On ‘Blaming’ Democrats for Kevin McCarthy’s Ouster

By Philip Klein

Wednesday, October 04, 2023

 

The debate over whether Democrats, by allying themselves with Representative Matt Gaetz to oust Representative Kevin McCarthy as speaker, are somewhat to blame for the current chaos in the House is akin to the debate over whether Democrats should be accountable for helping election-result-denying Republicans win nominations. In both cases, looking at these issues through the lens of “blame” oversimplifies matters and obscures the truth.

 

It’s fair to say that the fact that Gaetz and seven Republicans managed to take the unprecedented step of vacating the speaker’s chair — not over a major scandal or controversy — but for petty reasons, points to dysfunction within the Republican Party. Democrats were under no moral obligation to save McCarthy’s hide by throwing him a few votes, especially given that he did not want to offer them anything in exchange for their support. 

 

That said, the reality is that, whatever their problems with McCarthy, at the end of the day he was willing to do what was necessary to keep the government functional. He worked to avert a debt-ceiling breach and a shutdown, even when it meant allying with Democrats and knowing that this would put his speakership in peril. 

 

Democrats had the choice between sucking it up and allowing a few moderate members to vote to spare McCarthy, which would have made a government shutdown less likely, or allying with fringe members of the Republican caucus to get rid of McCarthy so they can enjoy the chaos. This, even though the end result is that the House is without a speaker less than six weeks out from the next government funding deadline, and even though McCarthy’s replacement could be less willing and able to work to keep the government open. 

 

In a similar vein, it is a deep problem with the current state of the Republican Party that its voters want to nominate clownish figures simply because they deny that President Biden won the election and are willing to be sycophants for Donald Trump. At the same time, the fact that Democrats spend millions of dollars to help MAGA-style candidates win Republican primaries makes it more likely that those candidates will eventually end up in power. 

 

Republican problems are of their own making. But given the choice between taking actions to tamp down the influence of Republican arsonists and encouraging more moderating influences, at every turn Democrats have chosen to assist the arsonists out of a belief that it ultimately helps them politically.