Democrats are sick of bailing the GOP out of their own messes, and boy, are Republicans whining about it
Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to the events leading up to the historic ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker of the House knows exactly who is to blame here: McCarthy and his fellow Republicans. For years, they’ve rolled out the welcome mat to Donald Trump and his wrecking crew of MAGA camera hogs, foolishly believing that they could harness the chaotic villainy without getting burned in the process. They refused to listen to former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen when he warned Republicans in 2019 that those who “follow Mr. Trump as I did, blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.”
Granted, McCarthy didn’t get hauled off to prison like Cohen. But he still faced a tasty comeuppance this week when the sadistic bullies he empowered in his caucus, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, vacated his seat for no other reason than the sheer satisfaction of taking out their leader. Now shellshocked Republicans know who they want to blame for everything that has happened, and — surprise! — it’s not themselves. Oh no, they’re mad at Democrats for refusing to swoop in and save McCarthy from his fate.
What is always surprising to me, but shouldn’t be, is that the GOP consistently displays behavior of toddlers that most parents would not tolerate in their kids. Then they turn a blind eye when our elected officials behave that way. It’s strange and sad.
If you look at it from another angle, that of using any tactic necessary to destabilize the work of government and to bring it to a publicly screeching halt as unpredictably, insanely, and often as possible, AND you look at it from the POV of who would benefit from seeing that happen, it makes a lot more sense.
But the strange thing here is not that the GOP outed its own speaker (they did it to Boehner in 2015) nor that they made a clown show of it, nor even that McCarthy seemed to go out of his way to renege on enough deals to make it happen.
To me, the truly strange thing is that part of McCarthy’s election, one of the things he agreed to in order to be elected as speaker, was the specific change in the rules that allowed him to be ousted with Just One Vote.
House rules change every session; in and of itself a rule change is to be expected. But not this one.
Yet this particular rule change was demanded of McCarthy before he could get enough votes to be elected, AND he agreed to it . . . AND lately, seemed to want to ensure it would work. He went to Nancy Pelosi privately asking her advice before blasting her in the press; he did everything in his power to ensure he got NO Dem assistance in keeping his seat when it would have been nothing for him to at least keep from shitting on them publicly, and he made sure to piss off even his own side throughout.
Another thing. Speakers come and go, and many Speakers leave and become Speaker again, like Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill. But with the Pelosi/Hoyer office evictions it’s like McCarthy is not only burning his election down now, but making absolutely sure no one will ever suggest him for Speaker again.
All this is is to say that whoever/whatever was behind that highly irregular change in the rules regarding ousting the Speaker was planning this from the beginning of the session, and when the time came, McCarthy wanted out badly enough to force it to happen, and in such a way that he will never be Speaker again.
And now there are just 44 more days before the next shutdown, with aid to Ukraine up in the air, and a next-to-useless pro tempore speaker who really can’t do shit in terms of directing his party or getting legislation to the floor: for most intents and purposes, the US House of Representatives right now is leaderless.
EDITED to add links