The Art of the Possible

WHERE WE WERE

The Speaker Fight Was a WIN: This negotiation forced a “power-sharing” agreement between the Republican Establishment and conservative Republicans. Both sides walked away with a place at the table in deciding how the House Republicans would lead.

The Debt Ceiling Fight Was a LOSS: This negotiation surrendered powerful leverage points that could have been used to reign in the Biden Regime. Instead, Speaker McCarthy gave up the high ground, and Representative Massie helped hoist the white flag. Consequently, Biden has unlimited funding potential for the remainder of his term.

WHERE WE ARE

While the debt deal was a loss, House Republicans can use other leverage points to fix Biden’s trajectory. One of those leverage points is the appropriations process, which determines where money can be spent. During the appropriations process, House Republicans can defund people and programs and restrict the resources flowing to weaponized Federal Agencies. But the DC Cartel is doing all it can to entice Republicans to “go along to get along” without ever putting up a fight.

     Let’s talk about how they distract members from getting into the fight …

Member Management

There’s a concept in DC called “member management.” The term refers to how the DC Cartel manages representatives by keeping them perpetually distracted in order to minimize risk and keep the Cartel in power. The stability of the Cartel depends on Representatives avoiding any confrontation, such as the Speaker fight, the Debt Ceiling fight, and now the appropriations fight.

The Cartel uses multiple tactics for “member management.”

• • One tool is a PR move: engage in fiery rhetoric about Democrats to look as though Republicans are fighting hard for the American people. The PR moves play well on Fox and get clicks on Twitter, but by now you can see through it: it’s mainly political theater that makes no real impact.
  • A second and more subtle tactic is one being used right now behind the scenes. It’s called the hamster wheel, and it’s when well-meaning, principled conservatives are tasked with an “initiative.” They feel like they can’t say no because the initiative is framed as something “important.”

     Like the rhetorical distraction, working on the initiative makes no real impact.

Here’s how it works: The Establishment knows conservative Republicans want to set appropriations at pre-covid spending levels. That’s roughly a 20% cut in non-defense spending. So, House leadership designs a strategy that avoids a fight. They’ve asked conservative Republicans pushing for reduced spending to join a wild goose chase in search of “acceptable cuts” that the entire conference can support.

The process of determining those “acceptable cuts” is the hamster wheel. It’s a diversion initiative, an unnecessary barrier added to the process in order to run out the clock so the DC Cartel can continue spending at the current levels. Conservative Republicans should be saying, “We aren’t participating in that initiative. We are going to spend our time fighting against specific appropriations.”

Negative Narratives

Another distraction tactic used by the Cartel is the Negative Narrative. It sounds like this: “What you’re proposing can’t be done, and if you try it, you’ll make things worse.” You’ll hear this one from the halls of Congress down to your local political meetings.

You may have heard some of your favorite Members saying something along these lines, “We can’t go any lower in the appropriations levels because if we do, it won’t pass the Senate, so we’ll lose the opportunity to include riders.” (A rider enacts a policy rather than a specific appropriation. )

In reality, the opportunity is already lost if we give up leverage without starting at the lowest possible level. Giving up forfeits opportunity. Remember, the debt ceiling isn’t a debt floor. There is no requirement to spend up to the levels passed in the debt ceiling deal. The appropriations process provides an opportunity to go lower on particular line items, and reduce spending going forward.

What you are watching right now is failure theater.

Let’s call our House Members to get off the hamster wheel and start fighting for reduced spending so we can make some real progress in defunding our woke and weaponized agencies.

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE

     House Republicans could win more battles if they changed tactics. For example, they can shift where the fight takes place. In the Rules Committee, Rep. Massie has the power to block appropriation legislation from ever making it to the floor. That is a legitimate use of the process, and it’s why we fought so hard on the House Rules during the Speaker Fight.

     If House Republicans were willing to fight there, it would radically change what we could accomplish.

     Another tactic is to address McCarthy’s violation of the power-sharing agreement. Right now, House Leadership is negotiating more with House Democrats than with Conservative members of their own Party. As long as they continue to do this, Republicans will accomplish nothing useful.

     Finally, if House Conservatives feel they’ve run out of options to regain leverage, the Motion to Vacate remains available as a last line of defense.

     The Establishment will say the motion to vacate won’t work because Kevin McCarthy has the votes to keep his position. But that argument isn’t sustainable. In that scenario, McCarthy would have to continue to cut deals with Democrats to retain his seat. He can’t sustain that kind of PR. It would be no different from the Speaker fight. Public pressure from the grassroots would swell to the point where McCarthy would again be forced into an alliance with House Conservatives.

     Once House Conservatives fix the power-sharing agreement, every vote can be used as a leverage point to advance policy that protects American interests.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

Remember … most politicians are in the “happy to be here” caucus. But that’s not good enough. We need fearless leaders willing to take aggressive and targeted action during the appropriations process, because we know it’s our best—and maybe our last—leverage point for defunding the woke and weaponized government.

Contact your Representative and encourage him or her to use the appropriations process to be the fearless leader Americans need.