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Photos by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By POLITICO MAGAZINE

10/06/2023 05:00 AM EDT

It’s not easy to shock official Washington, but the sudden defenestration
of Kevin McCarthy managed to surprise and unsettle even those who had
predicted it since he was elected speaker earlier this year.

While McCarthy became the first speaker ever ousted by a motion to vacate,
he’s the latest in a long line of GOP leaders to do battle with
conservative rebels and be felled in one way or another. John Boehner,
Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and now McCarthy — those are the recent ones, but
the pattern goes back to Newt Gingrich. Why does this keep happening?

We asked some of the smartest thinkers and observers of politics and
Capitol Hill to weigh in. Something seems broken in American politics —
but what is it? Does the dysfunction stem from a sickness in the
Republican Party, or is it decay in the institution of Congress? Or is it something else entirely — and is there a way to fix things, so we can
return to some semblance of a healthy democracy?

Their responses leaned heavily toward blaming a populist, Trumpian, or
even nihilistic turn in the GOP, although others took issue with the
premise of the question, arguing that stability in politics isn’t always a
sign of health or that American politics may not be as fractured as it
seems. Few, though, were optimistic about improvement any time soon.

Here’s what they had to say:
‘McCarthy did little to resist the feral direction of his party’
BY GEOFFREY KABASERVICE

Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C., as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party.

K
evin McCarthy’s ouster from the speakership was, from a short-term
perspective, merely the result of his own bad decisions and the leverage
his enemies could exercise in an evenly divided House. In a longer view, however, the chaos within the Republican Party comes from a failure to
heed the exhortation Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona offered his followers
more than 60 years ago. “Let’s grow up, conservatives,” he urged at the
1960 Republican National Convention, and work to “take this party back.”
They obeyed the second part of Goldwater’s injunction but not the first.
The conservative movement that has dominated the Republican Party for
decades has attained power without reaching political maturity.

A grown-up Republican Party — even a deeply conservative one — would
accept the rule of law, the norms of liberal democracy, and the legitimacy
of the opposing party. It would seek to represent all Americans and would prioritize winning converts over destroying heretics. It would be a
governing party, understanding full well that governing is impossible
without negotiation and compromise. It would accept America’s
responsibility to uphold the post-World War II global order. Its
leadership would seek to address the real needs and problems of its working-class base while resisting the conspiracy theories, demagoguery
and temptations toward political violence to which populism is all too susceptible. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy returns to his office at
the U.S. Capitol.

The calculus that prompted Kevin McCarthy to cheat his own destiny as long
as he did was vacated along with his office. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Images

Unfortunately, that’s not the Republican Party we have. Instead, we have a party that prefers temper tantrums to governing, fantasies about stolen elections to the hard work of appealing to swing voters. It would rather destroy the federal bureaucracy than use it to implement conservative
policies. Increasingly it poses a threat to national stability and world
order. Kevin McCarthy did little to resist the feral direction of his
party and much to indulge it. The next speaker will either find the
courage to stand against this Republican nihilism or be consumed by it in
turn. ‘Our infatuation with the two-party system … has always been balky’
BY MARY FRANCES BERRY

Mary Frances Berry is the Geraldine Segal professor of American social
thought at the University of Pennsylvania.

K
evin McCarthy’s ouster is another important symbol of a break in the
American political system. In 1910, Democrats joined Republicans aggrieved
by Speaker Joe Cannon’s tyrannical control of the House to reduce the
speaker’s powers. But then they helped Cannon to defeat the insurgent
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This time the Democrats voted against the Matt Gaetz-led rebels to pass McCarthy’s continuing resolution to fund the government, and then they
turned against McCarthy to pass the motion to vacate. This may seem like
smart politics in its crudest form. But if we view the current situation
not as an “American” political system (which is a two-party system), but
as a parliamentary system (Britain, Canada, Australia, etc.) then
McCarthy’s ouster is a vote of no confidence in the current “coalition” of “parties” — or caucuses.

Our consistent and ill-advised infatuation with a two-party system —
something that the Founding Fathers did not include in the Constitution —
has always been balky, forcing the electorate and its representatives to
hew to one of two party principles in rhetoric if not in fact. The
stranglehold of the current party system and the exclusion of insurgents
in the electoral process under Republican and Democratic party rules just
adds to the numbers of citizens who feel their views are ignored.

Therefore, the use of the motion to vacate, like the increased use of impeachment as a weapon, will continue until this problem is directly addressed. Perhaps real political party upheaval — a fracturing into
multiple parties — is a better option, not more Frankenstein amalgamations
in the name of unity. ‘Everyone involved acted rationally, almost
clinically so’ BY LIAM DONOVAN

Liam Donovan is a principal at Bracewell LLP and a former National
Republican Senatorial Committee aide.

N
o one should shed any tears for Kevin McCarthy. He got the job he sought
his entire career, performed as well as anyone could have reasonably anticipated, and kept the balls in the air longer than he probably had any business doing. Caught between unstoppable force and immovable object, in
the end, McCarthy chose to accept his fate rather than contrive some
untenable transactional truce. Whatever his future in Congress holds,
he’ll have a long second act as a Republican wise man, and his ouster will
be mythologized into partisan martyrdom.

