What Are Republicans Really Up To?
It’s possible that they’re play-acting and don’t really mean to undermine constitutional government. It’s also possible that they mean it.
Playing with fire.
Photographer: Bill O'Leary/Pool/Getty
Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe.
After Nancy Pelosi was re-elected as speaker of the House on Sunday with the votes of several Democrats who wouldn’t vote for her in 2019, political scientist Matt Glassman reminded us that we can’t always assume that the surface reading of politics is all that’s going on: “Former defectors on the Speakership vote coming home to Pelosi now that the margin is tighter is a good reminder that most Speakership defections are (quite naturally) position-taking political moves and (often) blessed by leadership, not all-out hostility against the Speaker.”