Political polarization used to be a buzzword for anyone complaining about the convoluted and exceptionally slow motion of Congress when passing legislation, but we now face a very different issue, particularly in the House of Representatives. The actions of a small group of GOP extremists have threatened the ability of Congress to operate uninterrupted by trivial tasks, a scene that is strikingly familiar to that created by the Tea Party in 2010. Understanding the many similarities and important differences will be critical to understanding the goals of GOP factions and how to overcome their bureaucratic barriers.

The Tea Party was a grassroots effort of local organizers to campaign for lower government spending amidst one of the largest government bailouts of the financial industry in history. In order to accomplish this, they campaigned for and eventually placed radically conservative politicians in the legislature - politicians like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Michelle Bachmann. The far-right spending philosophy touted by these legislators can be amounted to less government intervention - an idea that is shared by Representative Matt Gaetz and his rebellious band of GOP dissenters. 

Earlier this fall, Representative Gaetz pulled off one of the most stunning and unprecedented moves to ever befall the House of Representatives - he allied with Democrats to vacate the chair of Speaker of the House previously held by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a fellow Republican. This is especially notable due to the small minority of ousters. As part of the deal that was made to instate Rep. McCarthy, the threshold that is required to force a vote to vacate the chair was lowered to one Representative. Rep. Gaetz used this to his advantage, allowing only eight dissenting Republicans of 218 to hurl Congress into paralysis. When asked for his logic in removing the broadly supported speaker, Rep. Gaetz cited his distrust of the former Speaker, claiming that he backtracked on conservative fiscal goals that the GOP demanded in the recent temporary appropriations bill, instead opting to compromise with Democrats to narrowly avoid a catastrophic government shutdown. He also claimed that Rep McCarthy made a secret deal to provide more funding to Ukraine than fit the majority Republican opinion.

Here arises the first of several lines of comparison that can be drawn between the goals of the Tea Party and those of extreme Republican factions - a demand for low government intervention. An important component of this is spending - the Tea Party fervently fought with Obama Democrats to stop emergency funding bills aimed at relieving effects of the Great Recession from moving through. It also blamed the banks for the Recession, demanding that the government let those who made mistakes suffer and collapse on their own. In the eyes of the Tea Party, average American taxpayer money should not be used to prop up greedy and unethical corporations. While we are not experiencing a recession, similar ideologies can be found amongst modern GOP factions, who have been attempting to halt a rise in government spending championed by the Biden Administration in the wake of COVID-19. Another important aspect of government intervention that both groups have protested is military appropriations. While the Afghanistan war was more or less supported by Republicans, the Tea Party stood firm in their ideology, advocating for a smaller military budget. This compares well to proposed slashes to appropriations to Ukraine and now Israel by Rep. Gaetz and his allies, while the funding of these two conflicts is more broadly supported by the Republican aisle. Republicans are fundamentally in favor of less intervention, but these two groups have taken this principle and blown it up into something that nobody is willing to get behind but the idea’s destroyers.

The methods used to achieve the shared goal, by both the past and present cases, are often focused less on democratic compromise but on stonewalling tactics. The Tea Party was not only known for its grassroots origins and conservative philosophy - they were infamous for their constant use of the congressional tool known as the filibuster. What former President Barack Obama referred to as a “Jim Crow relic” has been used to halt legislation from advancing by threatening to debate indefinitely, causing the chair to hold off a vote. Instead of properly debating the factual economic and social consequences of a piece of legislation in order to produce a mutually beneficial and efficient bill, the Tea Party opted simply to not allow legislation to get to the President’s desk. It is disruptive and harmful politics, and a version of it is being created in the House of Representatives today. Rep. Gaetz has created a situation where the GOP must struggle internally to nominate a speaker, pitting many differing interests against each other to create disorder. Secret ballots and public disarray has created an environment where the focus has been drawn away from creating bills, and this proves especially dangerous as the temporary spending bill needs to be updated in mid-November. Without such a bill, the government would be brought into a government shutdown, furloughing thousands of government employees to be left without income until the government resumes operations. Rep. Gaetz is not searching for a compromise, and to say that the motion to vacate the Speaker was not intended to create such disorder is not an unsubstantiated claim. Both the Tea Party and GOP extremists have been using tactics not meant to advance party goals, but to throw a wrench in the gears of the federal government.

While both of these aspects have had at least some basis in legitimate government activities, both groups share a similar devolution into vindictive, personal attacks as means of advancing their cause. Again we will start with the Tea Party. The “Birthers” movement - those who doubted that former President Obama was actually a native-born American and thus eligible for the Presidency - was given a platform in the Tea Party. This was a movement rooted in racism, and had nothing to do with the President’s policies - it was simply a fundraising tool and another item in the list of Tea Party reasons to work against the Obama administration’s goals. Rep. Gaetz has not been exempt from this type of dirty politics. Many believe that in addition to aforementioned reasons to vote out Rep. McCarthy, the ouster was getting revenge for an ongoing Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use. The former Speaker has denied involvement, but the compounding effect of all of these reasons may have contributed to the surprise vote raised by Rep. Gaetz.

The similarities are apparent, but the differences in the actions of the Tea Party and modern GOP dissenters must be noted. The largest dissonance occurs within the roots, or lack of, in the two groups. The Tea Party has clear foundations in a populist movement that gained traction amongst those who felt that the federal government was moving away from the will of those who fund it - the citizens. With this ideology, they were able to place loyal supporters in many different areas of government with many notable senators, congresspeople and governors, all working to accomplish the rudimentary goals of the organization that created the opportunity they now enjoy. The GOP faction created by Rep. Gaetz has no basis in a populist movement. It has no basis in organizational ideals. It doesn’t even appear to have a basis in constituent wishes. The Tea Party was representing, or attempting to, the working-class of America. Matt Gaetz represents his own political ambition. With chaos in the House, he is free to pick and choose nominees who he feels could propel him the furthest in political prestige. It is a dangerous movement, and one that has the potential to work.

There isn’t a clear solution to this problem. Matt Gaetz is able to hold the GOP hostage until a new Speaker is nominated that can further his interests, particularly in spending. If the Democrats don’t compromise, the government faces a shutdown and Biden will inevitably be blamed. Voters have the power to remove these factions from Congress if they so chose, but this isn’t likely or easy. Congress does have the power to expel a disruptive member, but the legality of this action within this particular context is debatable. Arguments against the filibuster have been made before, and many times they have been cut as a compromise with Republicans. This solution is a risky one, as Democrats already need to work towards a unifying appropriations bill to get other items of their agenda to the President’s desk. For now, all we can do is sit back and watch, preparing for the economic consequences of a government shutdown that may arise from this mess of a Congress, hoping for a bipartisan solution. Staying conscious of updates in the process is the best thing we can do, and ideally cooler heads prevail.