(2023-10-06) Why Do Republicans Keep Destroying Their Own Leaders

Why Do Republicans Keep Destroying Their Own Leaders? Fourteen experts on the roots of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster and what’s broken in American politics

While McCarthy became the first speaker ever ousted by a motion to vacate, he’s the latest in a long line of GOP leaders to do battle with conservative rebels and be felled in one way or another. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and now McCarthy — those are the recent ones, but the pattern goes back to Newt Gingrich. Why does this keep happening?

Their responses leaned heavily toward blaming a populist, Trumpian, or even nihilistic turn in the GOP

‘McCarthy did little to resist the feral direction of his party’ BY GEOFFREY KABASERVICE

the leverage his enemies could exercise in an evenly divided House.

In a longer view, however, the chaos within the Republican Party comes from a failure to heed the exhortation Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona offered his followers more than 60 years ago. “Let’s grow up, conservatives,” he urged at the 1960 Republican National Convention, and work to “take this party back.” They obeyed the second part of Goldwater’s injunction but not the first. The conservative movement that has dominated the Republican Party for decades has attained power without reaching political maturity.

‘Our infatuation with the two-party system … has always been balky’ BY MARY FRANCES BERRY

‘Everyone involved acted rationally, almost clinically so’ BY LIAM DONOVAN

Nor can you blame House Democrats for declining to fend off — whether by action or inaction — a beast of the right’s own creation. In the end, they chose to serve as Matt Gaetz’s executioner because they could; because their deepening mistrust of the speaker eclipsed any perceived value in his ongoing survival; and because affording any measure of grace — even out of partisan self-interest — would have been met with fury by a base whose contempt for McCarthy matched the caucus’ own.

‘This isn’t democracy. It’s the heartbeat of authoritarianism.’ BY JOANNE FREEMAN

‘Another profound repudiation of the Constitution’s core’ BY AZIZ HUQ

Advocates of the hard-right project today deeply misunderstand the Framers here. In effect, they ignore the first four aims listed in the Constitution in favor of an emphasis on “Liberty” (for the select, right-thinking few, at least). Such selectivity is, in its own way, another profound repudiation of the Constitution’s core.

‘The speaker’s chair is vacant because of mistrust and misaligned expectations’ BY BILL SCHER

‘All three of the Guns have been shot down by their own gang’ BY NORMAN ORNSTEIN

The roots go back for decades — starting with Newt Gingrich’s arrival in the House in 1979. But the current chaos was triggered, ironically, by the self-proclaimed “Young Guns” — Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy — when they went around the country in 2009 recruiting tea party radicals, exploiting their anger after the financial collapse and the backlash against Barack Obama

Their expectation was that once these tea party radicals were in the House, they could co-opt them. Instead, of course, they were co-opte

‘There had to be payback against McCarthy’ BY SETH MASKET

‘Seeking glamor by making news’ BY [[LILLIANA MASON

McCarthy’s ouster is just another symptom of a few underlying processes.

First, an extremist far-right movement

Second, the gamification of politics encourages fame-seekers

Third, our political news media privileges stories about conflict

‘Our electoral and governing institutions … are not designed for modern American politics’ BY JENNIFER VICTOR

This division is the result of a long-brewing storm fed by (1) segmented, vigorous social backlash to advances in civil rights in the 1960s and 2010s, (2) campaign finance regulations first adopted in the 1970s, (3) tax reforms first adopted in the 1980s and (4) modernization and deregulation of media technology in the 1990s that makes it easier for populist demagogues to gain a following.

Together, these generated and exacerbated inequalities in America.

‘The problem is not American politics, per se. It is one party.’ BY JOSHUA ZEITZ

‘While the political system is broken, the culture of democracy is robust’ BY CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS

Gerrymandered uncompetitive House districts reward the politics of racialized zealotry. Special interest money immunizes partisan hardliners from broad public interest appeals. And lastly, social media incentivizes clicks and likes over record and legacy.

‘It’s important not to confuse stability with democratic health’ BY JULIA AZARI

‘There’s a straight throughline between Trump and the Republicans in Congress’ BY JEFF GREENFIELD

One fact that has dominated Republican thinking for eight years now defines the behavior of the party: There is virtually no behavior, however repellent, however malicious, that will trigger a political cost, because the beating heart of the Republican base will not care.