I barely had any idea who McCarthy was until a few years ago; it's not like I keep up with Congresscritters where I neither vote nor who aren't caught taking an ABSCAM bribe.
It was when I first became aware of the guy that I knew I wasn't going to like it if he ascended to Speaker:
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But a large group of House Republicans was not taking that advice or heeding that warning. They were the biggest group of holdouts and Kevin McCarthy was their leader. He had the opportunity to give them a cold dose of truth. The blowback from Trump and from his cult-like supporters in
Congress might be severe, but it would be the right thing to do. And if he did it forcefully and convincingly, others would follow him. Exaggerating to make a point about the historical weight of the moment, I nodded toward the monuments along the National Mall—memorials to political leaders remembered precisely because they did things that were both important and difficult to do.
“Who knows,” I said, “if you do the right thing, maybe there will be a statue of you out here someday.”
McCarthy laughed.
“Where’s the statue for Jeff Flake? Where’s the statue for that guy from Tennessee?” he said, referring to the former Republican Senator Bob Corker who, like former Republican Senator Jeff Flake, had stood up to Trump during Trump’s first two years in office. As McCarthy saw it, both men gave big speeches condemning Trump’s actions and were rewarded with political obscurity. They became pariahs within the Republican Party. Nobody talks much of Flake and Corker anymore. McCarthy believed they ultimately accomplished little by taking on Trump. Their speeches didn’t change Trump’s behavior—in fact, they may have egged him on to be more outrageous...
And then there was the pure politics of it all—internal House Republican politics. McCarthy was now within just five seats of becoming Speaker of the House. That’s because House Republicans fared much better than Trump in 2020, picking up fifteen seats even as Trump lost to Biden. McCarthy could see the speakership within his grasp in 2022. But if he crossed Trump, he figured he’d face an insurrection and could be voted out as leader. History could wait. His chance to be Speaker could not. Whatever Kevin McCarthy thought of Trump’s lies and his lost cause and the damage it all was doing to our democracy, he wasn’t going to do anything that would risk his chance to be the next Speaker of the House.
(Jonathan Karl, "Betrayal," 266-7)
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I understand politics is no place for idealists, but there's a big difference between, "I'm going to vote for Bill X that I only agree with 58% on because it's better than nothing" and "I'm afraid if I tell the truth, I won't be Speaker of the House."
In the end, the very mob he was trying to placate - unsurprisingly - became the mob that toppled him.
www.latimes.com
