It’s very hard to overstate the ignominy of Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow. Nine months of pointless intrigue and legislative futility came to its inevitable conclusion, sooner rather than later. It now seems fair to conclude McCarthy never had a plan heading into his doomed speakership. From the start he acted as though obtaining the gavel was the end itself, like finally winning the Masters after years of grinding on the PGA tour, a crowning achievement to a career ambition, a purely personal odyssey divorced from any larger calling. When he avoided round 16 it was a conclusion, not a start. Self-service instead of public service.
When McCarthy finally did emerge victorious from last January’s chaos and accepted the gavel, he observed that US governance is “built on checks and balances” and that it was “time to be the check and provide some balance.” In retrospect, that admonition leaves no doubt he fully understood that the nihilists intended only to obstruct and were never going to take yes for an answer. When he accepted their condition that only one of them would be required to call a vote for vacating the chair, anything bipartisan became an existential threat to his job security.
Thus, there were only two roads available to travel. One was the MAGA mire of demonizing Democrats, proceeding on the delusion he enjoyed a 35-seat vote cushion the “Red Wave” never delivered last November instead of the 5-seat micro-majority Republicans actually eked out. The other was Reality Avenue, selling to the GOP rank and file the common sense conclusion his 15-round ordeal confirmed. Reaching across the aisle would be necessary to, not only govern but develop some minimum level of trust to fall back on when zombie provocateurs like Gaetz inevitably decided to preen for Steve Bannon and call to dismiss him. Otherwise, a tiny subset of malcontents could end things in one vote. The numbers offered no other option.
It’s now clear the House Speaker followed the first playbook until its certain failure promised either global economic catastrophe (failing to raise the debt ceiling) or domestic political self-immolation (shutting down the government.) He would tell Gaetz, Norman, Luna, Roy, Perry, et al that he was all in with their intransigence and seek to toss them raw meat whenever possible, even if it required mind-boggling hypocrisy and abject humiliation. Sham impeachment inquiries without a vote and once near-unanimous defense appropriations measures he couldn’t even pass an open debate on, that is McCarthy’s legacy.
Sham impeachment inquiries without a vote and once near-unanimous defense appropriations measures he couldn’t even pass an open debate on, that is McCarthy’s legacy.
Dan Balz, the elder statesman of Washington political reporters, today wrote in his infuriatingly understated manner that Matt Gaetz embodies “the worst of performative politics, which have come to typify this era.” That’s way too banal an assessment, and only half true… McCarthy is cut from the same cloth as Gaetz; they are two of a kind. As Maryland’s Jaime Raskin, a Democratic leader who has been on the front lines challenging MAGA sedition while undergoing chemotherapy, put it yesterday when asked why Democrats didn’t prop up McCarthy during his hour of need, “I don’t distinguish that sharply between Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz.”
Political talking heads trot out every take under the sun to explain how we got to this new nadir in our national story. But as with most tragic sagas, to adequately appreciate the latest development, you have to revisit the beginning. That means recalling one of America’s darkest days, the first Tuesday of November 2016.
That trauma will remain a vivid memory until I go into the dirt, that moment I realized Trump would win the Presidency.
That trauma will remain a vivid memory until I go into the dirt, that moment I realized Trump would win the Presidency.
It was 10:00 PM, well into election night, and Hillary Clinton was struggling in Virginia, a state she was supposed to have clinched before supper was served. Suddenly all of the unsettling signs of the last days leading up to the election coalesced into a shocking realization; if Clinton couldn’t win Virginia, none of the pre-vote metrics had been close to accurate. All bets were off. It was Xanax time.
In the weeks leading up to Trump’s Inauguration Day, the media embraced normalization. Those of us who had paid close attention to his campaign hatefests, not to mention his decades-long history of utter shamelessness and dishonor, found it difficult to buy into narratives about the weight of the office and institutional pressure obviating Trump’s ugliness.
The worst-case scenario, albeit easy to dismiss as a dystopian fever dream, had Trump as both grievous cause and symptom. America would have to survive ceding him the awesome power of the American Presidency, but even if we emerged intact, the forces that impelled his rise could succeed in perpetuating MAGA’s relevance past his time in office. What if a whole new political ecosystem of nihilist bottom-feeders emerged to pursue nothing but divisive chaos in the name of whatever narrative Fox/AM was serving up? Worst of all, what if such a sect consumed the GOP with nothing but servitude to Trump as its main priority? How could America possibly survive that? Fever dream indeed.
Witnessing House Republicans in full self-destruct mode mirrors Trump’s own rabid meltdown these days as he’s slowly but surely held to account for crimes his mutineers fully abetted. Make no mistake, while both cases may offer a certain degree of immediate karmic satisfaction, the danger to America only intensifies when seditionists have their backs to the wall. House Republicans were fond of saying how their circus to pick a Speaker last January was merely part and parcel of the “messy” process robust democracy sometimes necessitates. Nobody is saying that now.
The corpse of the McCarthy months now rots on the US Capitol steps.
The corpse of the McCarthy months now rots on the US Capitol steps
It lies where an insurrection occurred, a national tragedy he spared no effort to whitewash, at the behest of those who ultimately toppled him.
