By Matt Bai
Contributing columnist |
January 3, 2023 at 7:02 p.m. EST
A decade ago, when John Boehner was speaker of the House, the knock on him among leading Republicans was that he didn’t know how to corral votes. Boehner had taken an unconventional route to the speakership — as a conference and committee chairman, rather than whip — and even his own lieutenants complained that he lacked a reliable sense for what could pass.
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So it was a bit poetic to watch Kevin McCarthy, who had served as Boehner’s trusted vote-counter then, sit helplessly in the House chamber Tuesday as he failed — not once, not twice, but three times and counting — to secure the 218 votes he needed to finally become speaker himself.
I imagine McCarthy can’t appreciate the irony just yet. But if he didn’t see this day coming, it’s only because he didn’t want to.
During the Boehner era, which now seems like some distant eon when woolly mammoths roamed the Earth, the future of the Republican Party was said to belong to three of his younger colleagues. They called themselves the “young guns,” but a better metaphor now would be the three little pigs.
(I mean nothing derogatory by calling them pigs — it’s England’s fable, not mine. Nor do I intend any insult toward pigs, who suffered enough this week at the hands of the Washington Commanders.)
The first little pig was a cagey guy named Eric Cantor. He built a house from fine Virginia pine, expecting little trouble from outside elements. Then one day a wolf showed up at his door, claiming to represent something called the tea party, and complaining that Cantor was too conciliatory with President Barack Obama. (He wasn’t, by a long shot.)
Cantor laughed and closed the door. The wolf took a wheezy breath and blew the whole house away, along with Cantor’s political career.
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The second little pig was a cerebral sort named Paul Ryan, who — seeing what had happened to his friend Cantor — built a sturdier house from Wisconsin limestone. For a brief time, as speaker, Ryan presided over the Republican village like a king in his castle.
Then one day the same wolf appeared, now wearing a silly red MAGA hat and backed by torch-wielding mob, and said Ryan wasn’t sufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. Ryan, who was no fool, thought about this, excused himself for a moment, and then disappeared out the back door, never to return.
That leaves the third little pig: McCarthy. Unlike the other two, who got by on guile and smarts, McCarthy’s gift was his easy charm. No one was going to mistake him for a Mensa candidate, but he was fun and flexible.
McCarthy built his house out of California cement, and then bided his time. When the wolf came to his door, McCarthy wasn’t worried. He figured he could smile and cajole his way out of the fate that had befallen his buddies.
Karen Tumulty: Whoever the next GOP speaker is, the job will be a living hell
By the end of Tuesday, his house was swaying ominously. In the political version of the story, the wolf might win again. But it is also clear that, even if McCarthy gets to keep the house a while longer, he will effectively be imprisoned inside.
Win or lose, there are a couple of morals to be taken from this fable.
The first is that appeasement of the extremes never works — not in war, not in life and not in politics. You don’t outsmart bullies, or buy them off, or smile them into submission. You have to stand up to them when you have the chance.
McCarthy is here now because neither Boehner nor Cantor nor Ryan had the spine to say that if being a RINO meant you believed in governing and in the essential American promise of tolerance and leadership, then they were happy to have that fight.
Maybe they didn’t believe in those things. But I spent time with all of them over the years, and I think they were just afraid to lose.
The second moral is that this is what happens to a party when its leaders wake up one day to find that they don’t actually have anything constructive they want to achieve.
Don’t count me among those left-of-center analysts who think Ronald Reagan ruined the country. However flawed his arguments, Reagan had a genuine critique of liberalism and a vision for how more limited government should work. He was also a statesman who saw a central role for the United States in the world.
But Reagan’s conservative movement mutated and metastasized with successive generations, his antigovernment rhetoric gradually morphing into a Trumpian tirade against any kind of leadership. Consider this: Since Republicans took over the House in the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, they have cycled through four speakers and five other floor leaders in the House. In that time, Democrats have elected exactly two.
What was once called the Grand Old Party is now essentially a gang of wolves, huffing and puffing at any democratic pillar or foundation they see, including their own.
It turns out that once you start tearing down houses, destruction becomes your only reason for existence.
McCarthy must understand this now. Sooner or later, he will be looking up from the rubble.
