A shutdown was inevitable. Its end is not.

 As we approached this point, I noted, both here and elsewhere, that a government shutdown had a probability of essentially 1.  The president is a Democrat, the House of Representatives is controlled by the post-Gingrich Republican Party, and that means there is a faction within the House convinced a) that the threat of a shutdown or the eventuality of a shutdown will force concessions from a Democrat, b) that any leader that doesn't extract those concessions is a RINO/squish, and hence, any Speaker under this arrangement is required by his caucus to shut down the government.  The underlying math has to do with the difference between status quo points, "reversion" points, polarization, and read my book, Incremental Polarization.  I have covered these points already.

Yet no Republican leader since Gingrich has actually wanted a shutdown, and Kevin McCarthy does not want a shutdown now.  Consider the difference between Kevin McCarthy and Tommy Tuberville.  Tuberville is the Senator from Alabama who has placed a hold on military promotions over the military policy of funding interstate travel for abortion.  Truthfully, the Democratic majority in the Senate could end Tuberville's blockade any time they so desired.  Tuberville is using a "hold," which is an informal practice, which the Senate honors because honoring one senator's hold means that another senator's hold will also be honored.  It is a matter of reciprocity.  Schumer and Senate Democrats could, through a majority vote, tell Tommy Tuberville to go eat some possum anus, Alabama-style, say that they aren't honoring those holds anymore, and sure, someone might rant and rave about going nuclear, but this is far more justifiable than using the legislative filibuster, which is built into the more formal rules rather than merely a courtesy, and also, national security.

Yet in Alabama, Tommy Tuberville can do anything, up to and including eating possum anus.  The state nearly elected Roy Moore, kiddy-diddler.  Tuberville has a position.  Right behind the rectum of a possum.  Tongue out.

But more politically relevant, he has a position on abortion.  Leftists never even consider the following question as a legitimate question, relevant to policy, but when does human life begin?  The most cautious answer is the earliest answer, and taking that position means that abortion would be murder.  And we have, or at least have had a lot of abortions in this country.  The military policy has been to pay for travel for abortions.  If you considered abortion to be murder, how would you evaluate that?

Possum salad-tossing aside (honestly, I was thinking about eating roadkill, or at least, thinking about referencing eating roadkill before I went down that rather grotesque rhetorical pathway, but things happen), instead of refusing to consider the positions of those with whom you disagree, how would you evaluate such policies?

Tuberville will be a one-man ,military promotion shutdown for it.  Alabama will be fine with it.

Nationwide, a full government shutdown will not play the same way.  The party leader must manage the caucus internally, but he must also manage how the legislative decisions of the caucus will impact electoral fortunes.  If you want a book to read, try Legislative Leviathan, by Cox & McCubbins.  Tuberville is one man, answering to no one but a state that will approve of his actions.  McCarthy, though, is cross-pressured.  Elected by his caucus, he must maintain majority support, not of the caucus, but of the chamber, so even a few defections will cost him the gavel, yet he must also acknowledge that electorally stupid decisions, even when demanded by that caucus, will cost him the gavel.  If the Freedom Caucus and the rest of the shutdown faction believes that he caved, they may hold a motion to vacate, and he loses the gavel, yet if he caves to the shutdown faction and does too much electoral damage to the party label, the party may lose its narrow majority, and he loses the gavel next year anyway.

Here, then, is the problem.  McCarthy both has to shut down the government, and cannot shut down the government.  He cannot cave, and must cave.

In many negotiation situations, one provides an adversary with a face-saving way to cave.  Yet Biden has no reason to give McCarthy anything.  Indeed, to do so would be to make Obama's 2011 mistake, and embolden the shutdown caucus.  He needs McCarthy's cave to be as painful as possible, and he needs for the GOP's internal turmoil to be as chaotic and self-destructive as possible.  His long-term incentives, to the degree that a guy at death's door has any long-term incentives, are to make the GOP pay a price, and that means making McCarthy pay a price, letting the GOP form their circular firing squad.

So what will be the end?  The problem is that when the critical actors have conflicting incentives and no way out, the end is indeterminate.  McCarthy is fucked.  I've been saying that since the beginning, haven't I?  He has no moves.  Let's put this in academic terms.  Conditional party government.  Blah-fuckity-blah, academic jargon for the model which states that a party leader will be delegated power when the caucus is unified.  The House Republican caucus is not unified, which is why McCarthy has no real power.  The only reason he has the gavel is that the Freedom Caucus could not unify around a single, specific alternative, but the caucus is not unified around anything except doing whatever Trump says.  That's not a policy, that's not a strategy, and that's not a resolution.  This means that McCarthy is about as weak a Speaker as we have seen.  He has no moves.

With no moves, what will he do?  Whatever his caucus lets him do, which will be... we don't know yet because they haven't felt the heat yet.  At some point, they will.  They will go into closed door meetings, yell at each other, threaten each other, posture, preen, act like they are acting now, but worse, and eventually, because it'll be behind closed doors, someone will cave within the caucus, and McCarthy will be given at least tacit permission to cave.

Or so he'll think.

And he'll cave.

And he'll let something pass through the House, probably with a bunch of Democratic votes, because it will be a bill that can pass the Democratic Senate, and get Biden's signature.

The Freedom Caucus will add that to the tally of betrayals, and once there are enough betrayals, they will demand his ouster.  How many betrayals will they permit?

As I said, nothing is determined now.  This is the problem.  The shutdown was inevitable.  However, when the key actor has no moves and no strategy, nothing else is.  The shutdown was the only inevitable thing.  I have no idea what happens now, except that McCarthy starts feeling the heat.  I will be very surprised if he holds the gavel for very long.

Gillian Welch (and Dave Rawlings) "The Way The Whole Thing Ends," from The Harrow And The Harvest.  Their best album?