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Unwilling to govern “Kevin McCarthy just found out in the hardest way possible that Nancy Pelosi only made it look easy,” Charlotte Clymer posted at Bluesky. “Backwards, and in high heels,” replied Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel). If House Republicans ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday was too abstruse a sign that they cannot govern like adults, bowtied Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, now speaker pro tempore, made sure cameras picked it up as he recessed the House until Tuesday. The gavel didn’t do anything. Jeez. pic.twitter.com/I0TWxHK3Qf — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 3, 2023 The Republican House caucus is at war with itself. Eight Republicans led by Matt Gaetz of Florida voted to oust McCarthy on Wednesday. All eight are “traitors,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News. “All eight of them should in fact be primaried.” Ninety-six percent of Republicans voted to keep McCarthy, he insisted. McCarthy, “who practiced a management style of doing and saying pretty much whatever it would take to get through the day,” did not make it through yesterday.

Wait for it The narrative will come from the press, from Republicans, and from the peanut gallery. Here’s former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, post-defrocking: “I think today was a political decision by the Democrats, and I think the things they have done in the past hurt the institution. When they just started removing people from committee, when they just started doing the other things, and my fear is the institution fell today.” Ah, they failed to support the institution. Here we go: It would be understandable if Democrats decided to remain neutral on Tuesday (by voting “present”), reasoning that it is a Republican civil war. But they didn’t. Instead, by voting “no” on the procedural motion to table Rep. Matt Gaetz’s motion—and then voting “yes” on his Motion to Vacate the Office of Speaker—Democrats effectively voted for Gaetz. And a vote for Gaetz is a vote for chaos. Peanut gallery (I think): McCarthy was a MAGA-owned House Speaker who removed Ukraine aid from the government funding bill, so … no. https://t.co/PtNRVnAN2R — Kevin M.

His strategy to win the election is to delegitimize the legal system and martyr himself I’m sure Donald Trump was hopping mad to see Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz steal the spotlight yesterday with their historic antics in the House. After all, Dear Leader is on trial and he’s appearing in the courtroom even though he’s not required to so that he can preen before the cameras in the hallways and insult the judge, the prosecutor and everyone else. This is supposed to be his party and it was completely overshadowed by House Republicans who are supposed to understand that. As of midnight last night the only thing he had to say on the matter was, “Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves, why aren’t they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our Country?” If the man he calls “My Kevin” expected him to intervene on his behalf he was sorely disappointed. In fact, he didn’t even bother to write a bland Truth Social post wishing McCarthy well in his future endeavors.

Your party turns its lonely eyes to you Some Republicans literally can’t think of anyone but Trump: Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced late Tuesday that he will file paperwork to nominate former President Trump to be the next Speaker of the House. “This week, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Nehls said in a statement. “President Trump, the greatest President of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America First and will make the House great again.” It’s mass delusion. And statements like that should prove to all of us that the idea that elected Republicans are all cynics and cowards is not entirely true. Some of them are brainwashed true believers in the cult of Donald Trump. To them he is literally the only leader they can conceive of. Trump said he was fully concentrating on becoming president (to stay out of jail) but that hasn’t stopped the speculation.

There’s quite a bit of punditry today suggesting that the Democrats did the wrong thing by failing to bail out McCarthy yesterday. Here is some important context as to why they voted in unity not to do it from a House staffer named Aaron Fritschner: Pretty evident people don’t understand a key piece of House Dems’ thinking on McCarthy and governance of the House. The idea that we acted out of schadenfreude or pique with no thought to the legislative outlook is, of course, silly nonsense. Here’s what the takes are missing-  On Saturday morning we had no idea what was happening. Scalise told the GOP they were moving bills that signaled imminent shutdown. This is what we expected. Then McCarthy suddenly and unexpectedly did an about face and announced a vote on a CR. We didn’t know what to make of it. How to interpret this? McCarthy has resisted doing this all along, the wingnuts threatened to kick him out if he did it and he was running every play at their call. My immediate read was he wanted and expected us to vote against the suspension so we would be blamed for a shutdown  I said this then (see below).

I enjoy reading the right wing apostates these days because in some ways they see certain aspect s of our politics more clearly than my own long-time allies. Maybe it’s because it’s newer to them to see this perspective or maybe it’s because some of my own allies are still mired in ancient, and currently irrelevant, internecine beefs. This piece by JV Last at the Bulwark isn’t exactly a new insight to many of us but it’s refreshingly sharp and very, very accurate: Imagine that it was the Democrats yesterday. Imagine that Pramila Jayapal and Cori Bush had forced Nancy Pelosi out of the speaker’s chair. What would the reaction have been? Dems in Disarray! Let me channel it for you: Sound about right? Did I miss anything? Yet when Matt Gaetz holds the Republican majority hostage in the House and forces the ejection of the speaker because he made a deal to avoid a government shutdown the reaction is more along the lines of . . . So raise your hand if you think Republicans will pay an electoral price for this debacle.

The House is in chaos? No biggie… How Fox News’ favorite show shared the news that the House GOP had completely blown itself up: The conservative panelists of The Five, much like the bulk of the GOP, focused most of their ire on Gaetz while arguing that House Republicans had actually accomplished quite a bit under McCarthy in his nine-month tenure. Noting that former President Donald Trump complained on social media that “Republicans are always fighting among themselves” rather than “fighting the radical left Democrats who are destroying our country,” Jeanine Pirro declared that she was “furious” over McCarthy’s removal. “Now what we’ve got is total chaos when the Republicans are playing out their infighting on national television in a historic way instead of fighting Joe Biden’s policies,” she exclaimed.

Yet another example of right wing arrested development CNN: Kevin McCarthy was behind interim Speaker Patrick McHenry’s move to kick former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer out of their office spaces, two Republican sources told CNN. GOP Rep. Garret Graves told reporters on Wednesday that McCarthy is getting the office that McHenry has ordered her to vacate. “Look the deal is that the office that Pelosi is in right now is the office of the preceding speaker. Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats determined that they wanted a new … speaker, and it’s Kevin McCarthy. So, he’s getting the office,” he said. Sources close to Pelosi and Hoyer say it was retaliation for Democrats siding against McCarthy in voting to vacate the speaker’s chair Tuesday. The unofficial offices are located near the House floor. McCarthy and McHenry’s did not respond to requests for comment. Graves then put the blame on Democrats for voting McCarthy out of office. “I don’t know what they’re complaining about,” Graves said. “They created this situation.

Up at The New Yorker this morning, I’ve got a double review of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s new book, Tyranny of the Minority, and Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath’s The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution, which came out last year. My essay addresses the Constitution and the rise of the right, and asks whether any part of the Constitution might help us counter the right. I come out, surprisingly, thinking that, maybe, yes, it might. That’s what I learned from Fishkin and Forbath’s “wonderfully counterintuitive” book, as I say. The other surprise, for me, is the shift in Levitsky and Ziblatt’s position. Five years ago, you may recall, they were the leading scholarly voices arguing against the norm erosion of Donald Trump […]

Hi everyone, I’ve got two new pieces fresh out of the oven. For Compact, I’ve written about about the way in which the Ukraine war — or more precisely the West’s response to the latter — is causing Europe to deindustrialise at frightening speed, and how there is ample evidence that, from America’s perspective, this was the …

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