Well, friends, if you were wondering where the limit was for mediocre white men failing upwards, we now know that (for at least one of them), and the answer is 269 days. That’s how long Kevin McCarthy was allowed to be the Speaker of the House. By comparison, previous Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s tenure was best measured in years (8, in fact). The nicest thing anyone can say about McCarthy’s short time at the top was that he outlasted the trash-tastical HBO show run of The Idol. It’s important to note that this is the first time a Speaker of the House has been removed from their position by Congress, so, you know, someone should give him a participation award for that!
Are you ever out in public and you become an unwilling outside observer to a clearly dysfunctional group, usually a family, melting down over nothing and everything all at once? I was at a dive bar about a year ago, and within the span of 10 minutes, I saw a husband and wife go from fighting and threatening each other to dancing lovingly to full-on screaming about some perceived slight from long ago. All the while trying to get me to participate in every interaction they had with each other. I obviously declined because it was clear a physical altercation was on the table, and they both looked like they could fight dirty. I bring this up because this is the current state of the Republican Party: Melting down, fighting over nothing, and the rest of the world is awkwardly standing to the side wondering what’s the inflection point that requires outside intervention.
I could sit here and worry about what this means for the state of political affairs in America, but you know what? Donald Trump is still running for president, so I spend enough time worrying about that. Today is a day to just marvel and laugh because Kevin McCarthy is a partisan hack who was hoisted by his own petard. He made a deal with the devil to gain power (in this case the devil’s name is Matt Gaetz), promising they could always call a vote to remove him from the speakership. It backfired spectacularly on him because wouldn’t you know, they called a vote to remove him. It’s all so dumb, and it’s clear the plan to oust McCarthy by Gaetz and the other MAGA extremists went something like: 1) oust McCarthy, 2) ?????, 3) profit. This was not a well-thought-out plan! Take for example this quote from The New York Times:
“Representative Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina, says that his party needs to move quickly to vote find a new speaker. “Who that speaker is I have no idea,” Mr. Norman said, noting a number names have been floated. He added, “Since we only have a four-seat majority, we’ve got to stick together, and that’s gonna be the dilemma — that we’ll have to come up with somebody that’s a conservative and somebody who will do what they say.”
It should be noted that Norman did not vote to remove McCarthy, that honor belongs to eight far-right dummies. The Democrats, unlike the Republicans, voted in a bloc to remove McCarthy, leaving Republicans to clean up their own mess. A shrewder politician would have probably tried to bargain with the Dems to keep his speakership by offering concessions, but McCarthy just isn’t that smart. Per the above source:
“The eight Republicans who voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker were Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Matt Rosendale of Montana.”
The New York Times
Look, you know it’s the Repubs in disarray when even Marjorie Taylor Greene is out there saying “we goofed” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯:
“On the question of a successor, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia and a McCarthy ally, says she is unsure who, if anyone, could gain the approval of enough House Republicans to win the gavel. “No one has the support in the conference like Kevin McCarthy does,” Greene told reporters.”
The New York Times
How sad is it when your best option for leadership is the guy who just got fired from the role?! Man, if that doesn’t summarize the Republican party in a nutshell, I don’t know what does.
So where does everything stand, you might be wondering?
There is a new interim Speaker of the House, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who tried to blame Democrats for his party’s implosion while angrily slamming the gavel like he’s playing whack-a-mole. He’ll stay in that position until a new leader is elected, but, uh, I don’t see how that happens anytime soon. It took 15 votes just to confirm McCarthy the first time. It is my sincere hope that Matt Gaetz nominates himself so that we can see more in-fighting on the House floor. At this point we’re already a laughing stock for the rest of the world, might as well lean into the Jerry Springer-ness of it all.
Unfortunately, the one person I want to hear from was absent from the vote today. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is in California today mourning her friend, former Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died last week. You’ll recall that McCarthy made nasty comments about hitting Pelosi with the Speaker’s gavel once he was elected to the position last year. Funnily enough, the most likely thing to be hitting anyone right now in Congress is the door to the leadership offices on McCarthy’s ass as he moves out.
So here’s what happens next, according to The New York Times, and time is a-ticking:
“A vacancy in the speaker’s chair essentially paralyzes the House until a successor is chosen, according to multiple procedural experts. That promises to incite another potentially messy speaker election at a time when Congress has just over 40 days to avert a government shutdown.”
McCarthy could very well try to regain the Speaker position again. The Democrats may be deciding if it’s worth it to get a few Republicans to cross party lines and vote with them in order to gain control of the House (highly unlikely, but stranger things have happened.) And I’m sure Matt Gaetz is out there pretending to be his own personal assistant, booking as many right-wing talk shows as he possibly can and milking his supporters for donations.
The fact of the matter is, the Republicans have about 40 days to get their s*** together, elect a Speaker, and come up with a budget that will pass the Democrat-controlled Senate and be signed by President Biden. If they don’t, the government shuts down. That’s not a lot of time, now is it?
(featured image: Alex Wong/Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
Published: Oct 3, 2023 07:27 pm