Do They Realize Reality?

 This analysis by Josh Marshall gibes with the general reporting: the GOP caucus is so fractured and dysfunctional after McCarthy's ouster that there is no one who can win the Speaker's gavel under terms that makes the Speaker anything but a puppet for the Gaetz-led insurgents.

Of course, the solution is readily apparent: coalitional governance. After several weeks of floundering about with failed votes to elect a Speaker, will there be enough Republican "moderates" (I think you'd want 7-8 to be sure) to elect someone who will run the House as a coalition? Have a few continuing resolutions, pass a compromise budget, aid to Ukraine, etc. I could give a fuck about the Biden impeachment, it's stupid and will just make Republicans look stupid.

Basically are there around 10 Republicans who would be willing to "betray" their chaotic caucus to keep government functioning at the most basic levels?

Think about what that question means for the state of American democracy when one of the two major parties is that big a mess. 

Jon Chait notes that this pattern of Republican cannibalism has its roots in the rise of the Goldwater conservative movement that eventually elevated Reagan to the White House. This interpretation holds that the conservative movement lost its way by ceding the policy ground to the New Deal and later the Great Society. The problem was that the Republican party was not conservative (nihilistic) enough. If they only conservatived harder, they would get the most conservative conservatism that ever conservatived. 

None of this is "conservative" by the way, it's deeply reactionary. The Goldwater and later Gingrich insurgents wanted to roll back large aspects of the post-1933 state. Their issue that people don't actually want that. (Trump at least sorta gets this by not harping on cutting Social Security or Medicare.) 

The insurgents live in this fantasy land where they just need to be "purer" and they will get the magical pony they always wanted. Are there enough Republicans who realize this will never happen? That they have a government to run?