Some of the arguments that McCarthy’s downfall was the fault of Democrats seem to have been lodged from Cloudcuckooland. “Instead of siding with sanity, Democrats have decided to side with Gaetz. It’s not a good look,” wrote The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis. His piece concludes:
There was a “W” waiting for the Dems—a “hanging curveball,” as they say. Had they done the right thing on Tuesday, then going forward, they would have been positioned to basically say, “We’re above culture war bullshit, and would not abide a coup by Matt Gaetz. Nobody asked us to rescue McCarthy, but we did. That’s what responsible leadership does. Remember that the next time the GOP says we’re the problem.” Now they can’t.
The idea that this was an obvious decision to make is absurd, whether you view it from the perspective of raw political wrangling or responsible governance. The notion that this was a looming win for Democrats is pure fantasy. It’s hard to follow the logic here: Voters would reward Democrats for rescuing McCarthy? That is a dubious proposal, one more likely to backfire on Democrats and McCarthy, whose status as a dead man walking wouldn’t have been resolved. Perhaps Lewis missed the part where the proximate cause of the Republican hardliners’ complaint was that McCarthy reached a deal with Democrats on the stopgap funding bill.
But if Democrats were to bail out McCarthy a second time without receiving any concessions in return, that would simply be political malpractice—especially so given that Democrats would have every reason to believe that he would continue to set the House on the same path it has been on since he took over: toward extremism and obstruction. Yes, McCarthy has kept the government open twice. But that is the responsibility of the leader of the majority party. Whoever takes McCarthy’s place will have to clear that bar, regardless of whether they ride into power with the blessing of the Freedom Caucus. At any rate, McCarthy—who voted against certifying the 2020 election and who has done everything in his power to protect Donald Trump—was hardly a defender of “the institution.” Quite the contrary.