The House GOP Is a Failed State - POLITICO
By: Donald Trump (POLITICO)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Column | Altitude
The House GOP Is a Failed State
Kevin McCarthy's ouster is dramatic evidence, if redundant, about the state of the modern GOP.
At the start, Kevin McCarthy's speakership was effectively an optical illusion. At the end, it was an exercise in self-abasement. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
John Harris is founding editor and global editor-in-chief of POLITICO. His Altitude column offers a regular perspective on politics in a moment of radical disruption.
Back in January, when Kevin McCarthy started moving his stuff into the House speaker's office before colleagues had actually voted him into the job, Matt Gaetz accused him of being "a squatter."
That is the kind of raucous insult for which Gaetz has demonstrated special fluency. But give the Florida Republican his due: Squatter turned out to be a perfectly apt description of the now-former House speaker.
For nine months, McCarthy had the title and the gavel and a Capitol suite with a nice view. But he never really held the office of speaker in anything like the historic meaning of that job. He never inspired fear. He sought favor from GOP colleagues — 210 of whom actually stayed with him until the end — but he had scant influence to bestow favors in return. He wasn't associated with any particular governing idea.
At the start, his speakership was effectively an optical illusion. At the end, it was an exercise in self-abasement.
The main consolation is that he has plenty of company. For a quarter-century, every Republican to ascend to the speakership has descended from it with his standing diminished. It's a line that travels from Newt Gingrich to Dennis Hastert to John Boehner to Paul Ryan to McCarthy.
A lot about the times in general, and the GOP in particular, has changed in the decades since Gingrich and his self-proclaimed "revolutionaries" roared into power in the 1994 elections. He was shooed from the speakership four years later by GOP colleagues who had grown tired of his rap and mounting evidence that voters felt the same way. But a pattern was set that has endured long past Gingrich.
McCarthy's ouster is dramatic evidence, if redundant, about the state of the modern GOP. A party that used to have an instinctual orientation toward authority and order — Democrats fall in love, went the old chestnut, while Republicans fall in line — is now animated by something akin to nihilism. The politics of contempt so skillfully exploited by Donald Trump is turned inward on hapless would-be leaders like McCarthy with no less ferocity than it is turned outward on liberals and the media.
The GOP dissenters who joined Democrats in evicting McCarthy professed to be concerned about controlling spending, and some surely are genuine about that. In the case of Gaetz, the ringleader, it is clear the dispute is primarily about personal animus, not ideology. He wanted McCarthy's antlers on the wall of his rec room, and he got them. Needless to say, there are many Republicans who are now hunting for him.
And, yet, in the nihilistic spirit of the age, it is worth asking of these intraparty feuds: Who cares? Certainly, in McCarthy's case, it is far from obvious that anyone should care that much. He simply never made the case for being consequential.
With a go-along personality that many colleagues found sufficiently agreeable, he did not cut a large public profile of the sort cultivated by Gingrich or even a former vice-presidential nominee like Ryan. Perhaps under different circumstances he might have governed the House like Hastert, who projected a bland and impassive exterior while the real deal-making was carried out with ruthless precision by Rep. Tom DeLay, who eventually left the House amid ethical and legal storms. (Hastert came to grief and went to prison, only after leaving the speakership, when he was convicted of financial offenses related to his sexual abuse of teenage boys.) McCarthy didn't draw interest in his political dramas in the fashion of John Boehner, whose chain-smoking and merlot-quaffing habits suggested an old-style coalition-building pol who found himself lost in an angry new age.
Most of all, McCarthy showed his malleable core on the paramount question of Republican politics, or for that matter all American politics: Where do you stand on Trump?
"I've had it with this guy," McCarthy sputtered to colleagues after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, saying he would push Trump to resign immediately. McCarthy denied news reports that he had ever said this, until my colleagues Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin revealed in their book, This Will Not Pass, that they had the moment unambiguously on tape.
No matter, McCarthy soon enough was reliably back in the Trump fold, and Trump was unreliably and indifferently in the McCarthy fold.
If so, however, Trump didn't put much passion into it. Many people believe the former president has the instincts of an authoritarian. Authoritarians, however, generally prefer order and discipline. Trump has shown no sign that he cares much about the ostentatious disorder and indiscipline of the House. Certainly he didn't try to marshal support for the man he calls, in cuddly moods, "my Kevin."
The House GOP now resembles a failed state. The party elects leaders with no capacity to lead members who have no interest in being led. McCarthy is like one of the succession of short-lived Soviet leaders who followed the long reign of Leonid Brezhnev, before the radical disruption of Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War.
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Goetz looks disturbingly like a mixture of Mr. Spock and Mr. Rodgers.... It is burning holes in my brain.
“Goetz looks disturbingly like a mixture of Mr. Spock and Mr. Rodgers....”
With none of Spock’s logic and none of Roger’s soul. An opportunist with nothing to show but what promises to be a sad, bad, mad legacy.
Nice hair though.
I think that Goetz is an idiot but it has nothing to do with his appearance.
I Agree. I saw the picture and that was the first (innocuous) thing that popped into my brain.
He is too awful for me to get those respected names anywhere near Goetz
Democrats voted in lock step with the Freedom Caucus and Matt Gaetz. No Democrat dissented against Matt Gaetz.
