Leopards Eat Kevin McCarthy’s Face

... Unable to corral his caucus for what is usually an easy vote, there is no chance McCarthy would be able to get them on board for hard ones, like keeping the government open or raising the debt ceiling to avoid plunging the country into default. His best-case scenario is that he’d be a fragile figurehead, a hostage to the hard right and constantly in danger of defenestration. And even that scenario looks increasingly out of reach.

McCarthy’s approach to the far right has always been one of indulgence. Despite his own apparent lack of ideological conviction, he recruited many of the Tea Party candidates elected to the House in 2010. As Robert Draper, the longtime chronicler of the Republican Party, wrote in 2011, they represented “McCarthy’s more entrepreneurial approach to politics: seize upon a trend (in this case, government phobia), put all your money on it and then work hard to make the trend last.” McCarthy persisted in this approach as the
Tea Party evolved into Trumpism, earning Trump’s patronizing sobriquet: “My Kevin.” ...

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/04/opinion/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-race.html

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