail: Today’s Trumpian Republican Party is all about the fight, all about owning the libs. It is not that the extremists will pay a price for their intransigence. They generally reflect the belligerence of Republican voters in their safe, gerrymandered districts, who are also intent on tearing Washington apart, however destructive that may be.

What’s unfortunate is that the Republicans who could lose next year are among the parties

more rational, least crazy

members, those from swing districts, where voters recoil from Republican extremism. Because

they are

not stupid.

@jackiekcalmes