For the past fortnight, the federal government has flailed. A handful of ultraright Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives toppled Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California, from his post as a show of power.

McCarthy’s offense was that his devotion to former President Donald Trump and his MAGA followers wasn’t quite slavish enough to suit them. McCarthy also apparently wasn’t willing to completely turn a blind eye to the many ethical and moral transgressions of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, who narrowly dodged prosecution on charges of having sex with minors.

Gaetz said his animus toward McCarthy sprang from the fact that McCarthy lied—an odd complaint coming from a camp follower of a former president who tells a whopper with every other breath he takes.

Since McCarthy fell, other contenders have tried to pull together enough votes to claim the post. Their task has been made more difficult by the fact that saner Republicans have learned from and adopted the same tactics Gaetz used to take down McCarthy. These more balanced Republicans realize that all they need is a handful of votes to keep Gaetz and crew from running the chamber.

Thus, the House has sat as motionless as a battleship without fuel and adrift in a troubled sea.

This aimless drifting has become a cause of consternation for many of the Republican candidates for president—probably because presenting oneself to the voters as the leader of a political party that couldn’t find its way out of a phone booth even with the help of a map, a GPS system and a guide is neither a good look nor a winning appeal.

Normally, impasses such as this one would be resolved by resorting to first principles. The parties involved would get together, remind themselves of the goals they have in common and negotiate a path forward based on that shared commitment.

That’s hard to do, though, when at least one of the parties doesn’t have anything it wants to accomplish.

Part of the reason Trump and the MAGA crowd keep seizing defeat from the jaws of victory is that they don’t have anything positive they want to accomplish with political power when they possess it.

Rather, their motivations are punitive.

Trump wants to return to the White House to exact vengeance on those he sees as his enemies, a list that seems to include everyone who ever has questioned his conduct or refused to shout “Amen!” to any of his pronouncements.

Gaetz and crew are more focused on “owning the libs” and outing those they perceive to be RINOs—Republicans in Name Only—than they are on achieving anything that might help their constituents.

Even their stated priorities—such as building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep undocumented immigrants from entering this country—don’t seem to matter that much to them.

For all their caterwauling about the chaos at the border, they have done little to address what they repeatedly call a crisis.

That border runs for just under 2,000 miles. (The exact measurement varies depending upon whether one counts by straight-line air miles or the meandering course of the Rio Grande.)

During the Trump presidency, about 50 miles of border wall were built, leaving more than 1,900 miles open. Even when Republicans controlled both the White House and both houses of Congress, building the wall never made it to the top of the wish list.

Tax cuts for the uberwealthy and shifting wealth upward were considered much more important.

During the nearly three years of the Biden presidency, Republicans have had plenty of opportunities to place building the wall—or any other agenda item—on the table. As the Russia-Ukraine war heated up, it would have been easy for even an unskilled negotiator to bargain for funds to build the wall in exchange for support for Ukraine.

But, for all their caterwauling about the border crisis, Gaetz and crew chose not to do that.

That’s because they care more about putting on a show than getting anything done. They would rather find someone else to blame for a problem than fix it themselves.

Late in the game, there are Republicans who have realized this and are trying to stop the MAGA crowd from turning the House of Representatives into nothing more than a stage for nihilistic performance art.

They have their work cut out for them.

Vision matters.