Meanwhile, the country is now left to absorb another unprecedented desecration of its national brand of governance. A brand that once was the envy of the world, but now appears mortally wounded, just another chapter in a cautionary tale of how democracies can perish. BC
It’s very hard to overstate the ignominy of Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow. Nine months of pointless intrigue and legislative futility came to its inevitable conclusion, sooner rather than later. It now seems fair to conclude McCarthy never had a plan heading into his doomed speakership. From the start he acted as though obtaining the gavel was the end itself, like finally winning the Masters after years of grinding on the PGA tour, a crowning achievement to a career ambition, a purely personal odyssey divorced from any larger calling. When he avoided round 16 it was a conclusion, not a start. Self-service instead of public service.
When McCarthy finally did emerge victorious from last January’s chaos and accepted the gavel, he observed that US governance is “built on checks and balances” and that it was “time to be the check and provide some balance.” In retrospect, that admonition leaves no doubt he fully understood that the nihilists intended only to obstruct and were never going to take yes for an answer. When he accepted their condition that only one of them would be required to call a vote for vacating the chair, anything bipartisan became an existential threat to his job security.
Thus, there were only two roads available to travel. One was the MAGA mire of demonizing Democrats, proceeding on the delusion he enjoyed a 35-seat vote cushion the “Red Wave” never delivered last November instead of the 5-seat micro-majority Republicans actually eked out. The other was Reality Avenue, selling to the GOP rank and file the common sense conclusion his 15-round ordeal confirmed. Reaching across the aisle would be necessary to, not only govern but develop some minimum level of trust to fall back on when zombie provocateurs like Gaetz inevitably decided to preen for Steve Bannon and call to dismiss him. Otherwise, a tiny subset of malcontents could end things in one vote. The numbers offered no other option.
It’s now clear the House Speaker followed the first playbook until its certain failure promised either global economic catastrophe (failing to raise the debt ceiling) or domestic political self-immolation (shutting down the government.) He would tell Gaetz, Norman, Luna, Roy, Perry, et al that he was all in with their intransigence and seek to toss them raw meat whenever possible, even if it required mind-boggling hypocrisy and abject humiliation. Sham impeachment inquiries without a vote and once near-unanimous defense appropriations measures he couldn’t even pass an open debate on, that is McCarthy’s legacy.
Sham impeachment inquiries without a vote and once near-unanimous defense appropriations measures he couldn’t even pass an open debate on, that is McCarthy’s legacy.
Dan Balz, the elder statesman of Washington political reporters, today wrote in his infuriatingly understated manner that Matt Gaetz embodies “the worst of performative politics, which have come to typify this era.” That’s way too banal an assessment, and only half true… McCarthy is cut from the same cloth as Gaetz; they are two of a kind. As Maryland’s Jaime Raskin, a Democratic leader who has been on the front lines challenging MAGA sedition while undergoing chemotherapy, put it yesterday when asked why Democrats didn’t prop up McCarthy during his hour of need, “I don’t distinguish that sharply between Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz.”
Political talking heads trot out every take under the sun to explain how we got to this new nadir in our national story. But as with most tragic sagas, to adequately appreciate the latest development, you have to revisit the beginning. That means recalling one of America’s darkest days, the first Tuesday of November 2016.
That trauma will remain a vivid memory until I go into the dirt, that moment I realized Trump would win the Presidency.
That trauma will remain a vivid memory until I go into the dirt, that moment I realized Trump would win the Presidency.
It was 10:00 PM, well into election night, and Hillary Clinton was struggling in Virginia, a state she was supposed to have clinched before supper was served. Suddenly all of the unsettling signs of the last days leading up to the election coalesced into a shocking realization; if Clinton couldn’t win Virginia, none of the pre-vote metrics had been close to accurate. All bets were off. It was Xanax time.
In the weeks leading up to Trump’s Inauguration Day, the media embraced normalization. Those of us who had paid close attention to his campaign hatefests, not to mention his decades-long history of utter shamelessness and dishonor, found it difficult to buy into narratives about the weight of the office and institutional pressure obviating Trump’s ugliness.
The worst-case scenario, albeit easy to dismiss as a dystopian fever dream, had Trump as both grievous cause and symptom. America would have to survive ceding him the awesome power of the American Presidency, but even if we emerged intact, the forces that impelled his rise could succeed in perpetuating MAGA’s relevance past his time in office. What if a whole new political ecosystem of nihilist bottom-feeders emerged to pursue nothing but divisive chaos in the name of whatever narrative Fox/AM was serving up? Worst of all, what if such a sect consumed the GOP with nothing but servitude to Trump as its main priority? How could America possibly survive that? Fever dream indeed.
Witnessing House Republicans in full self-destruct mode mirrors Trump’s own rabid meltdown these days as he’s slowly but surely held to account for crimes his mutineers fully abetted. Make no mistake, while both cases may offer a certain degree of immediate karmic satisfaction, the danger to America only intensifies when seditionists have their backs to the wall. House Republicans were fond of saying how their circus to pick a Speaker last January was merely part and parcel of the “messy” process robust democracy sometimes necessitates. Nobody is saying that now.
The corpse of the McCarthy months now rots on the US Capitol steps.
The corpse of the McCarthy months now rots on the US Capitol steps
It lies where an insurrection occurred, a national tragedy he spared no effort to whitewash, at the behest of those who ultimately toppled him.
Meanwhile, the country is now left to absorb another unprecedented desecration of its national brand of governance. A brand that once was the envy of the world, but now appears mortally wounded, just another chapter in a cautionary tale of how democracies can perish. BC