No Gavel for You! MAGA’s Big Mad at Wannabe Speaker Kevin McCarthy

By Kevin Howley, December 14, 2022

Now that the 2022 midterm dust has settled and the recently declared independent senator from Arizona and Democratic Party buzzkill, Kyrsten Sinema, has had her time in the new cycle, all eyes are on Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) uphill battle to become Speaker of the House when the 118th Congress convenes early next month.

Quoting a scathing op-ed by Matt Rosendale (R-Mont), a recent headline in The Hill doesn’t bode well for McCarthy’s leadership bid: “McCarthy Critic Ups Opposition, Says He ‘Doesn’t Have the Ability to Serve As Speaker.’” 

Days later, CNN reported that House Republicans were bracing for a  “Doomsday scenario” should a challenge from the party’s increasingly rabid base derail McCarthy’s plans to assume the House leadership come January 3. By the end of last week, Slate put it plainly: “Kevin McCarthy Is About to Enter Political Hell.” 

Apart from the obvious question – What took you so long, Mr. McCarthy? – you have to wonder: if this is the way mainstream political journalism is covering the Speaker’s race, how does the contest look in right-wing outlets?

TheRighting has got you covered.

Drain The Swamp Redux

Soon after the midterms, it was clear the MAGA wing of the Republican Party wasn’t taking any prisoners. GOP leadership in both the House and Senate came under attack for failing to ride the Red Wave that wasn’t.

In the weeks since, the intra-party axe grinding has only intensified: “It is one of the most bitter and tragic ironies of our contemporary politics,” writes Townhall’s Josh Hammer, “that the leadership of one of America’s two major political parties, the Republican party, utterly despises that party’s own voting base.”

McCarthy’s troubles reached a fever pitch when Andy Biggs (R-Az), the former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), and four of his colleagues launched a full-frontal assault on his leadership bid. Biggs stated uncategorical: “Kevin McCarthy needs to step aside and allow our conference to move forward without him at the helm.”

Perhaps with thoughts of the Capitol insurrection dancing in his head, Biggs added that McCarthy’s “reluctance to step down will add unnecessary chaos” on opening day of the new Congress.

Smelling blood in the water, McCarthy’s opponents are sharpening their tongues – and escalating their demands. By late last week, the mounting discontent captured in a Townhall post was difficult to ignore. “Seven more members of the HFC pledged to oppose McCarthy, keeping him far away from being the next Speaker unless they win concessions on congressional rules.”

HFC members, Scott Perry (R-PA) and Chip Roy (R-TX) echoed early MAGA talking points on establishment politicians and conventional politics, “we must organize ourselves to ensure there is a ‘check’ on the swamp and reform the status quo.”

Operation Enduring Oversight

Call it a case of chickens coming home to roost. The Sacramento Bee’s Josh Gohlke got it right when he observed the irony of McCarthy’s current predicament: “His endlessly embarrassing quest for the House speakership [is] threatened by an uprising within the lunatic fringe” – Gohlkie’s words, not mine – “he has carefully cultivated.”

Judging by McCarthy’s standing reservation at Fox News in recent weeks, the would-be speaker isn’t going down without a fight. And a Christmas sleigh loaded with promises to unify his party under a single grand strategy; what I call “Operation Enduring Oversight.”

To curry favor with the MAGA extremists threatening his ambitions, McCarthy is eager to negotiate. Making his pitch on Fox last week, McCarthy said that the party needs to “find a way to govern together.”

It is a road to the speakership paved with Republican-led investigations into, well, just about anything. From President Biden and the (manufactured) crisis at the southern border, to outgoing NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the hasty if long overdue US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Of course, there’s a cherry on top: Hunter Biden’s laptop.

MAGA may be “big mad” at McCarthy, but if the politics of payback means anything to Trump loyalists – and it certainly does – they may yet come around when the full House votes for its next speaker.

But don’t take my word for it. McCarthy issued a threat of his own aimed squarely at the HFC. “But if we can’t come together on that opening day, no investigations. No subpoenas. No repealing 87,000 IRS agents. No becoming energy independent. No securing the border.”

Whether Kevin McCarthy decides to be naughty or nice this Christmas, expect the GOP’s internecine warfare to escalate between now and the new year.

Kevin Howley is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Social Movement Studies, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. His most recent book is Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.

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