Big Take: How Two-Party Politics Drives Out Moderates (Podcast)

Source: Bloomberg, 17:49

Congress averted a government shutdown with days to spare. The way lawmakers did it — by leaving out deep spending cuts and relying on a bipartisan coalition to pass the bill — has already put House Speaker Mike Johnson on thin ice with some hardliners in his party. That disdain for compromise among members of the right flank of the GOP are the very factors that cost the previous speaker his job. None of the infighting came as a surprise to former Representative Denver Riggleman, who served one term in Congress as a Republican for Virginia’s fifth congressional district ...