Karma, Kevin McCarthy and the #Freedom20
As of this morning, we have no Speaker of the House. After all manner of fun and games yesterday, including a couple of good old-fashioned fire and brimstone speeches and three votes—no Speaker. Despite his best efforts these last few days, Kevin McCarthy was unable to convince the last die-hard holdouts in the House Freedom Caucus to vote for him for Speaker.
Karma is a…well, you know.
This struggle over the Speakership has been brewing for months, since the House Freedom Caucus published a list of reforms they wanted to see implemented by the next Republican Congress. Back on July 25th, 2022 when they released this list, it seemed almost certain that a Red Wave would sweep Republicans into clear majorities in both Houses of Congress.
But then, things happened. Most annoying of all for non-Establishment, non-RINO, pro-America First Republicans, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. McConnell happened.
The Red Wave fizzled, and the Republicans failed to take the Senate (thanks largely to McConnell, who was actively working against pro-Trump MAGA candidates and President Trump himself) and the House (because McCarthy wanted a more “docile’ Republican caucus to preside over as Speaker.
Best (worst) of all? They did it with healthy dollops of FTX money! It wasn’t just the Democrats who benefitted from the generosity of Mr. Bankman-Fried and associates, but McCarthy and McConnell both had significant amounts of cash pumped into their war chests from FTX, and both spent lavishly to defeat anti-Uniparty Republicans.
As an aside, Political Moonshine, here on Substack, has done yeoman’s work connecting the dots on this, and I highly recommend you read his series on it. You can find links to the entire series in his follow-up article here. If you’re not throughly disgusted now, you will be! Also, he’s well worth reading on a regular basis, so I recommend that you subscribe to him as well.
Now those karmic chickens are coming home to roost. Not so much for McConnell, sadly. The Senate being the Senate, his position is secure and nothing nor no one can realistically threaten him at this point.
Now can we talk about why every state needs the ability to recall any elected official by popular vote?
For McCarthy, who at least has to pretend to be somewhat accountable to his caucus, it’s been more problematic. He’s had to make several concessions to the Freedom Caucus (and made God only knows how many promises to others) to get even this close to those magical 218 votes. He also went ahead and moved into the Speaker’s office—because of course he did!
Three votes and 19 (first two votes) or 20 (third vote) recalcitrant Republicans later—the #Freedom20 has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?—we had one whole day without a Speaker of the House! Oh, the horror! The inhumanity! The…okay, nothing’s happened, never mind.
At some point, something has to give. If it takes a few more votes, so be it. In 1923 it took seven, so three isn’t even all that big of a deal. And, unless McCarthy steps aside “for the good of the caucus” in favor of a compromise candidate, he’ll probably be able to cut enough deals and give up enough goodies to get his 218 votes.
I suspect he’d rather chew glass and gargle Drano than step aside, but it could come to that.
It’s also possible that a few Democrats could vote for him (no law says they can’t!) just to stick it to the Freedom 20. If it were the right group—all four of the Squad, Maxine Waters, a handful of politically-untouchable (by their own Party) ultra-loons—it’d weaken McCarthy significantly for the next two years. To the Dems, that in and of itself might be a worthy enough goal to merit consideration.
A true Kiss Of Death for McCarthy would be for Pelosi, House and all the old Democratic House leadership to pull a surprise vote for him as early as possible. I can’t think of anything that would discombobulate the Republicans more than that, and it would defenestrate McCarthy even before he touched the gavel.
One thing is certain: if/when McCarthy becomes Speaker, you can forget any deep, hard-hitting investigations into the alleged money laundering of US aid to Ukraine, through FTX, then back to American politicians, from either the House or Senate. That would be like the Mexican cartels investigate themselves for drug smuggling and human trafficking, or the Mafia investigating itself for racketeering. I’d trust the “findings” of any of those about the same amount—not in the slightest.
As a hypothesis, it does explain the curious enthusiasm of the Uniparty to throw US taxpayer money at Ukraine quite well. Just don’t expect much to come of it, because that’s not going to happen with McCarthy as Speaker
It’s been amusing to watch the GOP Establishment lose their alleged minds over those foolish Freedom Caucus members dating to not follow orders like good little drones. How dare they speak their own minds! How dare they insist that Republicans actually stand up for…what they promised Republican voters they would stand up for.
At this point I wouldn’t be surprised to see McCarthy bring in Greta Thunberg to berate the Freedom 20: “How dare you!”. He’s got to be nearly that desperate by now.
Regardless of how the voting goes today, a few things are clear:
The Democrats are laughing, and will keep on laughing until a Republican Speaker starts treating ALL of them like Pelosi treated pro-Trump Republicans who wanted to sit in the Jan. 6th Committee—NO seats for you, chuckles!
The next Speaker will be regarded as weak by all and sundry until and unless he/she/it proves to the House (and the country) that they are NOT.
The Freedom 20 are just the tip of the iceberg. They’re on a roll, and they know it. Speaker McCarthy (if he makes the 218) will hate them, but they’ve got him by the tender parts…and they know it. They’re not going away anytime soon.
Kevin McCarthy has just had a primary-shaped target painted on his back, and he’s one misstep away from irrelevance…and everybody knows it.
The Establishment is nervous, with good reason. They’re already gearing up to keep Donald Trump and any more MAGA, America First candidates out of their Beltway sandbox in 2024.
Meanwhile, the natives out in Flyover Country are getting more and more restless—and if 2024 is a repeat of 2020 and 2022, that restlessness won’t just fade away.
So, whatever poor soul becomes the next Speaker, I can only hope they’re up for the challenge.
It’s going to be an interesting two years.