McCarthy, Trump and Freedom Caucus Big Winners in House Speaker Showdown

Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came perilously close to paying the ultimate price for the “sins” of his Republican predecessor Paul Ryan.

There is an old Greek saying that “those burned by hot soup will start to blow air on yogurt.” Ever since the departure of Newt Gingrich, House Republican true believers have been burned like roast duck by speakers like Ryan and John Boehner. This inevitable showdown had been building up for decades.

The ferocious contest we witnessed in the House speaker vote was not as much about Kevin McCarthy as it was about the direction of the Republican Party in the next decade.

Surely there were cringe moments that should have been avoided. To put it mildly though, Democrat celebrations of an etiolated House Speaker, are not only premature but foolhardy.

A battle as brutal and conspicuous as the House speaker’s race, (also a few days longer than necessary), was a valuable correction to a trajectory of future losses. As counterintuitive as it may seem to Beltway pundits, Kevin McCarthy emerges a stronger leader, the House Freedom Caucus viscerally demonstrated that it is a force to be reckoned with and Donald Trump once again reminded Never Trumpers that he is the leader of the Republican Party and there is nothing they can do about it.

The House Freedom Caucus has long been a group held in the highest contempt by the RINO industrial complex. Boehner once referred to members as “legislative terrorists.”

 After a “Red Wave” failed to materialize in the November 2022 elections, many Freedom Caucus members, having grown tired of vile insults from some of their own colleagues and justifiably concerned about the prospect of wasting another Republican majority, drew a line in the sand.

Freedom Caucus members were determined to wage a fight that Washington hadn’t seen in over a century. Indeed, this was the political equivalent of “going to the mattresses.”

They secured a deal advancing policy goals that avid MSNBC viewers may characterize as “extreme” but far more voters will probably agree that concessions such as having a 72-hour window to review bills, separate votes no more omnibus bills, an end to outrageous borrowing, and a border plan are good ideas to put in place.

Kevin McCarthy is a big winner not only because he is the new House Speaker but because he showed that being polite doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s “soft.” Ironically, before this occasionally bilious fight, Mr. McCarthy had been criticized as being “too nice” to be an effective leader.

Whether Mr. McCarthy is a nice guy or not doesn’t change the fact that he withstood five days of sustained public animadversion from influential members of his own party and didn’t flinch.

Speaker McCarthy was able to get past not just one or two votes, but held firm on 15 because he amassed an enormous bloc of supporters in the conference who would be unmoved no matter how long the holdouts were determined to provide alternative candidates. Having over 200 members of Congress repeatedly standing by your side shows strength and resolve.

McCarthy helped Republicans take back their majority in only four years due in part to his prolific fundraising. He raised more money than any previous House speaker, including Boehner and Ryan, and we must recognize that while the role of money in politics is often criticized, in modern campaigns running a successful race without money is like trying to change the channels on cable without a remote control.

The same swamp lobbyists probably used to getting their way with Messrs. Boehner and Ryan, as well as Nancy Pelosi, would be inclined to go to war against McCarthy on the first sign of resistance to their agenda. The enduring attacks leveled at the speaker will serve as a barricade against the swamp.

As you can see, McCarthy is a patient man who waited a long time to become speaker, he’s not going to be moved by the typical histrionics of lobbyists.

Donald Trump is a huge winner in the Speaker’s race. Kevin McCarthy directly thanked President Trump for his support in his speech after becoming speaker. For all the rhetoric and delusions of the Never Trump movement, no other political leader in the country could retain support from such an ideologically diverse group of prominent elected officials from both the “Only Kevin” and “Never Kevin” factions of the conference.

President Trump guaranteed the unity of the Republican Party at a time when no one thought it was possible.

The extraordinary match over who would become speaker of the House is sending an unmistakably loud and clear message to even the most ardent and delusional Republican boosters of Mitch McConnell; the Republican Party will not survive unless it advances an agenda in aid of working-class middle-class families.