Position vacant in Washington. Nice post on paper. Second in line for the presidency. Candidate must be a Republican member (m/f) of the House of Representatives. Loyalty to Donald Trump essential. Masochism required. Humility a plus. Don’t expect to get much done. Watch out for stabs from the right.
After the unique vote of no confidence with which Kevin McCarthy was removed as House Speaker by eight party members on Tuesday, chaos is complete in the Republican group. The 221 members have no chairman, no prospect of a successor and no consensus on the important themes at play: a new impending shutdown to help Ukraine.
McCarthy’s end as chairman was baked in from the beginning. In exchange for sufficient votes, hard-right party members forced more and more concessions from him in fifteen voting rounds in January. He changed how budgets are voted on. Gave critics nice jobs on committees where they could focus on the investigations into the Biden family. And he amended the House rules so that any member could submit a motion of no confidence against him at any time. McCarthy was willing to do anything for it speaker to be allowed to become. His ambition and flexibility won out over the strategic talent for which he was praised.
Matt Gaetz, the representative from Florida who introduced the motion joker at the time – without ever voting for McCarthy – deployed it on Tuesday. Gaetz was furious that McCarthy struck a deal with Democrats at the eleventh hour last weekend for a complete shutdown from the federal government. But the way he attacked McCarthy seemed more personal than political.
Also read this profile of Gaetz: A Trumpian opportunist who wants to dethrone his own chairman in the US House
Gaetz only had seven Republican supporters. Because the Democrats collectively decided not to protect McCarthy from his own party, that turned out to be enough. The motion of no confidence was adopted with 216 votes in favor and 210 votes against. McCarthy, who has said he never gives up, announced shortly after the vote that he will not run for re-election. His self-flagellation also has a limit.
Unique
The way McCarthy was led to slaughter is unique and spectacular. Never before in American history has such a motion been successfully introduced. But his Republican predecessors were also devoured by their own members. Paul Ryan (2015-2019) burned out during the Trump years and left before he could lose his seat. John Boehner (2011-2015) resigned when mutiny threatened from the right-wing Tea Party movement that had put him in the saddle.
McCarthy, from the red part of California, had dutifully served President Trump when Republicans were in the minority in the House. In the November 2022 elections, he predicted that Republicans would take over Washington in “a red wave.” But the new majority became so modest (221 out of 435 seats) that it gave the most radical rebels in the faction exceptional power.
This will rule the Republican party under each subsequent president. Some members from deep red districts, who will always vote Republican, are holding hostage a faction in which others must also win over floating voters next year. The run-up to the presidential primaries proves that Trump is still unprecedentedly popular among Republicans. But the last midterm elections showed that candidates he supports often failed.
McCarthy tried to please them all. Last month he gave the rebels theirs impeachmentinvestigation into Biden. Are shutdowndeal was a victory for moderate Republicans. They were able to enjoy that for two days. The success of Gaetz’s motion makes them more vulnerable in elections.
In that respect, the Democrats’ strategy is also interesting. Since Saturday, the market had been hanging over how that party would vote in a motion of no confidence. McCarthy has no fans there, but he did make a deal with them twice: about the debt ceiling and the shutdown. This allowed important government plans to proceed that would otherwise have been blocked. Would they also do that with a new one? speaker get done?
At a meeting on Tuesday morning, so many Democrats vented their frustrations about McCarthy that it proved impossible to collectively support him. This was followed by the decision to collectively drop him. Unity within the party – what the Republicans are unable to achieve – was considered more important than the risk of an even more chaotic House under more rabid Republican leadership. The removal of McCarthy also proves how this is done bipartisanshipthe structural cooperation between the two parties, is dead.