There are two major political parties in this country, and sometimes it seems as if all either of them cares about is preventing Republicans from getting anything done.
Tuesday’s vote to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House — the first such removal in American history — was an act of staggering stupidity and self-destruction, brought about by just eight of the 221 House Republicans joining with the entire Democratic caucus to vote McCarthy out.
There are plenty of reasons to take issue with McCarthy.
Some see him as weak on budgetary discipline, while others see him as too close to Donald Trump.
Republicans seriously underperformed expectations in House races in 2022, which is why McCarthy has such a narrow majority.
It was McCarthy’s weakness that led him to agree in the first place to let anybody bring a vote to remove him at any time.
Then again, being a congressional party leader is hard, especially for Republicans who don’t expect to govern by just spreading taxpayer money around. It’s hard to remember a Republican leader in the House or Senate who was widely popular within the party.
McCarthy is a prodigious fundraiser who helped even some of the dissidents win their seats.
As speaker, he held his caucus together in the debt-ceiling fight, catching Joe Biden unawares, and he managed to avert a government shutdown.
He’s made the best of a weak hand.
Whatever the merits of replacing McCarthy, ousting a party leader in the middle of his term is self-defeating.
Matt Gaetz and his fellow rebels don’t even appear to have a new leader in mind, and they can’t elect one with just eight votes. They might end up with no alternative to someone just like McCarthy.
This is bad politics and bad policy.
There are many things Republicans could be talking about and doing right now to help themselves and the country, including passing a budget, holding a serious debate on Ukraine aid, pushing for action to secure the border, spotlighting Joe Biden’s corruption and impeaching him, even punishing Jamaal Bowman for his idiotic stunt of pulling a fire alarm to stop a vote.
Instead, all anybody will be talking about for weeks is the hunt for a new speaker.
How are Republicans supposed to make the case that they’re trying to remove Biden over something serious when they just removed their own leader for no good reason?
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