“Anytime, anywhere!” is the motto that has become symbolic of congressional Republicans’ comportment in recent weeks. In the last year, Republicans have been involved in three altercations that have either involved violence or called for a physical resolution. Two of these altercations happened right before Congress was going on break for Thanksgiving, and one of them involved an 82-year-old Bernie Sanders reminding Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, who challenged the president and CEO of Teamsters to a cage match, that he is indeed a United States senator. There is no denying that, currently, congressional Republicans are a bumbling mess, ripe with dysfunction and unable to properly fulfill their duties to their constituents because of it.
The intra-party dysfunction experienced by congressional Republicans is unprecedented and has created multiple rifts, making any chance of partisan or bipartisan compromise difficult and stalling legislative progress. Currently, the Republican Party has an eight-chair majority in the House of Representatives, the sector of Congress where bills are usually initially produced. However, they continuously struggle to get any bills through the house. Instead, they are too busy squabbling with radical Republicans unwilling to move off their initial stances. Perhaps the most indicative of the inability of the Republican Party to compromise and find resolutions is the last-minute prevention of a government shutdown by former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy saw his last-minute spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, which would have provided the deep spending cuts many Republicans sought, fail due to 21 hard-right Republicans refusing to vote for the package. Radical Republicans rejected a bill that would satisfy many of their republican constituents and fellow Republican congressmen to place political pressure on McCarthy and continue their political propaganda. Ultimately, McCarthy would have to rely on Democrat votes to pass a continuing resolution at the midnight hour, temporarily preventing a government resolution but leading to his ousting as Speaker of the House. Throughout the entirety of McCarthy’s attempts to prevent a government shutdown, with a republican majority house, radical Republicans reaffirmed their unwillingness to compromise on any of their demands. When the few of an already narrow majority refuse to compromise, they hold the entire Republican Party hostage to their whims and desires, creating an inefficient house with plenty of turmoil.
The Republican Party continued to place Congress in disarray beyond a potential shutdown in their ouster of McCarthy without a clear successor with time-sensitive bills looming. What ensued after the ouster of McCarthy was a three-week civil war between Republicans where they were unable to agree upon a successor, preventing any lower chamber legislation from being worked on. During precarious times of a still potential government shutdown and a war in Ukraine and the Middle East, the House of Representatives found itself at a standstill because the Republican Party could not choose a new Speaker of the House. Eventually, Republicans, exhausted by the Speaker crisis, voted through far-right and relatively inexperienced candidate Rep. Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House, who is notorious for denying the 2020 presidential election results. Republicans, due to their inability to agree on a qualified candidate for Speaker of the House, settled on Johnson, who will only increase political polarization within the country and spew ultra-conservative, far-right rhetoric. The rise of Johnson to the Speaker of the House signals that the minority far-right runs the republican party, which, given the balance of Congress, also means that this minority runs the House.
In his first test as Speaker of the House, Johnson, who was approved unanimously by Republicans, had to once again align with Democrats to pass a two-tier stop-gap bill to prevent another government shutdown. The vote was met with 93 rejections from Republican representatives because the bill being passed involved compromises with some of the goals of the Democratic Party. Hard-right Republicans continue to refuse to compromise, stifling substantive action and putting Congress into chaos, and it is becoming apparent to the American people, with a majority of voters blaming Republicans for congressional dysfunction. The inability of hard-right Republicans to compromise has rattled congressional politics, causing a miniature exodus of congressmen from both parties because any form of reasonable legislation seems impossible.
The United States of America is undergoing a contentious time of uncertainty that requires the ingenuity of politicians to create resolutions, not further exacerbate the problems. Currently, the dysfunction of the Republican Party has stalled effective and progressive legislation from being implemented, but even worse, it has held Americans hostage to the political agenda of a few hard-right Republicans. These Republicans are not speaking nor acting on behalf of the American people. Rather, they perpetuate a divisive radical political rhetoric that further prevents compromise and bipartisanship in Congress. Coupled with the constant fights and instability plaguing the Republican Party, Congress continues to find itself eroded by constant turmoil, chaos and petulant behavior. The American people aren’t asking for much, and quite frankly, they deserve more than whatever both parties are offering, but the state of the Republican party at this moment is a poison to American politics. If Republicans want to start becoming a part of the solution and not the problem it’s time they put the gloves down and start acting like adults.
Luca Amaturo, FCRH ’26, is a communications & media studies major from Marlboro, N.J.
