Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
First, they threatened to block House Speaker Mike Johnson’s path to claiming the gavel in early January. Then they threatened to block a funding bill to keep federal agencies open in mid-March.
Then, in recent days, they threatened to block a resolution that would unlock the process to push ahead with President Donald Trump’s tax-and-border agenda.
Each threat from leaders of the House Freedom Caucus ended with the same result: capitulation. After caving on each round of threats, these far-right conservatives vowed that the next time would be different — if their demands were not met precisely as they sought.
This collection of several dozen Republicans, after a decade of rabble-rousing that helped push aside three other speakers, has yet to fully buck Johnson (R-Louisiana) on any major initiative this year. In their minds, these are Freedom Caucus victories, after they piled up pledges from establishment Republicans to supposedly bend to their will.
“We’ve demonstrated now for the third time that we can deliver on the president’s agenda,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), chairman of the Freedom Caucus, told reporters after Thursday’s vote to advance the budget resolution.
Last month their caucus provided the key votes to fund the government and pass the first version of the budget resolution.
To some former allies, the gang has morphed into an attention-seeking group that will ultimately support whatever Trump wants, giving up their past ideological purist ways on issues like bringing down the national debt.
