The House Freedom Caucus is apparently doing its part to ensure that the Republican Party as we know it no longer exists after 2016. They are openly plotting a coup attempt against House Speaker Paul Ryan not to actually oust him, but to destroy him politically in order to make him bow to their will.
Conservatives don’t have enough votes to oust Ryan (R-Wis.). But they say their coup movement shows his hold on the speakership is far more tenuous than he realizes. Denying Ryan re-election on the first ballot would undermine his political future and cast him as a conservative pariah, they say, and may give conservatives leverage to enact rules changes that would help them push their agenda for years.
“If he loses the speaker election, he’s not going to be president,” one conservative member told The Huffington Post on Monday.
Conservatives hold no illusion of preventing Ryan from remaining speaker (or, you know, becoming president), according to the eight Republicans HuffPost interviewed on Monday. That there is coup chatter at all, however, suggests Ryan’s relationship with conservatives is already fraying, less than a year into his speakership.
This might be part of what's behind the schism between the Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Committee, because it's unlikely the members of the latter are willing to join in with the maniacs in voting against Ryan on the first balloting for speaker.
The maniacs have another goal, besides damaging Ryan. They want to force rule changes that give them more power, and as one caucus member said, the "only leverage any Republican member of the House has for getting rule changes is the speaker vote." Those changes include "increasing caucus representation on committees, bulking up subcommittee staff with hard-liners who could be groomed for election, allowing the GOP House campaign arm to collect contributions for the Freedom Caucus that could be directed to conservative candidates, and clarifying rules-suspension votes."
Clearly, the Freedom Caucus wants to take over the Republican Party, starting with Paul Ryan. But the funny thing is, they are in such a bubble they don't seem to realize that Donald Trump got there first. They're playing a very small game, fighting to win control over the ruins they'll be left with after November.
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