A majority of Republicans voted against the move to oust McCarthy. Democrats did not vote against the move by Matt Gaetz. Democrats, led by Hakeem Jeffries, deliberately refused to govern. So, Democrats are actually worse than the GOP.
Are you denying the fact that Democrats voted in lock step with Matt Gaetz to vacate the speaker's chair? Democrats rigged the outcome to score cheap political points. Democrats refused to govern.
The clock is ticking until the government shuts down. And Biden can kiss Kiev goodbye. But Jefferies gets to stand in front of the reporters and sound like Chuck Schumer.
You gotta figure out a way to get a grip man.
This is just a convoluted attempt by the right to force Dems to look like their bitch. It failed, because of course it would.
Matt Gaetz could not remove McCarthy without help from Democrats. The overwhelming majority of Republicans voted to keep McCarthy. McCarthy working with Democrats to keep the government open was not a problem for the majority of Republicans in the House.
Democrats also punished McCarthy for working with Democrats to keep the government open. So, how is this supposed work if another Speaker is elected? Does this mean Democrats are opposed to bipartisanship?
McCarthy was weak, unpopular, publicly accusatory and inflammatory towards democrats at large. Why would they feel any obligation whatsoever to support this pathetic excuse for a leader? Blaming democrats for Republican dysfunction is a new level of ignorance.
And Democrats joined forces with the Freedom Caucus to punish Kevin McCarthy. Democrats got what Democrats wanted.
Democrats were on the winning side. That's how Democrats voted.
Nobody joined anyone. They voted how they were always going to vote, because of the reasons I stated. It’s the job of republicans to not cut off their own head, not the job of democrats to run to the rescue of an openly hostile and hopelessly fractured Republican Party.
You're telling us Democrats got exactly what Democrats wanted.
A handful of Republicans didn't want McCarthy as speaker. The entire Democrat conference didn't want McCarthy as speaker. Democrats exploited an opportunity to get exactly what Democrats wanted. The vote speaks for itself. Why aren't Democrats taking credit for playing Republicans to get what Democrats wanted?
If it were up to the Democrats McCarthy would still be Speaker. None of them were going to bring a motion to vacate the Speaker's chair.
That is obviously false. Every democrat voted against McCarthy.
They are going to wish they had supported him.
LOL.
Go back 72 hours, to the moments just before Gaetz introduced his motion to vacate. At that moment what were the chances the Democrats would try to remove McCarthy? Zero. What were the chances Republicans would try to remove McCarthy? As we found out shortly thereafter, 100%.
McCarthy wasnt removed by the Democrats, he was removed by the Republicans he placated and catered to and they stabbed him in the back.
I'll make this plain - no Democrat wanted McCarthy to be kicked out until after the idea was put in motion by Republicans. The Democrats are the not the cause of his removal.
It was up to Democrats. If Democrats wanted McCarthy they could have kept McCarthy. Democrats chose to vote with the Freedom Caucus to remove McCarthy. That wasn't an accidental vote by Democrats.
So you are arguing Democrats are mentally disabled? The evidence is adding up between not understanding how voting works, thinking fire alarms open doors....
lol.
No Democrats wanted McCarthy removed until after Republicans initiated it. You can howl at the moon all you want .
He was. He worked with them, and they screwed him because they prefer chaos for the Republicans over integrity, even when it will ultimately bite them in the ass.
If Democrats wanted McCarthy as speaker, he would be. It would have taken 10 "present" votes.
McCarthy killed himself. When the bill to fund the gov’t was released, McCarthy wouldn’t give Democrats any time to read it. Dems had to employ silly delaying tactics to get two hours to read the bill. McCarthy went on TV charging that the Dems wanted a shutdown when the Dems voted almost unanimously for each funding version that came along. McCarthy made a deal with Biden on spending and then backed out after Biden signed it. McCarthy promised a floor vote on the ludicrous impeachment inquiry - which would have stopped it cold because sufficient Republicans votes for it don’t exist. McCarthy rightly blamed Trump for J6, but then voted not to certify the election. McCarthy is not worthy of any trust whatsoever. The Dems rightly buzzed him out; next contestant.
No....it's on record that Hakeem Jeffries told the House Dems to vote as a bloc to remove McCarthy.
They wanted chaos with the Republicans. They got it but I think they will pay for it in the end.
McCarthy had just reached across the aisle to work with democrats to avoid a shutdown. This is why Gaetz killed him. The dems just went along for the ride.
Exactly, going along for the ride was better than driving for a national answer.
Democrats did not rescue McCarthy for one overriding reason. A few of them even spelled it out on cable news.
This is what caused Democrats to let McCarthy go down
In the shadow of Jan 6th McCarthy went to Maralago and licked Trump's boots. Bad move.
Well, then, Democrats got exactly what Democrats wanted. Democrats voted to remove McCarthy as speaker. The Freedom Caucus and Matt Gaetz could not remove McCarthy without help from Democrats. McCarthy wasn't removed by accident.
I guess the Democrats dont like licking the boots of traitors.
It has always been the case for the left to simply call their opponents the worst names they could think of.
Don't Republicans have the spine to respond the way William F Buckley so famously did?
Saying Trump is a traitor is not name calling, it is objective fact.