Kevin McCarthy’s career is a master class in how not to do politics. McCarthy was touted as one of the “young guns” of the Republican party, along with Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Eric Cantor was defeated in the 2014 primary, in what was touted as an historic defeat, and lost to a Tea Party candidate. Paul Ryan cratered under Trump, and McCarthy just became the first party leader to lose a floor vote for speaker in 100 years.
As Charlie Sykes puts it, “These guys were once the party’s future. Now they are just footnotes and road-kill.”
Tragic but true. This was the direction that the GOP was headed before the Tea Party unbalanced it and Trump out and out toppled it. And on some subliminal level, the bloodletting of McCarthy is an acting out against Trump.
What's interesting is that some complaints about McCarthy from the 20 are regarding votes KM made during Trump's presidency, on spending bills Trump and his team negotiated. So their complaints truly are about Trump, couched in criticism of McCarthy. They hope no one notices.
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) January 4, 2023
If this is true, then it means that the GOP is dumping Trump by proxy. And that makes a kind of sense. The GOP was terrified of Trump. I’m sure that more than one or two of them regretting voting to protect him but did so because they felt that their own survival depended on it.
They weren’t willing or able to confront Trump directly but they can rip McCarthy apart with impunity.
Either way you cut it, this is not a healthy way to run a party. It looks like some kind of a compromise Speaker is going to be voted on, unless McCarthy just wants to drag out this bloodletting of his for days. If he has any sense, he’ll call it a wash today. If he lets this drag into tomorrow, it’s only going to worsen things.
Bob Good has said he’ll happily sit there as long as necessary. On a realistic level, the 45 freshman members of Congress have family in town, there to see them sworn in, and they can’t sit around waiting day after day, week after week. McCarthy needs to just give up the ghost.
Not much fun being the political scapegoat, eh, Kevin?
McCarthy feels the speakership is “owed” him.
Kinda how Hillary felt about the presidency in 2016 and we all know how that turned out.
He don’t wanna know what he and the rest of his loser party are actually “owed”.
It’s attitudes like yours that led us to the disaster that was Trump, so just eff off, ‘mkay?
Clinton suffered a quarter century of right-wing hate and spite and morons like you fed into the whole thing. Then again, a worthless INDEPENDENT politician (who–by the way–had entered Congress before Hillary Clinton came on the scene) should have bothered to JOIN THE PARTY HE WANTED TO LEAD and a whole bunch of “independent” jackasses who wanted to choose the Democratic Party’s nominee should’ve bothered to register as Democrats in states that have such a requirement to vote in a PARTY’S primary.
Speaking as someone who has all the same problems with Not-So-Saint Bernard, Joseph, I would rather focus on the here and now. Because in the here and now, the Dems are more unified than ever and Republicans are being what they accused us of.
McCarthy actually said “I’ve earned it”. Uh, no. Being a weak, ass kissing sycophant to an orange painted p.ssy grabber and turning your back on Democracy is not earning you anything but walking papers.
I don’t think Gaetz and Boebert are trying to shake tfg but maybe the rest of the GOP is grateful to them for helping can McCarthy, who they feel (know) they have to vote for even though he’s a lily-livered wimp.
It might also come from a royalist streak you saw a lot in the old pre-Trump GOP. To wit, you got the shot if it was your time, regardless of whether you were any good at the work. Another layer of McCarthy’s delusion if so.