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OP-ED: The comedy of McCarthy’s speaker election is a preview of what’s to come

3 min read

As the world witnessed four days of chaos on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives last week, the accomplishments and leadership genius of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the elephant in the room. She ran a tight ship. The debacle that we saw would not ever have occurred on her watch.

The newly and barely-elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy suffered 14 humiliating defeats before finally getting his opponents to blink. Many of those who swore they would never vote for McCarthy either agreed to do so or to vote “present” so that he would have the bare majority that he needed in order to slide to victory.

Many of those who engaged in the fray, which triggered shouts of profanity and which almost resulted in fisticuffs, sought to portray what took place as something which is beneficial. “Democracy is messy,” they told us. It was not seen that way throughout the country and the world, from which the message was that the Republicans who claimed they are capable of governing could not even elect a speaker until the fourth day of voting.

McCarthy was characterized by the many who nominated him in each round as many wonderful things, including being “a man of God” and “a patriot”. He is neither. He joined those who attempted to overturn the legitimate election of Joe Biden as president in 2020 just hours after a mob of raging, crazed supporters of Donald Trump had stormed the chamber, inflicting physical and emotional damage that will never subside. After initially acknowledging that Trump bore responsibility for the insurrection, McCarthy did a 180-degree turn, traveling to Mar-a-Lago to “make nice” with the thug former president, abandoning his initial call for him to be held accountable.

Particularly unseemly throughout the week of speaker votes was to see the prominent spot Georgia representative, conspiracy theorist and friend to anti-semites and white supremacists, Marjorie Taylor-Greene held, including many occasions on which she consulted and consorted with McCarthy. No honorable party would welcome her to its membership, and one can only imagine what McCarthy was forced to promise her in order to secure her bedrock support through all 15 rounds of voting.

It was necessary for McCarthy to give up the store in order to appease and secure the votes of the radical members of the Freedom Caucus and many others who voted to nullify Biden’s victory.

Throughout all of this, Democrats, left-wing, moderate, and conservative, remained united behind an honorable man, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. They were the adults in the room. I am proud of them.

McCarthy’s exercise in vanity was successful, in a way. He has been granted the speaker’s gavel that he has coveted for years, but he has not much else. Will he be able to continue courting the insurrection caucus if and when, let us say, a vote to increase the debt limit is necessary to allow the country to fulfill its pledge to pay for what the members previously authorized?

The turmoil that we saw in the U. S. House is all but certain to be a preview of what is to come. It would be a safe bet that any gratification that was derived from the week of Republicans falling on their faces will turn to full-blown tragic comedy soon enough.

Oren Spiegler is a Peters Township resident.

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