Oh, what tangled webs
As we all know, yesterday House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in a motion to vacate. Eight Republicans, joined by all Democrats, voted out oust the erstwhile Speaker.
As with most things in life, it needn't have been like this.
McCarthy already knew that his days were numbered. His deal with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to prevent a government shutdown was pilloried by half of his caucus. And it was the opening that Matt Gaetz needed to offer up the motion to unseat him. Just like McCarthy went hat in hand to Jeffries to keep the lights on, he should have done so to keep his speakership.
And it turns out that Democrats did offer to save him in return for ironclad concessions. McCarthy spurned the offer, after he had spent the weekend blaming Democrats for the government almost shutting down, after the party provided the majority of the votes necessary to pass the continuing resolution. He didn't want to be beholden to Democrats, and thought he could see off the challenge. He gambled, and he lost.
McCarthy is a portrait in inadequacy. Why did he want the position in the first place? He has no vision. He has no moral compass. He wanted the speakership because, like many mediocre white men, he felt it was his due. That woman held the speakership. That black man was president for eight years. Him ascending to power was righting the ship, setting things back into their natural order.
The problem was: No one liked him. How he ascended to Minority Leader in the previous Congress was due mostly to no one else wanting the job. And the same happened with his ascent to the speakership. To acquire the gavel, he humiliated himself before the likes of Gaetz, giving them the power to dispense with him at a moment's notice. Perhaps he thought no one would have the guts to do it. Again, he gambled, and he lost.
He betrayed the rightists who pulled him over the line on the thirteenth ballot. He betrayed the Democrats with whom he made a deal just in May over the budget. He betrayed the Democrats again as his grip on power hung by a thread. He will go down in history as the most inept politician to occupy the Speaker's chair. And in the end it got him what he was always due: humiliation and rejection.
When you seek power for its own sake, eventually it will destroy you. Power with no purpose is simply a trinket, a bauble which someone will take from you. McCarthy is a man of no spine, of no scruples, and he suffered his ordained comeuppance.
Now one half of the legislature is adrift, leaderless, and with no promise of it getting resolved any time soon. As I type this Donald Trump's name has been put into nomination by at least two GOP members. The United States is the world's sole empire, and it is being governed as the most stereotypical of banana republics. This state of affairs cannot continue. It is imperative that we run the table in 2024 and consign the GOP to a long stint in the wilderness. Anything other than that and the dysfunction will grow, and the damage will take more work to repair.
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