“Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake”
As farcical and embarrassing as it is to see Kevin McCarthy ousted from the speakership, let’s not lose sight of the fact that he was an embarrassing clown and buffoon for much of his career – at absolute best, and at worst, a traitor who sold out his own country to a hostile foreign nation in exchange for power that he didn’t know what to do with.
We can speculate (somewhat reasonably) on the fact that he could be succeeded by a Republican who’s even more reckless and detached from reality than McCarthy ever was, but his ouster is making us sober up to a disturbing truth that we’ve been afraid to admit for a long time: the GOP is dangerous and destructive and shouldn’t be anywhere near the levers of power.
We can argue about the difference between MAGA Republicans and the calmer “moderates” like McCarthy pretended to be – but the moral of this story is that there’s no real fundamental difference between either of those, as McCarthy was beholding to the far-right Republicans while never actually standing up to them until it was far too late.
The last thing on our minds is that the Democrats should step in and help elect a new speaker for the good of the country – but it simply cannot be done if they’re voting for a Republican – the moderates are usually just people with the same intentions as MAGA but tend to be more polite about it. “Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake” is the rule that applies here – and it’s as true as ever when it comes to the Republicans trying to find their way out of a mess of their own making.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making