The Right Is Wrong And So's The Left Congressional Chaos Edition, Part 4

 

The (Political) Assassination of Kevin McCarthy

As Carried Out By The Democratic Caucus

Under The Directive of Matt Gaetz

 

 

There’s an old story told in Congress. A freshman Democrat is elected to the House. He runs into one of the elder Congressman and with youthful vigor asks: “Where are the Republicans? I want to meet the enemy!”

The elder Democrat shakes his head. “The Republicans aren’t the enemy. They’re the opposition. The Senate’s the enemy.”

I have little doubt Joe Biden knows this story, less still that he told it himself many times over the years.  And while this may have been naïve when he was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and seems like a fairy tale these days, few would argue that has been approach to Congress and governing.  I imagine that one of the bigger complaints those on the left have is that he spends so much of his time refusing to de facto say all Republicans are the enemy rather than referring to many of them as simply the opposition.

But that has been one of the reasons Biden’s approach is admirable even if you disagree with his policies. For far too long too many on  both sides of the aisle – yes leftists, don’t shake your head here! – have viewed every aspect of politics as a zero sum game with your colleagues in any elective body, federal or state, as a game where the opposition is evil incarnate and not someone to talk you, much less work with.  Democracy only works as a partnership. If you’ve decided that one side has no right to govern or even be listened to, then you have a dictatorship not a democracy.  Biden keeps putting his hand out to Republicans no matter how many times it gets bitten.  But if you stop putting your hand altogether, you are not working for all the people any more than the people who bite it.

Now considering not only that Joe Biden is the leader of the Democratic Party and his long history in Congress, you’d think that the rank and file would follow his orders on approach to leadership. You’d think given the shocking results of the midterms they’d be even more inclined to listen to him.  For months leading up to it, the Republicans were certain that the ‘red wave’ would be a complete repudiation of everything Biden stood for. And then Biden had the best midterms of an incumbent President in 20 years and the best any Democrat has had since FDR in 1934.

That the Republicans chose to ignore the lessons of the midterms when it came to governing isn’t really shocking.  They seem to have decided to tie their fates to  a man no matter how elections it costs them on a national level because – as these articles have illustrated – they are fine at getting power but have no idea what to do with it when they get it.

What is frankly more troubling is the Democrats attitude in the aftermath of the midterms. They had spent pretty much the last year screaming to their faithful that they had to vote to save democracy as they knew it.  And the people did that. The Democrats made gains at the governor’s level in many states; they actually gained seats in the Senate and even control of the House was up for grabs for a full week before everyone knew the Republicans would have control. Had the DNC run a better campaign in New York and worked a little harder in Lauren Boebert’s district, they might very well have managed to hold the House of Representatives too. The public had indicated that they seemed to believe that the Democrats were more qualified to manage the government.

But if your argument for leadership is that the other side is squabbling children – something that the Republican caucus was more than demonstrating in the leadup to the ballot for Speaker in January – then that means you have to be the adults in the room.  And here I fundamentally think the Democrats let their own pettiness win out.

As is very clear, their hatred and contempt for Kevin McCarthy was more than merited. I understand their instinct to let him reap what he had sewn when he took over as Speaker.  But if your argument for being elected is that you are a public servant, then you have to live up to the obligation. If your argument is that the other side causes nothing but chaos, then you have to prove that you are for stability.  And while it might have been personally satisfying to see the Republicans squabble and bicker and refuse to give Kevin McCarthy the Speakership – even though they had no other candidates and seemed to be doing what they did to make the leader of the house essentially Speaker in Name Only  before he took office -  well, there’s a part of me that thinks there’s  culpability on the Democratic caucus’ part.

To be clear Kevin McCarthy was going to be Speaker. Part of the frustration that even talking heads on Fox News said as the battle waged with the holdouts was the fact that they had no alternatives.  They never suggested any and in many cases most of the holdouts just voted present.  As we learned in the immediate aftermath the Freedom Caucus and Republicans too loud mouthed to even be part of that wanted to make McCarthy as weak a Speaker as possible, willing to do whatever they said for the sole purpose of letting him be a figurehead.  These were horrendous actions held by a fragment of the GOP caucus.

