Obsession: Speakership battle reminds senior Washington Post writer of Jan. 6.

The Washington Post devoted most of the first thirteen pages of its Sunday paper edition to rehashing, and in some cases enjoying, what it calls the “Speaker debacle” that played out last week in the House. The only article I read was by Dan Balz, the dean of the Post’s political writers. He’s pro-Democrat but usually sober, unlike most of his colleagues.

Unfortunately, Balz’s sobriety is not reflected in his analysis of the Speakership battle. That’s clear even from its title (paper edition): “A divided party in denial and the curse of Jan. 6.”

Balz claims that the events of last week show that Republicans have “yet to grasp the political toll of January 6” (quotation from a subheading in paper edition). I disagree.

I don’t deny that the GOP confronts serious problems. Its problems might even be more serious than the ones confronting Democrats, whose likely nominee for president in 2024 is now 80 years old and (as of now) unpopular; whose congressional caucus includes a hard-left bloc that even Nancy Pelosi struggled to control; and who performed well in the midterms only if one grades on a curve.

But there are at least two major difficulties with Balz’s thesis that the Speakership battle shows Republicans haven’t grasped the political fallout from January 6, 2021. The main problem with Balz’s thesis is that there’s no meaningful connection between the events of that day and the fact that it took an unusually long time for Republicans to select a Speaker.

January 6, 2021 was about preventing Joe Biden from becoming president (or at least halting the procedure by which he would be declared winner of the presidential election). The Speaker election was about preventing Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker unless he agreed to changes in the way the House does business.

The 2020 election and the events of January 6, 2021 were non-factors in the Speakership battle. The focus (apart from personalities and more than a little posturing) was, as it should have been, on how the House would operate this session.

It’s possible, as Balz claims, that without the events of January 6, 2001, the GOP would have won more House seats in the midterms and that, as a result, McCarthy might have had an easier time of it last week. However, Balz presents no evidence to support this contention. And, even if true, this doesn’t mean that now, in the aftermath of its underperformance in the midterms, the GOP is still stuck on the 2020 presidential election and related events.

In fact, the evidence suggests that Republicans are ready to move on, and this is the other problem with Balz’s thesis. He ignores what’s arguably the most significant recent development in Republican politics — Donald Trump’s slippage in polls asking Republicans whom they want to nominate in 2024.

At this time last year, Trump was far ahead of any potential GOP challenger. Now, although Trump remains the frontrunner in most polls, the gap has been narrowed and he’s far behind Ron DeSantis in at least one survey.

Republican voters and candidates increasingly grasp that complaining about the 2000 election is not a formula for winning in 2024. The more astute Republican voters and candidates (like Glenn Youngkin) grasped this a while back. Many others seem to have figured it out after the midterms.

It’s true, as Balz says, that many (possibly most) GOP voters and office holders haven’t repudiated the idea that fraud played a major role in the 2020 election. This matters to Balz and other partisan Democrats and journalists who demand allegiance to the view that it didn’t.

But I don’t think it matters to voters. Unlike Trump and Balz, the electorate is ready to move on. As long as GOP candidates reflect this forward-looking approach, they should be okay, at least on this score.

Balz’s other main claim about the Speakership battle is that it shows House Republicans “have not fully listened to the meaning of the midterm election.” He notes that, despite the narrowness of their victory, Republicans are behaving as if the electorate wants “a full-throated Republican agenda and a full slate of investigations into the president, his son Hunter, and other areas.”

This is true. But that’s how both parties behave whenever they take control of the House or the Senate. The Democrats won only a narrow majority in 2020 (the Senate was 50-50 after that election). This didn’t stop them from pushing a full-throated liberal agenda, including trillions of dollars of spending in a package too radical even for two Democratic Senators to swallow.

Nor is there reason to believe that the American people wanted Congress to waste time with the 2019-20 impeachment of Donald Trump over his conversation with Ukraine’s president. The Democrats’ pushed ahead with these proceedings, nonetheless.

Why are the two parties so quick these days to pretend they have a mandate? Maybe it’s because genuine electoral mandates are so hard to come by in this 50-50 nation.

A more serious Balz column about the meaning of the Speakership battle for Republicans would have focused on the 2024 electoral implications of that battle for the GOP — including, crucially, the concessions McCarthy made. The battle, standing alone, will likely soon be forgotten except by political junkies.

However, coupled with the McCarthy’s concessions, the battle will provide ammunition for Democrats who want to blame a “do-nothing” House on GOP “extremism.” In reality, concessions or not, this House was never going to pass significant legislation that could be enacted into law and was always going to reject significant proposals by the Democrats. But now, perhaps, Democrats will be able to sell the false idea that “far-right” control of the caucus is what stands in the way of enacting legislation.

Similarly, if there’s another government shutdown, Democrats will have an easier time blaming Republican extremists for it. And it’s quite possible that the concessions McCarthy made will increase the likelihood of a stalemate between the House and the Senate-White House over spending. I assume this was part of idea behind forcing the concessions.

But all of this is speculation. What’s clear to me is that the Speakership battle had nothing to do with January 6, 2001 and that House Republicans, along with the American public, have moved on from the 2020 election and January 6. It’s now the Democrats and their supporters in the media who don’t want to let go.