signalmankenneth
Verified User
If anyone still labors under the impression that Donald Trump invented the shitshow that is the modern Republican Party, Tuesday's performance on Capitol Hill will have disabused them of that notion. It was déjà vu all over again, just like in 2015 when Kevin McCarthy was humiliated by far right bomb-throwers simply because he was so easy to humiliate, thus giving them leverage and pleasure in equal measure.
Poor McCarthy spent the next seven years groveling and genuflecting to these extremists under the foolish impression that they would reward him for his fealty. As Salon's Rae Hodge lays out in detail, on Tuesday afternoon they simply laughed in his face and humiliated him again.
Back in 2015, the newly formed Freedom Caucus, born out of the Tea Party class that came into Congress five years before in the 2010 "shellacking," managed to force then-Speaker John Boehner to resign for having the temerity to make deals with the Democrats in the Senate and the White House in order to keep the government functioning.
They were a rump caucus that didn't have the power to stop bipartisan legislation, but they had the leverage to both force Boehner out and prevent the ascension of McCarthy, his anointed successor.
At the time, McCarthy made it easier for them by telling the press that the congressional Benghazi hearings were a set-up to destroy Hillary Clinton (which was obviously true, and wouldn't even raise eyebrows in today's political environment). He also saw the whip count and knew he didn't have the votes of all those Freedom Caucus kooks, and abruptly decided to bow out.
After all, the superstar GOP dreamboat and former vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan was waiting in the wings and McCarthy knew he couldn't compete with those baby blues. Ryan took the job for four years but decided not to run for re-election in 2018, largely because those same people made his life as miserable as they'd made his predecessor's.
So this behavior was going on in the Republican Party before Donald Trump had ever uttered the words "Make America Great Again." He didn't invent this lunacy — he just watched it unfold and saw the opportunity to use it. After all, Trump had already done a test run with his birther nonsense, and liked the vibe.
In effect, the GOP has been heading down this anarchic path for decades. Trump undoubtedly made it worse, but he didn't create it. Right now, in fact, he seems almost irrelevant to its descent into further madness.
Trump supposedly whipped votes for McCarthy and it did no good with the diehards. It remains to be seen if he still has the loyalty of the 30 to 40 percent of Republican voters he will need to remain viable in the presidential race, but he clearly has no pull in Congress. In truth, he didn't have much when he was president — his personal attacks on the late Sen. John McCain cost Republicans their most cherished policy objective, repealing the Affordable Care Act.
McCarthy's catering to the far-right faction hasn't done him a damn good either. In fact, the only people who anyone thinks might have some sway with this group are the real leaders of the Republican Party:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread...-america-gop-can-t-govern-and-doesn-t-want-to
Poor McCarthy spent the next seven years groveling and genuflecting to these extremists under the foolish impression that they would reward him for his fealty. As Salon's Rae Hodge lays out in detail, on Tuesday afternoon they simply laughed in his face and humiliated him again.
Back in 2015, the newly formed Freedom Caucus, born out of the Tea Party class that came into Congress five years before in the 2010 "shellacking," managed to force then-Speaker John Boehner to resign for having the temerity to make deals with the Democrats in the Senate and the White House in order to keep the government functioning.
They were a rump caucus that didn't have the power to stop bipartisan legislation, but they had the leverage to both force Boehner out and prevent the ascension of McCarthy, his anointed successor.
At the time, McCarthy made it easier for them by telling the press that the congressional Benghazi hearings were a set-up to destroy Hillary Clinton (which was obviously true, and wouldn't even raise eyebrows in today's political environment). He also saw the whip count and knew he didn't have the votes of all those Freedom Caucus kooks, and abruptly decided to bow out.
After all, the superstar GOP dreamboat and former vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan was waiting in the wings and McCarthy knew he couldn't compete with those baby blues. Ryan took the job for four years but decided not to run for re-election in 2018, largely because those same people made his life as miserable as they'd made his predecessor's.
So this behavior was going on in the Republican Party before Donald Trump had ever uttered the words "Make America Great Again." He didn't invent this lunacy — he just watched it unfold and saw the opportunity to use it. After all, Trump had already done a test run with his birther nonsense, and liked the vibe.
In effect, the GOP has been heading down this anarchic path for decades. Trump undoubtedly made it worse, but he didn't create it. Right now, in fact, he seems almost irrelevant to its descent into further madness.
Trump supposedly whipped votes for McCarthy and it did no good with the diehards. It remains to be seen if he still has the loyalty of the 30 to 40 percent of Republican voters he will need to remain viable in the presidential race, but he clearly has no pull in Congress. In truth, he didn't have much when he was president — his personal attacks on the late Sen. John McCain cost Republicans their most cherished policy objective, repealing the Affordable Care Act.
McCarthy's catering to the far-right faction hasn't done him a damn good either. In fact, the only people who anyone thinks might have some sway with this group are the real leaders of the Republican Party:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread...-america-gop-can-t-govern-and-doesn-t-want-to