And while I can understand in theory why the Democrats – who had no love for McCarthy at any time even before Biden took office – would enjoy watching him suffer. But there’s a point where it becomes irresponsibility on their part.  We all know, despite all of the emails that the Democrats were sending out at the time, Hakeem Jeffries was never going to be Speaker.  We also know that if you’re trying to show that you’re a party of sane government you have to help your opposition.  Did it ever occur to Jeffries or Pelosi or anyone in the Democratic caucus to even consider just throwing McCarthy a bone? They could have just let six or seven Democrats vote for McCarthy just to put him out of his misery by at least the eighth ballot.  Now there is no evidence that McCarthy would have accepted Democratic support under any conditions, but there’s also none that the Democrats even made a token offer for the sole purpose of having him reject it.  In fact doing so would have sent as clear a message to their base: “We offered to help McCarthy. He turned us down. He deserves what happens to him.”  D.C. is built on meaningless gestures, but Democrats wouldn’t even bother to do that.

We could say McCarthy sold his soul to become Speaker but not even I would suggest he had one before he got to the point he could get it.  And as I said with the Wilde quote that started this series, McCarthy learned that both parts of it are true.  Even more than his predecessors McCarthy had no control of his caucus. Even before he took over there were already signs the tale was wagging the dog – Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene had a fight over his taking leadership in the first place, Greene eventually got ejected from the Freedom Caucus, moderates were upset about his refusing to put votes to the floor, the hardliners were just as determined to impeach Biden as they had been to impeach Clinton more than a quarter of a century earlier even with less evidence than two decades earlier and of course the biggest sin McCarthy did was to not allow for a shutdown.  That action, as now know was, the nail in McCarthy’s coffin with the fringe of the GOP: Matt Gaetz filed the motion the next day.

I will not dispute McCarthy was an incompetent Speaker who, like every other Republican in the last thirty years with the exception of Hastert, was always being undermined by the most extreme members who had no interest in governing and only performance. None of that in my opinion remotely justifies the Democrat Caucuses actions which everybody in the media including Fox News seems willing to let them off the hook for.  Make no mistake the Republicans performed a coup d’état when they removed McCarthy from the Speakership. But  Matt Gaetz and Nancy Mace should be sending the Democratic leadership a thank you card for making their preposterous dreams a reality.

See a week ago, a member of the GOP caucus tried to say that the majority of the Democrats were responsible for what was going on in the House on CNN. The reporter kept reminding him the Republicans were responsible and he kept coming back to the talking point before he admitted, yes eight Republicans voted McCarthy out. This means that 213 Republicans were behind McCarthy. In other words, while a minority of Republicans did vote to remove him that could never happened without almost all the Democrats being willing to do the dirty work.

What was the discussion like on the Democratic side before the vote was taken? Here’s a hypothetical.

“Ok before this votes happens, let’s consider the pros and cons of agreeing to vote McCarthy out.

Con: The Republicans have no alternative for McCarthy. Considering it took fifteen ballots just to get McCarthy Speaker in the first place, does anyone want to think about how long it will take for their caucus to come up with an alternative that their entire membership will vote for this time?

Con: Yes McCarthy is incompetent. But he was willing to get a coalition to vote to keep the government running. In less than a month and a half, we’re going to have to do this again. Does anyone think McCarthy’s replacement – whoever they are – will be any more reasonable than he is?

Con: If we do this, we are doing Matt Gaetz’s handiwork. I don’t think I need to remind you that while McCarthy is spineless and incompetent, Gaetz is an unindicted criminal.  Even if he weren’t he’s already everything we hate about the MAGA extremists.  How can we question the GOP’s morality if we’re willing to put ourselves on his side?

Con: Given the track record of the GOP, anyone they pick is going to be worse than McCarthy and almost certainly have more contempt for the institutions we stand for.  You think McCarthy’s bad; what if they go for Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Besides if we hate McCarthy this much, maybe the worst thing he can do is stay Speaker.  Hell, maybe by the time the election comes around he’ll resign or someone primary him out. 

Here’s an alternative. Let’s just all vote present when Gaetz calls for the vote.  McCarthy will know he owes us and he will be weaker with the GOP going forward. Maybe he’ll just resign before the election. The fact that this is even happening is enough to guarantee we’ll regain the House next year.  And as an added bonus, people like Gaetz will get to see how alone they are on the fringes of the GOP. By doing it in front of the entire world,  we’ll get to hurt Gaetz too.

(Silence) “That’s a lot, I admit. What are the pros?”

There’s only one, I guess: Kevin McCarthy won’t be Speaker any more.

AOC: Let’s throw the bastard out.

