Expect the Republican House to be just like the speaker debacle: pure chaos

Which raises the question of what the party can reasonably accomplish in the House this term.

The fact that its most ridiculous members successfully managed to hold the speaker vote hostage to their demands does not bode well for the next two years. This first-few-days drama, which played out before any new members were actually sworn in, likely only taught the radicals the simple lesson that they are at their most powerful when they sow chaos, refuse to compromise and aim not just to shut down the workings of government but to entirely burn to the ground longstanding processes, norms and institutions. This is not a group that was prone to collaboration to begin with, and now their destructive impulses have only been magnified.

It is hard to imagine that these deranged cats will be anything but impossible to herd.

For example: the far right wants to dismantle the IRS and get rid of income-based taxation. They are clear that they would allow the country to default on our national debt, which would be nothing short of disastrous.

In other words, the rest of 2023 is going to look a lot like the first few days of the Republican majority in the House: an abject disaster.