It Begins: The Gaetz Folly to Vacate

Welp, there I was getting onto the underground version of City Of Heroes to try and form a Shardtober task force - I'll explain later - when I get word that the wingnut madness in the GOP House upgraded to Defcon Nutty:

BREAKING: Matt Gaetz has officially introduced a resolution to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 2, 2023

(insert ALL the popcorn GIFs here)

Lemme find a link to a news site for better details. Here we go, AP News has it with Farnoush Amiri and Kevin Freking reporting:

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing an extraordinary referendum on his leadership of the House of Representatives after a conservative member of his own conference, a longtime critic, moved to trigger a vote on whether he should remain at the helm.

“I have enough Republicans where at this point next week, one of two things will happen: Kevin McCarthy won’t be the speaker of the House or he’ll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats,” GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz told reporters after he filed the motion. “I’m at peace with either result because the American people deserve to know who governs them.”

McCarthy responded minutes later on social media, “Bring it on.”

This is all stemming from the ongoing power struggle - both in public and behind doors - involving Gaetz and the Freedom Caucus faction that never truly respected McCarthy, tried to deny him the office in humiliating fashion in order to squeeze out major concessions, and sought to undercut any authority he has as Speaker in order to ensure a dysfunctional Congress.

The tipping point was the recent fight over yet another looming Shutdown that the Far Right wanted to impose but that McCarthy avoided through deals with the Democratic caucus because McCarthy - for all his slavish devotion to the Far Right ideology already - knew his legacy in the history books as Speaker was at risk. Thing was, Gaetz and his allies were going to pull this Motion to Vacate no matter what McCarthy did because he hadn't given them everything - even things that were out of his power to grant - they desired.

So now we get the circus most observers knew was coming: The power struggle not between Moderates and the Far Right - because there ARE NO MORE Moderates in the GOP, they are all fevered Conservatives - but between the Rational and Irrational factions of the Republican Party.

The Rationalists are likely going to stick with McCarthy because the long-term health of their party requires them to actually do things in office to ensure their constituents - the deep-pocket lobbyists - get their piece of the federal largesse. The Irrationalists are going to stage their coup attempt on McCarthy not to get one of their own into the Speakership but to create enough chaos that the House can't pass anything, and thus force future shutdowns to appease their trumpian voter base.

There's no certainty that Gaetz has the votes to pull off the motion. He can't honestly have every Republican congresscritter aligned to his side (otherwise McCarthy's back-room allies would be signaling alarm) and he can't honestly expect the Democrats to knee-jerk a vote against McCarthy out of partisan spite (there seems to be serious debate among the Democratic congresscritters to not commit either way and let the GOP punch themselves).

What Gaetz does have is the Irrationalist belief that he can stage this coup attempt without punishment or consequence: That he can compel his fellow GOP congresscritters to vacate McCarthy through threat of primary challenges and boycotts from the Far Right financial backers they need to fund their 2024 campaigns. 

He's not entirely wrong: The entire RINO purge of the past 25 years revolved around the removal of more rational party leaders - Cantor, Boehner, Ryan - through successful primary ousters or the threats of them.

But it all depends on how many incumbent Republicans can be threatened by such challenges. If McCarthy can rally enough of the sitting GOP to his side - say, all but the 20 die-hard wingnuts aligned to Gaetz - the threat to primary them all can fall flat. And it could impress the deep-pocket PACs to avoid a party split, and let the Rationalists stay on the ballots to improve the odds of keeping the House after 2024.

Gaetz faces the possibility of expulsion for committing this coup - he is facing a House ethics inquiry that could hurt him where the earlier FBI investigations couldn't - but is gambling on the belief that McCarthy would not dare risk the slim party majority in the House the Republicans control at the moment. Thing is, McCarthy does have some wriggle room with at least a 5-seat lead over the Dems. He can happily afford to kick Gaetz out of Congress - along with a scandal-plagued Matt Santos - and live with the remaining wingnuts who might realize such public stunts can backfire. Given the gerrymandered nature of congressional districts, McCarthy could well get those seats refilled by Republicans anyway during the rest of this congressional session, so the risk for him lessens.

I'm not predicting anything: Last time I tried - the looming Shutdown last week - I whiffed.

We're going to have to see if the House Republicans will stand with their Speaker or fall into infighting and chaos.

In the meantime, the popcorn should be ready and hot.

(Update 10/3): I'm seeing reports on Twitter the Motion to Vacate vote is scheduled this afternoon. Reuters has verified it, noting that McCarthy has not gone to the Democrats to see about making a deal to avoid getting kicked out. That means the Dems may vote as a bloc to vacate, even though they know this could lead to utter chaos. The Democrats are reportedly telling reporters that they won't help McCarthy because he's broken several promises earlier this term (and an unspoken level of anger that McCarthy rolled over for the extremists to start that clown show of an impeachment inquiry).

That means whatever it takes to Vacate, it's all on the Republicans to do. I'm seeing the number needed around 20 Republicans to do so, and it's a question if Gaetz truly has that in his pocket. If he does, hoo boy, this all goes nuclear. And then it becomes a question of which idiot volunteers to be the next GOP Speaker.

(Further Update): Motion to Vacate was tabled and 11 Republicans sided with Democrats to let the vote proceed. Apparently I am STILL wrong on the math: Gaetz doesn't need 20 he needs 6, and if those 11 Republicans carry through on the motion that would mean the end of McCarthy's Speakership.

(Follow-up to the Further Update): As of 4:45 PM EDT, the House voted to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a historic first. McCarthy lost the support of I believe nine Republicans in a 216-210 final (several Democrats and Republicans were absent for various reasons).

Once again, this isn't the fault of Democrats. It was up to the Republicans to stay united, and they couldn't. This chaos is on them. It's been on them the last 30 years.

(Final Update On This): The House is apparently adjourning until next Tuesday, meaning the Republicans are going to stretch this out on the calendar as much as they can.

Without a full Speaker, nothing in the House will get done until that's resolved. So Gaetz and his allies get the shutdown they want for the next few weeks (and if they can extend out past the 45-day CR, the shutdown will turn real).

It now becomes a question of what the various GOP factions will do, if they will rally around one decisive figure or else split into factions between candidates. It will be obvious whoever does replace McCarthy, that person will inherit the same broken model of leadership and face the same fate sooner rather than later during this term.

It's now a matter of history to look at McCarthy's tenure as Speaker - one of the shortest, and the first to suffer at the hands of his own party like this - and judge how badly he did at it.

As Minority Leader during the last days of the trump Presidency, he failed to hold trump accountable for what happened on January 6th. Instead, McCarthy played to trump's ego, posing and preening so that the MAGA voter base would accept him as a dutiful acolyte to trump's hostility and fearmongering. It still didn't save him.

When he tried for the Speakership, McCarthy pandered to the worst factions among the Republicans, trading off every favor he could just so he could claim the high office. And it still didn't save him.

McCarthy played to the fears and rage of the Fox News audiences, offered them every lie, provided every justification, just so he could stay Speaker for a little while longer. He still fell from power in one of the most humiliating events in American history.

It wasn't worth it, Kevin. Selling your soul to the worst people of your party wasn't worth it.

And the Republicans still have far to fall.