Democrats are sick of bailing the GOP out of their own messes, and boy, are Republicans whining about it
Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to the events leading up to the historic ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker of the House knows exactly who is to blame here: McCarthy and his fellow Republicans. For years, they've rolled out the welcome mat to Donald Trump and his wrecking crew of MAGA camera hogs, foolishly believing that they could harness the chaotic villainy without getting burned in the process. They refused to listen to former Trump "fixer" Michael Cohen when he warned Republicans in 2019 that those who "follow Mr. Trump as I did, blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I'm suffering."
Granted, McCarthy didn't get hauled off to prison like Cohen. But he still faced a tasty comeuppance this week when the sadistic bullies he empowered in his caucus, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, vacated his seat for no other reason than the sheer satisfaction of taking out their leader. Now shellshocked Republicans know who they want to blame for everything that has happened, and — surprise! — it's not themselves. Oh no, they're mad at Democrats for refusing to swoop in and save McCarthy from his fate.
McCarthy helped create the environment in which he got motion-to-vacated but the trigger for it happening now was his willingness to work with Democrats in order to avoid shutting down the government. I don't agree with him on most issues but I recognize that some non-zero amount of bipartisan cooperation is essential for actually running the country, and in this case McCarthy did cooperate and the Democrats did not. I think that was both a moral error and a strategic blunder: US government dysfunction is visible to the entire world, the House is crippled until McCarthy is replaced, and whoever does replace him is probably going to be less cooperative than he was.
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