And that seems to have been what the Democrats did when they voted.  They decided that fear of the unknown as well as endless chaos outweighed their utter loathing and contempt for Kevin McCarthy.  They didn’t have to vote as a body: 20 or thirty could have chosen to sit it out to make the same point. But instead 208 of them chose to do so.

And there is no sign the Democrats took any responsibility for the chaos that has taken place over the last three weeks. Indeed, they seem to have spent a lot of time enjoying the fact that the body they were elected to, the one they were all members of, could not operate or function. The longer this dysfunction went on, the worst the situation got and what was already a national crisis became an international one after the attacks on October 7^Th. 

To be clear the Republicans showed no sign of having organized when they got back , given how disastrous Scalise’s attempt was and how Jordan’s attempt to obtain also failed. And I do get the schadenfreude in seeing the Republicans deal with the mess they made.  But just as with McCarthy at the beginning of the year, they made no offer to help in any regard.

  Don’t pretend the Democrats have clean hands in leaving one of our Houses of Congress unable to act for three weeks in the midst of a crisis in the Middle East.  I’d argue that the Democrats had a moral duty to swallow their pride and offer some kind of willingness to vote for a Scalise or McHenry or really anyone.  They accused Matt Gaetz of using this crisis to fundraise his own plans as morally contemptible.

Do you want to know what the Democrats were trying to do during this same period? I receive no less than a dozen emails saying that Republicans should vote for Hakeem Jeffries. To be clear, Democrats were saying that the best solution Republicans should do after the Democrats as a body forced McCarthy was to vote Jeffries in.  Even if it was just fanfare, that’s as much a coup attempt as what Gaetz did.

Oh and remember the outrage that so many had when the suggestion was made by members of the Freedom caucus about Donald Trump being named Speaker? During this same period I received no less than four emails suggesting that Liz Cheney should be named Speaker instead. They even made the exact argument the GOP did: ‘the Speaker doesn’t even have to be a member of Congress.”  To be clear until three years ago the Democrats absolutely hated Liz Cheney. They only liked her when she chose to sacrifice her seat to stand against Trump. They didn’t mind that she lost her seat because many in the left don’t consider Wyoming ‘a real state.”  All of this is just part of the left’s larger narrative that the only good Republican is one who has no chance of holding elected office.

And for the record when Maxwell Frost decided to come to Stephen Colbert in the days after voting to have McCarthy removed, the fact that he chose to make light of it was reprehensible. “I mean,” he told Colbert. “they have to take responsibility for their actions. Why should we give them a hand up?” Cue laughter from the New York audience. Isn’t it hysterical that I helped oust the leader of the body I was elected to serve? I mean, right now the country’s in a national crisis but what are we supposed to do about it? Reach across the aisle? That’s so last century. Anyway vote for Democrats across the board next year!

Right now, there are a lot of people who are justifiably upset about how old the majority of the leaders in Congress are and that it’s time for new blood.  The thing is, right now the leader of the Democratic Party – of the entire country – is Joe Biden.  We don’t know if Biden had any role in advising the Democratic Caucus how to vote but personally I don’t think that happened.  Because I know enough about Biden to know the kind of politician he is.

Biden served in the Senate for 36 years and presided over it for eight more.  Few political figures are more well-versed in politics than Biden. Biden believes in the integrity of the institutions – its why he ran for President, its why he campaigned and its almost certainly why he ended up winning. Biden believes in democracy and the Democratic Party and he knows that while both must be healthy, the latter cannot exist in a vacuum.  Biden has spent a fair amount of time in the last year trying to argue for bipartisanship despite the resistance the GOP puts up. He calls out MAGA but he refuses to give up on the Republican party altogether. Members of his own caucus don’t seem willing to make those concessions.

Whatever Biden feels towards McCarthy – and he probably has as much reason to loathe him as most Democrats  -  he would have thought both the Republicans action to unseat him and the Democratic caucuses decision to go along with it as equally wrongheaded.  Much of that is because he has to deal with the consequences to a greater extent that the Democrats in the House will to be sure – and make no mistake, the last three weeks since McCarthy was removed have made an already difficult job that much harder. But at the end of the day, I think it pained him as another sign of the partisan divide that he campaigned to try and end. How much it must pain him to see that right now, so much of the Congress he spent his life a part of sees the Republicans as the enemy instead of the opposition.

In the conclusion, I will deal with the results of the weeks of voting and how I’m pretty sure that neither side has learned anything from this – certainly not the Democrats.