Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, in Washington, January 4, 2023. ANNA MONEYMAKER / AFP
Kevin McCarthy had a gallows smile in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, January 4th. That of a disgruntled and weakened man claiming his supposed right – the speaker’s gavel – but sees a group of populist extremists from his own camp endanger his rise. His public humiliation is a journey whose number of stops is unknown. After three failed votes on Tuesday and three new failures on Wednesday, the deadlock in the Republican ranks remained complete under the mocking eyes of the Democrats, united behind their new leader, Hakeem Jeffries.
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Twenty elected Republicans who aligned themselves with the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement formed a solid and stubborn bloc that all day refused to accept Kevin McCarthy’s nomination. The latter feared that if another night vote were held, his own allies would wearily push for an alternative candidacy. At 8 p.m., the elected officials of the Grand Old Party forced the meeting to be adjourned until Thursday noon. The night promised new exhausting palaver. On the one hand, a candidate willing to defecate the function of speaker of his feathers, provided that he eventually returns to him, engaged in a work of attrition in the face of internal resistance. On the other hand, mutineers in a position of unprecedented strength, intoxicated with their own audacity, enforcing their demands.
On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump decided to give Kevin McCarthy clear support. In a message on his Truth Social network, the former president urged Republicans-elect “not to turn a great triumph into a huge and embarrassing defeat.” Donald Trump has thus taken a political risk by jeopardizing his credibility, which had already been severely damaged by the midterms. He too is a victim of this crisis, disowned by his own political children who are actually part of an older legacy, that of the Tea Party movement. At the launch of Byron Donalds (Florida)’s candidacy for alternative speaker on Wednesday, Lauren Boebert (Colorado), one of the most extremist figures in the MAGA movement, rejected Donald Trump. He had taken the trouble to phone the mutineers and tell them to surrender. In return, Lauren Boebert had a public tip for ” [son] Favorite President”: He “needs to say to Kevin McCarthy, ‘Sir, you don’t have the votes, it’s time to resign’”.
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A matter of influence
At the opening of the session at noon, Republican Mike Gallagher (Wisconsin) again proposed Kevin McCarthy’s candidacy. “Yeah, it looks messy. But democracy is disordered, in its very design,” he tried, hailing the “energy” he sensed in the Republican ranks. A Language of Wood has shifted compared to the party’s public debacle, which the Fox News chain itself has crudely described.
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