Markos Moulitsas: Why the GOP is failing

We’re only a few months into this congressional session, and it’s clear Republicans can’t govern. 

And it’s not Democrats or liberals making that observation — it’s Republicans. 

{mosads}“We really don’t have 218 votes to determine a bathroom break over here on our side,” said Republican Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent. “So how are we going to get 218 votes on transportation or trade or whatever the issue?” 

That’s the polite way to put it. The less polite way? “Bad tactics yield bad outcomes,” he added, noting that Republican leadership had engaged in “tactical malpractice.” 

Also not polite? “There’s an element within our party, a wing within the Congress, which is absolutely irresponsible,” said Republican New York Rep. Pete King. “They have no concept of reality.” Harsh, but true. “I’ve had it with this self-righteous delusional wing of the party that leads us over the cliff,” he added.

“We all know how this is going to turn out,” said Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, noting the stupidity of the recent Department of Homeland Security funding fight. “Politically, it’s devastating.”

Said conservative pundit George Will on “Fox News Sunday”: “When the Republicans took control of the Senate, the fundamental promise was adult supervision … Now, this comes along.” “This,” of course, is the mess congressional Republicans have made of late. 

And don’t let anyone accuse Republicans of never being bipartisan. We can find common ground over this: “If the whole point of [the 2014] election was just simply to give John Boehner and Mitch McConnell nicer offices, let’s give them back,” said Louisiana governor and presidential wannabe Bobby Jindal. 

That could certainly be arranged by the electorate in 2016, particularly given the GOP’s lingering unpopularity in a high-turnout presidential election year.

“What we’re going to have to do is help do a better job of selling why things have to be done,” said Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, fretting about his party’s lack of popular support. “We’ve got to sell it to the American people to make our ideas popular.” 

Yup, Republicans can’t depend on Democratic voters staying home during a presidential year. They actually have to appeal to the American mainstream. 

Maybe that’s why a super-PAC aligned with the Republican House Speaker spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking fellow Republican House conservatives on the air, accusing them of being “willing to put our security at risk, by jeopardizing critical security funding. It’s the wrong message to send to our enemies.” 

The American public certainly doesn’t have a problem with President Obama’s immigration orders prohibiting immigrant parents from being torn away from their American citizen children, but it does have a problem with jeopardizing national security thanks to the Republicans’ silly tantrum. 

So yeah, the GOP needs to work on that “popularity” thing a bit more.

Still, with Republicans bitterly divided, their leadership has to now convince the nation it knows what it’s doing. 

“I made it very clear after the November election, we’re certainly not going to shut down the government or default on the national debt,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). “We’ll figure some way to handle that.” 

As we’ve found out time and time again, “some way” really comes down to Democrats taking over the process and leading the way, just like they did with the clean funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. 

No one should be surprised that the party hostile to government is terrible at running the government. It’s just nice seeing Republicans admit that fact.  

Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.