Why Democrats Shouldn’t Bail Out Kevin McCarthy

Let justice be done, though the Kevins fall.

Matt Gaetz and a small claque of ultraradical House Republicans are carrying out an attempt to depose House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. By denying McCarthy support, they are essentially putting his fate in the hands of House Democrats, who must decide whether to bail out McCarthy, perhaps in return for some concessions, or let him be deposed.

I think, unless McCarthy can dream up some usually attractive concessions, the answer is to let Gaetz depose McCarthy.

First, if McCarthy is deposed, his replacement is fundamentally going to make the same kinds of decisions McCarthy made. McCarthy is not an ideologue, exactly, but he’s not a “moderate.” He is a completely malleable careerist who will mold himself to any position that can advance his own power and prestige. His agenda is a product of the House Republican majority, and there’s little reason to believe the agenda of whoever succeeds him will differ in any way.

Second, McCarthy finds himself in this predicament in the first place because he cut some side deals to keep his job as Speaker. As Michelle Cottle recently pointed out, McCarthy really has failed to honor the deal he made. That fact has not loomed large in the media coverage of this episode, perhaps because Gaetz is so loathsome and the terms of his deal with McCarthy are so silly.

But the fact is that McCarthy has failed to live up to his deal, which has to devalue McCarthy’s credibility to follow through on whatever offer he could make to Democrats.

Third, the things Democrats seem to want from McCarthy have little or perhaps negative value. News reports have stated they want him to end the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. But why? The inquiry is a comprehensive fiasco. The last hearing featured Republican witnesses admitting the Republicans had no evidence of impeachable conduct by the president.

What’s more, the endpoint of the inquiry is probably going to be forcing the most vulnerable House Republicans to vote on impeaching Biden even if they lack evidence, a vote they desperately want to avoid.

Finally, deposing McCarthy would be a dramatic act that brings some attention to the half-submerged underlying reality of the House, namely, that its majority is accountable to members who are stark raving mad.

Most voters don’t pay detailed attention to coalition dynamics in Congress, so they may not have realized that giving Republicans a majority meant empowering not just conservative Republicans but a smaller group of whacked-out revolutionary conflict junkies. Those extremists have punched above their numeric weight by forcing the rest of the party to accept their priorities.

The only way to keep people like Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and so on out of power is to defeat Republicans in swing districts and hand the majority back to Democrats. If Republicans want to perform public demonstrations of their fanaticism, Democrats should let them proceed.