Just a quick note in response to Jim Geraghty’s Corner post in which he practically reproduced the question I was asking myself word-for-word: What are the actual stakes in the fight over Kevin McCarthy for anyone save, well, Kevin McCarthy and those who might wish to take his place?
The answer suggests itself: The stakes are symbolic at best (if there is an intended public meaning) and purely psychological at worst.
The revolt against McCarthy in the House is just standard bargain extraction between rival Republican politicians. It will work itself out (or, it may spectacularly implode, in which case I will be greatly amused — see below). But the organic rage against him online reflects unfinished business from November 2022: sublimated discontent about the abortive Wave That Never Was expressing itself in a need to decapitate someone, anyone. For disappointed MAGA-oriented voters, Trump is not an easy option to blame for obvious reasons (though he is making it progressively easier for his adherents to detach from him as he continues to alternate between setting himself on fire on the dining patio of Mar-a-Lago and whimpering like a whipped cur on TruthSocial). So a target of opportunity presents itself in McCarthy.
It is impossible to care one way or another about McCarthy as a politician. As a leader, he inspires no loyalty and seems to adhere to no cause or principle. His lack of public charisma or relatable qualities — even Boehner had his chain-smoking and boozing and occasional weepiness — makes him a cipher upon which MAGA-friendly Republicans can casually affix a label of “unreliable.” After all, as a longtime dealmaker in the House, he is most certainly not one of them. Principled conservatives have little use for him either (as evidenced for one by the jaded reception he receives from many here). His cardinal virtue — the one that still makes him the likely victor in the contest to be speaker of the House, even now — is that there is simply no other realistic candidate to take his place.
It would be an inspiring speakership inaugurated in a fittingly auspicious manner.