The House speaker fiasco shows that Republicans are unable to govern | Andrew Gawthorpe

These games will not end well for the country. The stakes are huge

After a new session begins, the first order of business for the House of Representatives is to pick a speaker. For a century this has been a mere formality, with the party in power having enough organization and respect for the country to move swiftly on to other matters. But on Tuesday the Republican party broke this streak of basic competence, failing in three separate ballots to come up with the votes to install Kevin McCarthy, the presumed frontrunner, as speaker.

With the group of hard-right irreconcilables opposing McCarthy getting larger rather than smaller as the day went on, it quickly became clear that the wannabe speaker had no plan for breaking the deadlock. If he hoped that his opponents would eventually tire of symbolism and bow down to practical reality, he was mistaken - for a large group of Republican lawmakers, particularly those in the far-right Freedom Caucus, symbolism is the entire purpose of holding office. They came to Washington not to construct but to destruct, and taking down McCarthy is just the beginning.

Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States and the host of the podcast America Explained