There must be no Democratic bailout of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. It will be stripped from him this week by a MAGA wolf pack of weirdos, extremists, seditionists, white supremacists, and one handsy 36-year-old grandmother, who apparently has a “Beetlejuice” fetish.
This is what Kevin McCarthy said to reporters on Friday:
If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it. There has to be an adult in the room. I’m going to be a conservative that gets things done for the American public, and whatever that holds, so be it because I believe in not giving up on America.
He actually referred to himself as “adult in the room,” and proclaimed that he puts America first. Ludicrous.
Kevin McCarthy single-handedly resurrected Donald Trump from his post-January 6 shame. McCarthy knew full well what happened on January 6, and assigned accountability to Trump. This photo was taken on January 27, 2021:
Kevin McCarthy met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on January 27, 2021 (photo provided by the Save America PAC)
It was taken 21 days after this one:
Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021
What Kevin McCarthy did was despicable, purposeful and cynical.
Cynicism helped transform Kevin McCarthy from an “amiable dunce,” who functioned as the House Republican Conference’s rush chairman. He is an indefatigable fundraiser, who loves the pursuit of power and the details of the game. He is completely disinterested in policy, global events, history or anything substantive that matters. He is a gadfly who did the chores that no one else wanted to do, and so he was made the leader because, in the end, he is the House Republican concierge. It’s how the members see him. He makes their lives easier, and so up he went. He went up and up and up until he became a legitimately dangerous menace to the US constitution and the American republic.
He has coddled racists, praised and advanced anti-semites, and led an intentional effort to lie to the world and the American people about who won the presidential election. He is leading a kangaroo impeachment of President Biden, and is a leader of the plot against democracy in America. He is a contemptible figure and utterly unfit.
Any vote to sustain his speakership by a Democrat would be a travesty politically, morally and ethically. What is coming is a rattlesnake fight, and it is okay to root for both snakes to win or lose, depending on how you see it.
Democrats should sit back and do nothing. No doubt soon the airwaves will be filled with commentators talking about the necessity of maintaining McCarthy as speaker to somehow protect America from the MAGA nuts who want to take his office sign down. It’s a false choice.
The only choice that really matters is the one that the American people get in 2024. The decision will be simple. Do the American people want to maintain a majority of epic dysfunction made up of some of the most dysfunctional people in a nation of 330 million people?
What is clear is that we are watching a toxic circus that is harming and bruising the country on a constant basis. Kevin McCarthy is the cause of the circus—not its remedy.
There is no greater issue at hand with regard to McCarthy’s predicament. There is no higher purpose to look for. This is all politics, and that is how the Democratic Party should play it.
Kevin McCarthy is drowning. Throw him a cinder block, not a life jacket.
Why Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz deserve each other
Matt Gaetz has called for the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. I reject the premise that McCarthy is now the “adult in the room” of MAGA lunatics, and believe that Democrats should do nothing to help either Republican.
Steve Schmidt
Steve Schmidt is a political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News. He served as a political strategist for George W. Bush and the John McCain presidential campaign. Schmidt is a founder of The Lincoln Project, a group founded to campaign against former President Trump. It became the most financially successful Super-PAC in American history, raising almost $100 million to campaign against Trump's failed 2020 re-election bid. He left the group in 2021.
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