[If you think the crisis of American democracy is over, the circus
in the House should remind you that a significant portion of the
Republican Party has no interest in governing, policy, or democracy
itself. ]
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THE GOP-SPEAKER-VOTE BURLESQUE  
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Tom Nichols
January 4, 2023
The Atlantic
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_ If you think the crisis of American democracy is over, the circus
in the House should remind you that a significant portion of the
Republican Party has no interest in governing, policy, or democracy
itself. _

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks after a
closed-door meeting Tuesday morning with the GOP conference as he
pursues the speaker of the House., Alex Brandon/AP

 

Watching the messy filleting of Representative Kevin McCarthy’s
career (and ego) over the past 24 hours has been undeniably
entertaining, not least because the representative from California
deserves it. McCarthy, a dull creature of the Beltway, tried to pander
his way to power. Much like his lieutenant, Representative Elise
Stefanik
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New York, he sold his soul to Donald Trump’s movement and expected
loyalty in return. (Trump endorsed him for the job, but for a moment
seemed to have second thoughts
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backing a loser.) Ambition and opportunism are common among
politicians, but McCarthy took it to new levels. He even sorted
Trump’s favorite Starburst candies so that the “Toddler in
Chief”
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avoid the icky yellows and oranges. (I am not making this up
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Maybe Stefanik and other grovelers deserve such a comeuppance even
more, but McCarthy has built up a serious karmic debt. He once preened
as one of the self-appointed GOP “Young Guns
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the trio of conservative up-and-comers who were going to lead a
practical and policy-oriented Republican Party to a governing
majority. Reality quickly intervened: Cantor was turfed in a 2014
primary by a Tea Party flash in the pan named Dave Brat, who was
defeated in 2018 by an actual centrist Democrat, Abigail Spanberger.
Ryan suffered through two terms as speaker before boarding the John
Boehner
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Pod and bailing out of politics. McCarthy stayed and made the
compromises he thought he had to make, which is how he ended up
sorting candy with his staff.

As I said
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my friend Charlie Sykes yesterday, if there is such a thing as Narcan
for schadenfreude, I’ll need to keep it handy if McCarthy is
actually defeated once and for all in his quest for the House’s top
job. But McCarthy’s misery is secondary to the real story behind the
hijinks of the Republican defectors tormenting their own leader.
McCarthy and others have asked what the rebels want—but they do not
understand that the rebels have no tangible goals. A significant part
of the Republican Party, and especially its base, now lives in a
post-policy world. Governing is nothing. The show is everything.

As I was writing this, Representative Chip Roy of Texas proved that
the play’s the thing by nominating Byron Donalds for the
speakership. Who? Donalds is a 44-year-old Republican first elected to
the House in 2020. I’m guessing Roy nominated him simply to counter
the nomination of Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic
caucus, with that of another Black legislator. Roy even made a
cringe-inducing speech, complete with a Martin Luther King Jr. quote,
about the wondrousness of two young Black men vying for the
speakership. It’s great television, right?

Unfortunately for McCarthy, it’s also great television to see the
GOP leader lose his fourth vote for speaker, which he did in short
order, with the same 20 votes for Jordan moving over to Donalds. The
fifth and sixth defeats followed in quick succession.

The inane Kabuki taking place around McCarthy’s job isn’t really
about debt ceilings or abortion or Ukraine—or anything else. If you
think Lauren Boebert or Matt Gaetz or Andy Biggs are possessed of deep
thoughts about any of these issues, you have already made the same
mistake that brought McCarthy to this impasse. Gaetz’s big idea in
politics is that—according to a Trump aide’s testimony to the
House Select Committee on January 6—he should be given a blanket
pardon
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things he swears he didn’t do. (Gaetz has denied asking for the
pardon.) Biggs is the high-minded Cincinnatus who suggested that the
January 6 riots could be blamed on the FBI
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Boebert ran a gun-themed restaurant
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in Colorado and often says things that lead to debates not over
policy, but over whether she is the most ignorant person
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sitting in Congress.

What all of these GOP members do seem to have in common is a shared
belief that they should be in Congress in order to make other people
miserable. Usually, those “other people” are Democrats and various
people on the generic right-wing enemies list, but lately, the targets
include the few remaining Republicans who think their job in
Washington is to legislate and pass bills and other boring twaddle
that has nothing to do with keeping the hometown folks in a lather,
getting on television, and getting reelected.

Note, by the way, that the conspiracy-minded Marjorie Taylor Greene
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a perennial nominee for, shall we say, the least intellectually
incisive member of Congress—is backing McCarthy. Indeed, Greene and
Boebert are now in a political slap fight with each other. Both women
are playing to the same base, but Boebert’s district is far less
safe than Greene’s, and so, as Ed Kilgore wrote
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“it makes sense for her to pick a fight with Greene, or with one of
Greene’s famously batshit bits of commentary.” Greene, meanwhile,
can aim for more power by backing McCarthy. This would also explain
McCarthy’s support from Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who slyly
went to the floor to argue for electing McCarthy and then watched as
McCarthy failed yet again because 19 votes were cast for—wait for
it—Jim Jordan.

This is the best of all worlds for someone like Jordan, one of the
most irresponsible members of Congress, who thinks his job as a
legislator is to show up at hearings and Gish gallop the proceedings
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chaos. He gets to support McCarthy and look like a team player, and
then, no matter what happens, get the job he wants: chair of the House
Judiciary Committee, where he likely intends to investigate Hunter
Biden and impeach the president.

The Republican rebellion is rooted in a giant inferiority complex: We
know we’re not popular, we know a lot of people think we’re jerks,
but we’ll show everyone that we can paralyze
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country and its institutions using the machinery of government.
Democracy, process, lawmaking, and governing? All of that is for saps;
doing it is how you end up becoming Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan. The GOP
rebels have every intention of staying in Washington and staying in
power—even if “power” amounts to little more than sitting in the
wreckage of the Capitol and keeping warm by burning the furniture. Win
or lose, McCarthy never had a chance at being a true master of the
House.

_Tom Nichols is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of
the Peacefield newsletter
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the Atlantic Daily newsletter
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* Kevin McCarthy
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* speaker of the house
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* Radical Right
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* congressional meltdown
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