Some weeks ago, for the first time in the history of the United States, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives was removed from office. Republican Kevin McCarthy's humiliating ejection from his post as Speaker is just another symptom of the increasingly severe disease afflicting political system, and hence democracy, in the United States.

The United States political system is increasingly plagued by a dangerous combination of an evenly divided electorate and U.S. Congress (between Democrats and Republicans) and increasingly extreme and irresponsible politicians who reside on the fringes of both the Democratic and Republican parties (especially the latter) who often are more interested in seeking the media spotlight and grifting off chaos and controversy than in working in the best interests of the vast majority of the more than 325 million U.S. citizens.

As a case in point, McCarthy was not ousted because he had lost the support of a majority of the Republican Caucus, 210 of 221 of whom actually voted to retain McCarthy as speaker. Rather, 8 Republicans joining with 208 of 212 Democrats were what cost McCarthy his job, as Democrats opted to join with the 8 Republican extremists to push McCarthy out. Over the course of the past nine months Democrats had begun to increasingly distrust McCarthy, who broke multiple agreements with them in a futile bid to retain the support of the GOP delegation's most extreme members.

Debate republicano: el plan de Trump que se cumplió a la perfección

Until a new Speaker is elected, the U.S. House, and hence the entire federal legislative process, will remain locked in place, unable to address the pressing legislative needs facing the country. The most urgent of these needs is resolving the budget impasse that brought the United States to the brink of a federal government shutdown on October 1, a shutdown which was only averted by a temporary budget agreement that expires on November 17.

The political system is increasingly plagued by a dangerous combination of a divided electorate and Congress and increasingly extremist and irresponsible politicians residing on the margins of the two parties.

On Tuesday, October 10, the U.S. House of Representatives will begin deliberations to elect a new Speaker. At the present time, there are three main candidates for this position: Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the ultra right and Trump supported Republican Jim Jordan, and Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

AP

Assuming all Democrats are present on the U.S. House floor this week (most if not all will be present) and vote for Jeffries, then Scalise or Jordan would need the support of between 213 and 217 Republicans (depending how many Republicans are present and voting for other candidates) to become the next Speaker. Recall that there are only 221 Republican U.S. House members at present, and therefore to be victorious a Republican speaker candidate would need the support of nearly all of them.

However, once in office as Speaker, neither Scalise or Jordan should be expected to have any more success managing the fractious Republican Caucus than did McCarthy during his short and ill-fated speakership. They will be faced with the same impossible task of trying to reconcile the competing, contradictory and changing demands and preferences of the centrist, center right and far right Republican representatives within a context of a hyper-polarized (Republican vs. Democrat) legislative environment within which the Speaker needs almost every Republican on board to advance his policy and leadership program.

As long as Trump is alive

With a narrow 222 to 213 majority (when all 435 seats are occupied), the Republican Party's hold on control of the U.S. House was already very tenuous as we move into the 2024 election cycle when all 435 representatives will be up for election. Republicans are expected to lose a few seats due purely to the rejection by the federal courts of some Republican gerrymandered legislative districts that in 2022 resulted in the election of an additional Republican in a few states, a Republican likely to be replaced by a Democrat in 2024. Furthermore, if the hard-right Trump-aligned Jim Jordan is elected Speaker, then the rhetoric and legislation emerging out of the U.S. House between now and November 2024 will undermine the ability of more than a dozen moderate Republicans in swing districts in states to be re-elected, especially in the states of California, New Jersey and New York.

The next speaker will face the same impossible task of reconciling the competing, contradictory, and shifting demands and preferences of centrist, center-right, and far-right Republican representatives.

The unprecedented 15 House roll call votes it took to first elect McCarthy as Speaker earlier this year in January, the unprecedented removal of McCarthy as Speaker last week, and the prospects of an ultra conservative like Jim Jordan being elected Speaker all point to a U.S. Republican Party that is in serious disarray, a U.S. political system that is dysfunctional, and a U.S. democracy that is in increasingly poor health. There was a time when the United States could offer its political system as a model to the world, but that is no longer the case today.