Republican Dysfunction is Here to Stay

The only thing that defined Kevin McCarthy was his ambition to be Speaker of the House at any cost and to achieve that goal he empowered some of the most extreme and loathsome members of the Republican caucus.  Not surprisingly, these elements turned on McCarthy like a pack of rabid dogs and McCarthy now has the distinction of being the first Speaker  to be thrown out of the Speakership by his own party.  More frightening for the country is the reality that the House is controlled by a Republican Party that is unwilling and incapable of governing.  Rather than pass legislation that moves forward the interests and well being of the nation and its citizens, we have seen bill after bill introduced in a form of performance legislation that thrills extreme elements of the GOP/MAGA base and which have no chance of passage in the Senate much less broad public support.  Scoring points with the party base and issuing catchy one liners is the main obsession of the renegade elements of the House GOP.  Whoever ultimately replaces McCarthy likely has little chance of success and the nation will be forced to witness unending GOP incompetence and petulance while Democrats stand by as the only adults in the room.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the spectacle.  Here are highlights: 

“The Office of Speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant,” the presiding officer, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), announced after the 216-210 vote to oust McCarthy.

From the front row of the gallery, I heard gasps from the floor. And then, from the Republican side of the chamber, a lone woman’s voice: “Now what?”

McCarthy, whose only evident ideology as speaker had been personal ambition, has secured his place in history: the only speaker in U.S. history to be voted out by his peers. His chaotic nine months in the job was the shortest tenure since that of Michael C. Kerr in 1876, as the Bulwark’s Tim Miller pointed out. But Kerr’s speakership ended because he died of tuberculosis. McCarthy, by contrast, was knifed by his fellow Republicans.

This is why Tuesday’s events are much larger than McCarthy, for they made it clear, if there had been any doubt, that the Republican Party has lost the ability to govern.

McCarthy’s term began in chaos, with his 15 rounds of balloting. It lurched from crisis to manufactured crisis, with a needless debt ceiling showdown, failed votes and pulled bills on the floor, recriminations and name-calling in Republican caucus meetings, the launch of impeachment proceedings on fabricated charges, and last week’s near-shutdown of the government. Now, it is ending in chaos, with Republicans openly savaging each other on the House floor and all legislative functions ceasing while the majority party tries to pick its next leader.

Under continuity of government procedures — designed for terrorist decapitation of the government rather than partisan zealots offing their own speaker — a predesignated speaker pro tempore took temporary control of the house. That man, revealed to be Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), did the only thing he could. “It would be prudent to first recess,” he told the body, so that leaderless lawmakers could “meet and discuss the path forward.” The House won’t return for an entire week.

It doesn’t really matter who Republicans choose to replace McCarthy, who announced late Tuesday that he won’t run again. Nobody will succeed in that role because the party itself is ungovernable.

McCarthy’s final day as speaker proceeded like the others before it — in a leadership vacuum.

McCarthy would need some Democratic votes to keep the speakership. But he offered Democrats nothing for those votes. This sealed McCarthy’s fate. Democrats unified against McCarthy at their own caucus meeting, after which the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), made it official by saying it was up to Republicans alone “to end the House Republican Civil War.”

On the House floor, the Republican combatants seemed ill-equipped to defuse the latest crisis they had created. Indicted Rep. George Santos (N.Y.) lifted up his sweater to reveal to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) his SpongeBob SquarePants tie. Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) played with her infant grandson.

“We need a speaker who will fight for something — anything — besides just staying or becoming speaker,” said Rep. Bob Good (Va.), one of the rebels.

Republicans laughed, booed and heckled Gaetz as he spoke. Rep. Mike Garcia (Calif.) called the rebels “Republicans running with scissors and supported by Democrats.”

Rep. Tom McClintock (Calif.), warning of a “paralyzed” House, said, “Democrats will revel in Republican dysfunction and the public will rightly be repulsed.” Foreseeing “grave danger” to the country, he prayed: “Dear God, grant us the wisdom to see it.”

Gaetz (only Good and Rep. Andy Biggs joined his side in the debate) parried his GOP colleagues with one-liners. When Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) improbably claimed that “this Republican majority has exceeded all expectations,” Gaetz quipped: “If this House of Representatives has exceeded all expectations, then we definitely need higher expectations.”

Gaetz, with his arched eyebrows and slicked back hair, looks the part of a cartoon villain. He’s more of a street thug than a legislator, and in his seven years in Congress, he has done nothing but tear things down.

But this street thug made quick work of McCarthy. As the clerk called the roll, the doomed speaker, sitting in the same seat he occupied during January’s 15 ballots, could be seen sitting silently, staring straight ahead.

It’s just a matter of time until Gaetz — and the many others like him — render McCarthy’s successor a failure, too. This is all they know how to do.