Democrats are sick of bailing the GOP out of their own messes, and boy, are Republicans whining about it
Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to the events leading up to the historic ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker of the House knows exactly who is to blame here: McCarthy and his fellow Republicans. For years, they’ve rolled out the welcome mat to Donald Trump and his wrecking crew of MAGA camera hogs, foolishly believing that they could harness the chaotic villainy without getting burned in the process. They refused to listen to former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen when he warned Republicans in 2019 that those who “follow Mr. Trump as I did, blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.”
Granted, McCarthy didn’t get hauled off to prison like Cohen. But he still faced a tasty comeuppance this week when the sadistic bullies he empowered in his caucus, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, vacated his seat for no other reason than the sheer satisfaction of taking out their leader. Now shellshocked Republicans know who they want to blame for everything that has happened, and — surprise! — it’s not themselves. Oh no, they’re mad at Democrats for refusing to swoop in and save McCarthy from his fate.
McCarthy allowing the CR to be voted on was at the end of a long attempt to do everything he could to go back on the deal he made with Democrats to pass the bill to raise the debt ceiling and didn’t fulfill his side of the bargain. There’s no both sidesing this mess. The Republicans have decided that they would rather be held hostage by an extremist minority in their party than negotiate in good faith with Democrats so McCarthy was running between the extremists and Democrats making and breaking deals with both trying to string them both along so that he could remain in power. If he had kept his debt ceiling deal and/or made a real attempt to build a bipartisan coalition he might have gotten some support from Democrats.
McCarthy deliberately said he knows he’s supposed to compromise. That’s how the chamber is supposed to work. He said he just doesn’t want to, because he’s the majority leader and the majority should just be able to do everything they want. He explicitly said this shortly before he got the boot.