Kevin McCarthy’s Only Hope Not To Be Cucked By Crazies Is Democratic Votes
If McCarthy wasn’t a moron, he’d throw away the Hastert Rule and start making deals with Democrats who aren’t bad faith, QAnon loonies.
Kevin McCarthy is living a Greek tragedy as House Republicans flounder in disarray with radical Freedom Caucus members threatening to deprive him votes for Speaker of the House, in stark contrast with the very unified House Democrats who just traded out their leadership team with no drama whatsoever.
The Freedom Caucus threat to vote against McCarthy, or not even vote at all, which McCarthy has recently warned could lead to a hilarious situation where Democrats could elect the speaker of the House despite being the minority because a speaker only needs a majority of the votes cast, is basically a game of chicken until January when the new House is seated.
Interpreting the gods’ machinations, McCarthy might be struggling due to his hubris of selling his soul sucking up to Donald Trump and flip-flopping on impeaching Trump for the January 6th coup attempt, ignoring and excusing virtually all the pyrrhic radicalism in the Freedom Caucus for years, and doing and saying virtually anything to appease the House’s most idiotic zealots to become Speaker of the House.
Yet, despite McCarthy’s resigned lack of principle, backbone, confidence or self-worth, the Freedom Caucus doesn’t think he’s conservative enough or partisan enough to fight against Democrats.
The most extreme House Freedom Caucus members already revolted against a McCarthy speakership once before, back in 2015 before settling on a reluctant Paul Ryan, but, now that Republicans hold an ultra-thin majority, McCarthy is desperately trying to make deals with these proverbial Freedom Caucus devils.
The devils are Representatives Andy Biggs (AZ), who ran against McCarthy for speaker, Matt Gaetz (FL), Ralph Norman (SC) and Bob Good (VA). All four have said they’re going to vote no on McCarthy. Meanwhile, Reps Matt Rosendale (MT), Chip Roy (TX), Clay Higgins (LA), Scott Perry (PA), Andrew Clyde (GA), Barry Moore (AL), have expressed having open minds for potential McCarthy challengers.
The deals thus far include giving Marjorie Taylor Greene back her committee assignments, ousting several Democrats from their committee assignments in revenge, ignoring all their campaign promises to fix the border and fight inflation in order to launch round-the-clock investigations into Hunter Biden, impeaching Biden officials and likely Biden himself, ending the COVID voting-by-proxy practice, and ending the Capitol’s January 6th-related visitor limitations while removing the House chamber’s metal detectors. So it might be unknown who on the House floor is secretly carrying a gun on them daily. What could go wrong?
The most wild deal some Freedom Caucus members are pushing for is a rule that any member at any time can submit a motion to remove the speaker, which would basically mean that McCarthy’s speakership would be held hostage every day with every decision he makes. There have been some suggested side-deals, that perhaps McCarthy would get a grace period without any removal motions, or a specified length of time would be required between repeat motions for removal, but the sentiment remains that McCarthy, if he gets voted speaker, will be only barely clinging to his speakership and waking up every day dependent on sucking up to the GOP’s most destructively partisan bomb-throwing ideologues for their grudgingly tepid support.
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin… It’s a bit masochistic that he even wants the job. The Freedom Caucus made his Republican predecessors John Boehner and Paul Ryan so miserable they both resigned after making deals of bare minimum governance with Democrats and then entirely abandoned Congressional politics.
But as much fun as it is to bathe politically in the schadenfreude of McCarthy’s bungling opportunism and political submissiveness, it’s obvious a Speaker McCarthy will have no control over his House members, and our government will grind to a halt on its most basic civic responsibilities as McCarthy is blackmailed into ceaseless bad-faith efforts to push America toward all kinds of fiscal cliffs, government shutdowns, pointless and meritless Biden impeachments, and self-destructive displays of QAnon-adjacent, MAGA delusions.
And if McCarthy can’t become speaker, who else could possibly get the votes? House Republicans are so politically rudderless they might embarrass themselves being unable to accomplish the first order of business in merely electing a Republican caucus leader. There are enough Freedom Caucus zealots to derail every bit of House business, but they’re not a majority, and could never elect their own speaker. January might be a wild month for Republicans!
Which is why I have a clever suggestion for McCarthy that John Boehner would heartily support in public, and Paul Ryan might even support in private: tell the radical Freedom Caucus members to go fuck themselves, and negotiate with Democrats for their votes for speaker and to keep the government running and addressing America’s problems.
This would essentially be a political surgery to cut out the cancer that is the GOP’s radicalism that has metastasized from anti-Obama hysteria to MAGA ethno-nationalism to full on QAnon lunacy, but it’s much needed after a decade and a half of our governmental paralysis.
It would also make McCarthy’s job much easier as Speaker because Democrats argue, debate, compromise, and agree in good faith, whereas the Freedom Caucus and Trump’s most loyal House lackeys participate in bad faith on almost every issue. They also have no real principles except accumulating power no matter the means used to obtain it, and are willing to upend life-long values and political positions with one impulsive Trump tweet. You can’t negotiate with House members for whom political gridlock and stasis is their goal. If McCarthy sticks with just GOP votes for every piece of business before the House, his job to keep Republicans unified will be harder than wrangling feral cats.
Back in the 2017–2018 Congressional session, Republicans were already incapable of coming together to repeal Obamacare, agree on an infrastructure deal, reform immigration, actually fix the border, and pretty much every other issue save helping rich people pay less in taxes, despite having the presidency, House and Senate! Four years later of moderate Republicans retiring because of Trumpism and GOP primaries picking anti-establishment bomb-throwing replacements, Republicans are not going to be MORE agreeable now.
So if Kevin McCarthy wasn’t a moron, he’d realize the extreme blackhole gravity of stupid and sabotage emanating from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, et al, and he’d throw away the Hastert Rule, with which the Republican Speaker of the House refuses to bring up a bill for a vote that doesn’t have a majority of support from the GOP majority. If McCarthy wants to do anything worthwhile in the next two years, he’s going to need Democratic votes. Over and over.
Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Republicans lose another election? They already lost the popular vote in 2016, lost the House in 2018, lost the Senate and Presidency in 2020, suffered an utter blowout of their expected and historically favored “Red Wave” midterm in 2022, and just lost one more Senate race in Georgia as a cherry on top. Even Lauren Boebert so narrowly won her safe Republican seat that it’s going to an automatic recount. McCarthy humiliating himself on a daily basis giving in to the House’s dumbest political extremists is not a winning strategy for himself, the party, or the country.
So Kevin, take my advice. If you want to be a consequential Speaker in any way, you must neuter the radicalism in your House delegation. If you give the Freedom Caucus the power to kick you out of the speakership at any moment of their choosing, and continue to give lip service promoting the GOP’s political terrorists while continuing to stay utterly silent on all of Donald Trump’s and MAGA world’s surrealist fascism, you’re going to be the biggest cuck in House history watching your every hope, dream, and legacy goal as speaker get spectacularly ratfucked.
Fox News won’t save you, the coward moderates in your party won’t defend you, and Donald Trump will throw you to the MAGA wolves the second he views you as a liability or realizes you can’t keep him out of prison, no matter how much you dance for him with your jellyfish spinelessness.
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