Contributing columnist |
January 3, 2023 at 7:02 p.m. EST
A decade ago, when John Boehner was speaker of the House, the knock on him among leading Republicans was that he didn’t know how to corral votes. Boehner had taken an unconventional route to the speakership — as a conference and committee chairman, rather than whip — and even his own lieutenants complained that he lacked a reliable sense for what could pass.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
So it was a bit poetic to watch Kevin McCarthy, who had served as Boehner’s trusted vote-counter then, sit helplessly in the House chamber Tuesday as he failed — not once, not twice, but three times and counting — to secure the 218 votes he needed to finally become speaker himself.
I imagine McCarthy can’t appreciate the irony just yet. But if he didn’t see this day coming, it’s only because he didn’t want to.
During the Boehner era, which now seems like some distant eon when woolly mammoths roamed the Earth, the future of the Republican Party was said to belong to three of his younger colleagues. They called themselves the “young guns,” but a better metaphor now would be the three little pigs.
(I mean nothing derogatory by calling them pigs — it’s England’s fable, not mine. Nor do I intend any insult toward pigs, who suffered enough this week at the hands of the Washington Commanders.)
The first little pig was a cagey guy named Eric Cantor. He built a house from fine Virginia pine, expecting little trouble from outside elements. Then one day a wolf showed up at his door, claiming to represent something called the tea party, and complaining that Cantor was too conciliatory with President Barack Obama. (He wasn’t, by a long shot.)
Cantor laughed and closed the door. The wolf took a wheezy breath and blew the whole house away, along with Cantor’s political career.
Follow Matt Bai's opinionsFollow
The second little pig was a cerebral sort named Paul Ryan, who — seeing what had happened to his friend Cantor — built a sturdier house from Wisconsin limestone. For a brief time, as speaker, Ryan presided over the Republican village like a king in his castle.
Then one day the same wolf appeared, now wearing a silly red MAGA hat and backed by torch-wielding mob, and said Ryan wasn’t sufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. Ryan, who was no fool, thought about this, excused himself for a moment, and then disappeared out the back door, never to return.
That leaves the third little pig: McCarthy. Unlike the other two, who got by on guile and smarts, McCarthy’s gift was his easy charm. No one was going to mistake him for a Mensa candidate, but he was fun and flexible.
McCarthy built his house out of California cement, and then bided his time. When the wolf came to his door, McCarthy wasn’t worried. He figured he could smile and cajole his way out of the fate that had befallen his buddies.
Karen Tumulty: Whoever the next GOP speaker is, the job will be a living hell
By the end of Tuesday, his house was swaying ominously. In the political version of the story, the wolf might win again. But it is also clear that, even if McCarthy gets to keep the house a while longer, he will effectively be imprisoned inside.
Win or lose, there are a couple of morals to be taken from this fable.
The first is that appeasement of the extremes never works — not in war, not in life and not in politics. You don’t outsmart bullies, or buy them off, or smile them into submission. You have to stand up to them when you have the chance.
McCarthy is here now because neither Boehner nor Cantor nor Ryan had the spine to say that if being a RINO meant you believed in governing and in the essential American promise of tolerance and leadership, then they were happy to have that fight.
Maybe they didn’t believe in those things. But I spent time with all of them over the years, and I think they were just afraid to lose.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...?itid=mc_magnet-cartoons_inline_collection_20The second moral is that this is what happens to a party when its leaders wake up one day to find that they don’t actually have anything constructive they want to achieve.
Don’t count me among those left-of-center analysts who think Ronald Reagan ruined the country. However flawed his arguments, Reagan had a genuine critique of liberalism and a vision for how more limited government should work. He was also a statesman who saw a central role for the United States in the world.
But Reagan’s conservative movement mutated and metastasized with successive generations, his antigovernment rhetoric gradually morphing into a Trumpian tirade against any kind of leadership. Consider this: Since Republicans took over the House in the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, they have cycled through four speakers and five other floor leaders in the House. In that time, Democrats have elected exactly two.
What was once called the Grand Old Party is now essentially a gang of wolves, huffing and puffing at any democratic pillar or foundation they see, including their own.
It turns out that once you start tearing down houses, destruction becomes your only reason for existence.
McCarthy must understand this now. Sooner or later, he will be looking up from the rubble.
