Stunning. Unprecedented. Uncharted territory. A first in American history. Kevin McCarthy’s removal as speaker of the House of Representatives on Tuesday was a startling moment. But it only confirmed that the predictable thing about American politics is now its unpredictability. Chaos and dysfunction increasingly look not anomalous but characteristic. The Biden administration’s aura of calm stewardship can only go so far, because the saboteurs hold significant chunks of government machinery. The bitter divisions within the Republican party keep the rest of the country captive.
A party once known for its ruthless discipline is obviously unmanageable; Donald Trump piously bemoaned the infighting of a party he has done more than anyone to break. Mr McCarthy’s removal by a handful of his own party’s lawmakers came on the same day that the former president, and likely Republican presidential nominee, was in court on fraud charges – only one of the multitude of civil and criminal cases bearing down on him, none of which have dented his popularity. Stories that would once have dominated the news for a week or more now jostle for coverage. In another courtroom, Hunter Biden became the first child of an incumbent president to be criminally prosecuted, pleading not guilty to federal gun charges.
It is less than three years since an armed mob stormed the Capitol. Six in 10 Republicans still don’t believe that Joe Biden won legitimately in 2020. Last week, House Republicans launched a confected impeachment inquiry – equal parts fishing expedition and misinformation exercise. Threatening to shut down the government and leading the country to the brink of default on its debt has become almost routine for them.
It took Mr McCarthy 15 roll-call votes to become speaker in the first place, and he only succeeded after agreeing to make it easier to remove him. He held the post for less than a year before far-right Republicans moved against him, apparently motivated largely by ego, spite and anger that he had worked with Democrats to pass a short-term funding bill to avert shutdown. (It is, perhaps, another sign of the times that the ringleader, Matt Gaetz, is under investigation by the House ethics committee over allegations of sexual misconduct and misuse of funds.) Mr McCarthy gave Democrats little reason to back him on Tuesday. Quite apart from a shameful record which includes voting to overturn the 2020 election results, he attacked Democrats for “trying to shut down the government” after relying on their votes for the funding bill, and offered them nothing.
It is entirely possible that his successor may be worse. The frontrunners are Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise, who reportedly once called himself “David Duke [the former Ku Klux Klan leader] without the baggage”. Whoever wins will have to contend with the same ultraconservatives. Partial government shutdown looms again, with a 17 November deadline to provide more money. And Mr McCarthy’s departure is felt far from Washington: Democrats backed the spending bill shorn of funding for Ukraine, believing he would help to see it through separately. Beyond Kyiv’s immediate need lies the necessity of firming up longer-term support in the west.
Democrats may benefit from the infighting of the Republicans, who look increasingly self-obsessed and extreme. But voters could also conclude that the political class as a whole is failing – and perhaps, as Mr Trump must hope, that it will take a disruptive strongman to get things done. It’s their party, but the rest of the world has to live with it.
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