Kevin McCarthy’s Republican Leadership Is Among The Worst Ever by Robert Covington Jr.
Over the past decade, America has endured varying degrees of terrible leadership within the Republican House of Representatives. The Three Stooges of Republican House leadership that have shamed the idea of competence and bravery are John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy.
In 2011, John Boehner went from Republican Minority Leader to Speaker of the House after the Democratic Party lost the majority in the House of Representatives for many reasons, one of which was due to their humane and courageous votes in passing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), colloquially known as Obamacare. For many white Americans, it was the culmination of intolerance in its discomfort seeing a powerful black man (Obama) and white woman (Nancy Pelosi) exert their enormous power and government resources by trying to provide healthcare coverage in a more equitable way.
John Boehner rode the wave of white backlash and Tea Party anger to the top position within the House of Representatives, and his tenure weakened the nation. Under his poor leadership, obstruction, dysfunction, lack of legislative accomplishment and capitulation to the extreme right-wing racists of his party became commonplace. Boehner’s surprise resignation in September 2015 was acknowledgement of his own ineptitude. Boehner cried, drank his wine and smoked his cigar out of office in deserved humiliation.
Next up was Paul Ryan, the self-proclaimed policy wonk and protector of professed American exceptionalism. Ryan benefited from a carefully crafted image of seriousness, and with the complicity of the media — keyed his rise within the Republican Party. Ryan’s stint as Speaker of the House turned out to be a complete and utter disaster. His refusal to address Trump’s daily constitutional violations and corrupt pattern of behavior in the early part of his presidency, emboldened Trump to do more of it. Ryan’s impulse to shelter Trump from accountability was rooted in shared enjoyment of generating mass suffering and pain to as many Americans as possible. Ryan’s career was primarily defined by his commitment to destroying or severely weakening Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The callousness and opportunism of Ryan and Trump to hurt human beings while enriching themselves with tax cuts at the expense of struggling Americans, exposed their self-serving patriotism and the fragility of democracy when character disordered individuals have a lot of power. Ryan also decided not to run for reelection because his narcissism couldn’t fathom the idea of losing an election. Ryan adroitly sensed the 2018 election was going to be disastrous for Republicans and he left before his ego was further damaged in front of the nation.
To complete the trifecta of awful Republican leadership is Kevin McCarthy, a man that has worked very hard to prove to everyone that it is possible to be worse than Boehner and Ryan.
Kevin McCarthy’s tenure as Minority Leader since January 2019 has been defined by dereliction of duty, silence, and cowardice during the Trump era of unprecedented lawlessness. McCarthy constantly tried to defend Trump’s never ending lies and corruption in tweets and TV appearances. He guided his Republican caucus into becoming incessant apologists and enablers of Trump’s assault on the constitution.
Kevin McCarthy did nothing to stop an unfit and unwell president from imposing his destructive will on democratic institutions and democracy itself. McCarthy abandoned all pretense that he would challenge Trump’s alternative world of facts and truth for the sake of the country. McCarthy’s cult level subservience to a corrupt president was evident in his TV press conference that he held in response to Democrats filing their articles of impeachment against Donald Trump on December 10th, 2019.
With all of the boot licking and bended knee behavior that Kevin McCarthy has engaged in on behalf of Trump, his final act of disgracing himself, the Republican Party and the nation is his support of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn an election. McCarthy was there when the insurrection that Trump incited caused death, destruction, national embarrassment and collective trauma on his colleagues. But that didn’t matter. What this cold, heartless and calculating politician was worried about was not upsetting Trump. He flew down to Mar a Lago to tame the beast and to let him know that there is absolutely nothing you can do to lose my loyalty and the support of the Republican House of Representatives. McCarthy rallied his caucus to defend the indefensible and pushed them to not support Trump’s second impeachment.
Kevin McCarthy is a horrible Republican leader. He is symptomatic of a cancerous Republican Party that looks to spread its indecency, hatred of others and hatred of democracy. McCarthy has taken awful Republican leadership to another level. He is the leader of the seditionist Republican Party with an authoritarian impulse. He is the leader of a band of racists, white supremacists and history will identify him with the confederates of years past. His moral and ethical bankruptcy as a man cannot be overstated. What wakes him up every day is holding on and gaining more power by any means necessary.
Horrible human beings like McCarthy is why America is on the brink of collapse. And it’s up to us to do everything possible to reduce his power and ultimately vote him out of office.
Follow me on twitter: @robcovingtonjr
