All the Republicans lost their minds for a week after January 6.
However, they all came to their senses a week later. Since then, they have correctly and firmly avowed that their was no riot, and no insurrection, and that the former President did not have anything to do with the riot and insurrection that was totally the work of Antifa, and that all of the recordings that were made of him saying so, and of his minions saying so, and his lawyers saying so were cut together from from Beatle albums being played Satanically backward, and that Liz Cheney was never, ever a Republican in the first place, and that they all want the former President’s endorsement and will kill their firstborn to get it.
So, no, McCarthy will not suffer a single jot nor tittle.
It would not surprise me if this entire episode enhanced McCarthy in Trump’s eyes. Trump does not want dedicated, blindly loyal followers in his employ. He doesn’t understand loyalty, and he doesn’t believe or trust those who exhibit it toward him (with the possible exception of his children). He sees anyone who would sacrifice his or her own interests for his own as temporarily useful, but fundamentally can never trust someone whose motivations are so foreign to his own.
What he wants are craven, compromised men and women who will shamelessly tack whichever way the political winds are blowing. Because he does trust his own ability to control his political movement.
So he’ll forgive McCarthy for his comments when it looked like Trump was on the ropes – specifically because McCarthy threw himself into full “defend Trump” mode when it was clear Trump’s constituency would not abandon him over January 6.
We’re way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, past the time of being able to consider Republicans as decent human beings we happen to disagree with. The party is rotten from top to bottom, and the merely horrific are fleeing government in droves because they see they stand no chance against those who will stab them in the back, or front, and preferably on camera, if that serves their purpose, which is merely power for the sake of power, power to destroy their enemies and salt the earth after they die.
Trump can’t really admit to being mad at McCarthy over this. If he did, he’d be acknowledging that someone had stood up to him and been disloyal. Trump can say “Kevin loves me, and Kevin is loyal to me.” Eventually, he might say “I’ve never liked Kevin, and I barely know him.” He can’t say “Kevin did something I didn’t want him to.” That would be a sign of his own weakness. He may be seething inside, but he’ll never admit, even indiretly, that his power isn’t absolute.
Maybe Trump has another opportunity in mind for Kevin. Maybe Trump will give Devin Nunes that career-ending cobra-like flick of the wrist “You’re fired!” over at Truth Social and install McCarthy over there, just to get him out of the spotlight. Devin. Kevin. What’s the difference?
In short, McCarthy called Gaetz a dangerous idiot on the verge of criminality in his support for Trump and the riots.
It sounds like it was a conversation between the leaders of the House (at the time, McCarthy, Cheney, and Scalise), which makes it exceedingly unlikely that the leak is from anyone other than Cheney. That said, I guess this is fundamentally coming from a couple of journalists’ book so the timing being a bit random (from the standpoint of playing politics) is probably explained by that.
Still, I think this is going to make it hard for McCarthy to stay leader of the House Republicans - especially if more comes out in this vein against Freedom Caucus members - unless he changes his strategy. It may be impossible for the moderate Republicans and the crazy wing to come to a consensus on a leader, together. In that case, the winner would be the representative of the larger of those two groups. If the crazies win then the House Republicans will probably become so useless to legislating that they can be ignored and they’ll torpedo the party. If the moderates win then they might have to get so used to going across party lines to get stuff passed that it actually starts to steer things back to sanity a bit.
At this moment, I have no idea which is more likely but I’m not optimistic.
Yep, because that’s what he could see himself doing. If you want something so bad you can taste it (like McCarthy does the Speakership), of course you’ll do whatever seems advantageous towards that at the given time – of course you’ll get upset at the guy who seems to be going down and dragging you down with him. Then if he’s still standing and influencing things of course you’ll close ranks back with him. McCarthy is thinking about what helps or hurts his chances at that gavel and does not care how he comes across, and Trump understands that sort of character.
Whatever I feel about Mr McCarthy and his politics and political goals, I have to admit I am surprised at the level of humanity in his comments on those recordings. Perhaps behind the façade deployed to satisfy the crazy-train base, some of the Republicans really are dealing with a full-deck and do not want the government to go all dictatorship. For some, like Cheney, the horse is already out of the barn. I hope there are others. One can only hope.
No way could he reveal any of that stuff in public! Someone might think he is a woke, lefty, pinko, gay, BLM, Democrap! Gotsta keep up that tough, he-man Republican stance: "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!"
He came within inches of the leopard he trained and let loose coming and eating his very own face. For a brief time, he acted like a human recognizing the danger and error of his actions.
I’m suggesting that Trump taped him saying something that he wouldn’t want to let out. Given that we’re exactly talking about McCarthy being taped saying something that he wouldn’t want let out, right now, I don’t know that it’s an unreasonable expectation. Taping people saying things was, by all accounts, a primary hobby of everyone during the whole of the Trump administration.
That said, you might be right. My memory of the order of events was that McCarthy turned around before the polls came back. I remember them coming in and I was not surprised when the party ordered up to match them, following that, but - as said - I remember being surprised that McCarthy switched back before that point. That memory might be wrong, I’m double-checking. If wrong then, yes, maybe McCarthy is just insane about poll numbers.
As quoted, McCarthy was worried about Trump getting people killed and causing the country to collapse. I think it’s clear that he’s not so dumb as to not realize that a second Trump Presidency could mean actual murders start happening, if someone gets Trump angry enough to stir up more unrest. Polling numbers be as they may, Republican leadership in tandem with Fox, could probably turn things around and put Trump quietly to bed, if they wanted to. You don’t have to dump on the guy or get into a fighting match with him, you just say that “Trump’s being Trump, he’ll say what he thinks he needs to say to try and win for everyone - even if it’s not always true - but we should all focus on the next generation and the future of the Republican party.”
There’s really no reason to not get behind that message. McConnel is quite happy to go with it. And when the alternative to a fairly benign and acceptable message is empowering someone who might get you and your family killed, polling numbers seem insufficient to be the start and end of the conversation.
Polling numbers, a little bit of dirt on McCarthy and/or the party in general (Elliott Broidy was on the RNC finance committee for a while, after all), and a few crazies in the Freedom Caucus do feel sufficient to get things to where we see them. Minus the dirt, though, the other two feel insufficient to get to where we are.
Kevin McCarthy was doing what he thought was best for Kevin McCarthy at every moment. This sufficiently explains all of Kevin McCarthy’s action.
No need to invent a Trump blackmail story.
It’s the Access Hollywood tape all over again. A bunch of people jumped off the Trump train when they thought the base would turn on him after the tape came out. Then they jumped right back on when it turned out the base was cool with it.
Some of The Worst, The Most Craven politicians on the planet’s first instinct was that an action had transpired that finally crossed a line – that would make even their voters blanch.
Even these few, these execrable few, underestimated the MAGA voters’ capacity to tolerate/celebrate the objectively repugnant.
I guess the problem is that an assumption keeps being made that these are reasonable, decent human beings that simply have a difference in opinion on the best method of goverance.
Under that assumption, it seems as though they must have something on them in order to get them to act in such heinous fashions.
But you are probably correct, they are simply heinous people, doing what they want to do, with no coercion.
And it creates hope. If they are being coerced through blackmail, then if they manage to somehow defeat that blackmail, or even come clean, then they can continue to be the decent human beings that they always were. If there is no blackmail, then there is very little chance that these vile pieces of shit will ever change their ways.