Freedom Revolt
Last week, Twitter was abuzz with mainstream news reports and pundits amplifying the "Republican Civil War" over the election of the speaker of the US House of Representatives. Unfortunately, while I understand why such language was used in proximity to Jan 6th, for any outside observer, they saw calm and orderly political intrigue.
Members of the Freedom Caucus made an internal power grab, forcing concessions from Kevin McCarthy, the favoured Republican party nominee. This was a great bit of PR for the Freedom Caucus and Matt Gaetz in particular, who reframed the stalled vote as a bit of Floridian Republicanism in action. Broadly speaking, the slew of demands from the freedom caucus appears to be an attempt to "drain the swamp" and involved limits to congressional term times and preventing internecine smear campaigns by party-aligned PACs.
Political scholars could probably write listicles on why the demands are unworkable or short-sighted. However, for a proportion of the American population deemed 'deplorable' by Democrats and 'insurrectionists' by Republicans, the message to mainstream Republicans is clear - "fuck you and the horse you rode in on". A charming American witticism, to be sure, but it underpins much of the discourse across podcasts last week. In short, people got behind Gaetz because they feel their values arenot being defended by mainstream, Neoliberal, republicanism. As such, anyone who is seen to bloody the nose of the Republican party deserves, at least, favourable coverage on alternative media.
What those 'deplorable' Republican values are, is somewhat reactionary - but further investigation reveals the schism within party politics. For Neoliberal Republicans (the NeoCons) the guiding principle is that "every American is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire", which can be rectified through grit and determination. The newly emerging power bloc of the Freedom Caucus represents the view that Neoliberal Republicanism only benefits the few with the resources to take advantage of the system. Additionally, preferred conservative social values are being stripped away by a hegemonic Neoliberal 'uniparty' (Democrat and Republican bipartisanship) which sees 'real' conservatism as a threat to revenue streams.
Indeed, there is a desire within alternative media networks to see someone pose a threat to the Neoliberal system by advocating for conservative values. This is where the intrigue surrounding the vote deepens. Mainstream right-wing media took to framing Gaetz as a problem because he gave the democrats the opportunity to vote for another speaker. The subtext was that Gaetz and the freedom caucus should play ball - as was expected from them - and vote for McCarthy. The likes of Sean Hannity revealed that: it is far more important to have someone in power with an R next to their name than have someone looking to tackle the problems with the political system that 'we have all known about' since the War on Terror and Occupy Wall Street.
There is no Republican civil war, but there is a tide change in what it means to be a Republican. The Freedom caucus reportedly got some concessions and helped to vote in McCarty. The Neoliberal Republicans were left embarrassed by some upstarts who played the system. The issue is that these upstarts are outsiders with public momentum behind them, and we saw from Trump 2016 how effective that could be.