Things aren't great with the House Republicans. For one thing, some of them are big mad at Speaker Mike Johnson for trying to do something useful like make the government still happen, in part because it involves dealing with Democrats and obviously, that's insane. They tanked some rules just from spite because they're salty about it. And poor Mike Johnson has to make a pilgrimage to Godfather Trump to get his blessing on the whole avoiding a shutdown thing, which is awkward, because we all know Trump wants the economy to crash because he absolutely said so.
I have some idea of the kind of arguments that have to be made. If House Republicans are responsible for a shutdown--all Republicans could be blamed, including Trump. Whether Trump can hear arguments like that is dicey, though. Ditto (or maybe that should be "MAGA-dittoes") for the mascots some red districts have elected to Congress--they were elected to sow chaos and it really shows. They want a shutdown for the same reason Patriarch Newt Gingrich normalized Republicans causing shutdowns--just burning spite against the idea of doing government at all.
This is why the House sucked out loud in 2023. They couldn't pass legislation for shit and just did mascot stuff. Retiring Rep. McHenry referred to it as "a very actively stupid political environment" and that sounds exactly right.
