Why Republicans Can't Quit Donald Trump

Also, we have to talk about Kevin McCarthy; and today in Bob Dylan I write about one of his latest masterpieces "Key West."

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We Need To Talk About Kevin McCarthy

Look, I’m not happy about it either, but since McCarthy is likely to end up as Speaker of the House, we need to spend a few minutes on him (I have a longer opinion piece coming out soon at MSNBC on this topic ).

Old Kevin is in a bit of a bind. He wants to be Speaker, and with a likely 5-seat GOP majority, he has little margin for error … because more than a few members of the party’s jihadist wing are just not that into him.

As Rep. Adam Schiff recently said, “McCarthy’s problem is, he can’t get to 218 without Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz, and so he will do whatever they ask.” 

No lie is detected.

It’s why McCarthy launched an outreach campaign to House extremists. It’s why he publicly threatened to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and vowed to throw Reps. Eric Swalwell, Ilhan Omar, and Schiff off their congressional committee to win. It’s why he promised to lift all COVID restrictions in the House, end proxy voting, and even remove the metal detectors installed off the House floor after January 6. It’s also why his new BFF is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has become one of the loudest GOP advocates for McCarthy’s Speaker bid (he’s also pledged to restore her committee assignments). 

And for all the recent talk about Republicans distancing themselves from Donald Trump after the midterm disaster, McCarthy is moving in the opposite direction. While Senate Republicans were happy to criticize Trump’s recent dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, McCarthy refused. Instead, he made lame, pathetic excuses for Trump’s behavior.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona

Kevin McCarthy condemns Nick Fuentes but won't criticize Trump over the dinner. "I think President Trump came out 4 times and condemned him and didn't know who he was." Reporter: "He didn't condemn him or his ideology." McCarthy: "The president didn't know who he was."

McCarthy’s problem is that he ultimately needs Trump’s support — and the support of Trump’s fans — to become Speaker. That means if you’re expecting McCarthy to separate himself from the former President soon, it likely won’t happen. The GOP House Leader is not, in fact, a leader. He’s a follower who will do what his caucus demands because it furthers his narrow self-interest. And if McCarthy is successful in the near term – and considering the lack of Speaker alternatives, I think he will be – because of his narrow majority and reliance on the GOP’s extremist caucus, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. McCarthy will be navigating mine-infested waters for the next two years.

This, unfortunately, is why we need to talk about McCarthy because the way he is going about winning over House Republicans does not bode well for Congress or the country. It means that McCarthy will have little choice but to govern as a hard-right, pro-Trump extremist. One should expect that he will give into nearly every far-right demand, whether it’s impeachment proceedings for Mayorkas or a full-throated investigation of Hunter Biden.

In fairness, he doesn’t have many other options. He needs the votes. He could try and dare the extremists to vote against him (there really isn’t any good Speaker alternative), but that isn’t McCarthy’s style. He could, I suppose, make deals with the Democrats and cut the extremists out, but I’m not sure that would please the rest of his caucus. Most congressional Republicans hold seats in solidly red districts, where Trump remains popular, and Democrats rank a notch above child molesters on the morality scale.

McCarthy is a weak leader and a mediocre political strategist. Still, he’s also a prisoner of a political system where the numerical divide in Congress between Democrats and Republicans is incredibly narrow … but the ideological divide could not be wider. Of course, Democrats were able to navigate the same waters for the past two years — and one could argue their success was a political imperative driven by the implacable opposite of congressional Republicans. But it also helps when you’re not a prisoner to a political party controlled by conspiracy theorists, cranks, and political extremists.

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for McCarthy … almost.

Is Trump Finished?

According to the Washington Post, congressional Republicans are annoyed by Donald Trump.

Former president Donald Trump’s refusal to apologize for or disavow the outspoken antisemites he dined with last week is setting him increasingly at odds with leaders of his own party, providing the first test of his political endurance since launching his third run for the White House.

The fracas is also testing how Republicans will handle the party’s extreme fringe in the months ahead after years of racist, misogynist and antisemitic speech flooding into the political bloodstream during the Trump era.

… the wave of denunciations only intensified as lawmakers returned to Washington from the Thanksgiving holiday this week, breaking a well-worn pattern of dodging or shrugging off Trump’s controversies during much of his presidency, possibly ushering in a new phase of more vocal criticism of him.

“We have to stop the whispered concerns and veiled statements, and we have to stand up for the principles and the beliefs that our country and party were founded on,” former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the first potential 2024 candidate to condemn Trump on the dinner, said on Wednesday. “There is no place for antisemitism or white supremacists in the Republican Party and no place for anyone who gives people like Nick Fuentes the time of day. Donald Trump’s recent actions and history of poor judgment make him untenable as a candidate for our party.”

Rebukes from other likely 2024 challengers followed, including an exceptionally rare criticism from Trump’s own former vice president. “I think he should apologize for it, and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification,” Mike Pence said in an interview with NewsNation that aired Monday.