Nor can you blame House Democrats for declining to fend off — whether by
action or inaction — a beast of the right’s own creation. In the end, they chose to serve as Matt Gaetz’s executioner because they could; because
their deepening mistrust of the speaker eclipsed any perceived value in
his ongoing survival; and because affording any measure of grace — even
out of partisan self-interest — would have been met with fury by a base
whose contempt for McCarthy matched the caucus’ own. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries walking down a spiral staircase at the U.S. Capitol with reporters and staff.

In the end, House Democrats, led by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chose to serve
as Matt Gaetz’s executioner because they could. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Even Gaetz, the jester of the GOP, achieved his vainglorious end, setting
into motion a political trolley problem that accomplished what he couldn’t
or wouldn’t by himself, and, perhaps most importantly, casting himself as
the star of the show.

Ultimately the tragedy of this week — and for the immediate future of congressional politics, it is a tragedy — is that everyone involved acted rationally, almost clinically so, according to their respective
incentives. The calculus that prompted McCarthy to cheat his own destiny
as long as he did was vacated along with his office, and the circumstances surrounding his defenestration have already eroded what few bipartisan courtesies had survived to date. So long as the nihilist’s veto exists —
newly operationalized, and suddenly with precedent — even the baseline functions of government will be in question.

Changing the rules of the House is a start. But so long as voters continue
to channel their frustrations with Washington by sending people committed
to burning it down, the cycle of dysfunction will continue. ‘This isn’t democracy. It’s the heartbeat of authoritarianism.’ BY JOANNE FREEMAN

Joanne Freeman is the Class of 1954 professor of American history and of American studies at Yale University.

W
ithout a doubt, the Republican ousting of Republican Speaker Kevin
McCarthy is a banner of dysfunction. Sifting through the chaos for its
meaning is more complex. It certainly signals that something is broken,
but what? It’s not the Republican Party’s fracture in and of itself.
Fractured political parties are hardly new; the 19th century was the great
age of splintering parties. We’ve had contentious speakerships before
(though a party ousting its own speaker is something special). Extremism
runs throughout American history. Even election denial isn’t new — though mostly congressional elections have been challenged. History teaches that
much of the ugliness of the current moment has ... well ... a history.

More noteworthy is the willingness — even eagerness — of some Republicans
to abandon democratic standards, norms and practices. This isn’t an
ethereal matter of a broken spirit or wrong-headed ideals. It’s a
brass-tacks reality, a strategy in motion throughout the nation: election denial, contested voting rights, denouncing any and all opposition as
illicit and un-American. For the most part, fellow Republicans have
allowed this extremism to flourish unopposed.

But it’s not an extreme faction of the Republican Party at fault, at
least, not alone. The party’s unity is the problem, its shared focus on
ends (uncontested rule) over means (democratic practices). Norms and rules
be damned, they feel entitled to maintaining power. This isn’t democracy.
It’s the heartbeat of authoritarianism.

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At its core, democracy is governance by contestation. Debate and
compromise, free and fair elections, are contests that test policies and leadership, reflect public interests and foster change. Kevin McCarthy’s seeming sin — negotiation — is the lifeblood of democracy and Congress.

The Republican attack on democratic give-and-take has exposed a hard
truth: Democracy doesn’t go of itself. Americans have taken it for
granted. We’ve assumed that it’s ours by right. It isn’t. It’s a process,
not an endpoint. It must be bettered and defended, or it fails. So the
answer to the question: what’s broken? Our commitment to democracy is
broken; many of us can’t see — or refuse to see —that yawning abyss; and Republicans are seizing that advantage and damaging democracy in the
process. ‘Another profound repudiation of the Constitution’s core’
BY AZIZ HUQ

Aziz Huq teaches law at the University of Chicago and is the author of The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies.

A
gloating Steve Bannon concisely caught the underlying hard-right goal of driving Kevin McCarthy from the speakership: Dismantle people’s belief
that “government is a benefit.” The project is pure chutzpah: Disable
Congress in plain sight, and then loudly complain that the government
you’ve just wrecked doesn’t work. In its method and its aims, it is a
project at war with the Constitution. The Speaker's Chair sits empty in
the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol.

While McCarthy became the first speaker ever ousted by a motion to vacate,
he’s the latest in a long line of GOP leaders to do battle with
conservative rebels and be felled in one way or another. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Consider method first: For its operation, the Constitution’s design
presumes legislators who prize national interest over what James Madison
called “factious,” local interest. Madison thought that national elections would “refine and enlarge” the quality of national representations in comparison to their local peers. To us, this seems optimistic at best. But politicians are not just the sum of the structural forces acting on them (gerrymandering, dark money, etc.). They have agency, and can make
choices. Those on the hard right who precipitated McCarthy’s fall
demonstrated an unblinking zealotry and contempt for their colleagues
within and beyond the party in ways that exemplify the spirit Madison repudiated. It is a spirit, as McCarthy himself acknowledged in his
resignation speech, sharply at odds with the Constitution’s design.

And what of aims? The Framers conducted a “Revolution in favor of
government,” to quote the historian Max Edling. They built a government
that would work. While the outer contours of federal power have long been contested, the core aim of the Constitution to create a working state to
meet the international and economic challenges of the day was never in
doubt. Advocates of the hard-right project today deeply misunderstand the Framers here. In effect, they ignore the first four aims listed in the Constitution in favor of an emphasis on “Liberty” (for the select, right-thinking few, at least). Such selectivity is, in its own way,
another profound repudiation of the Constitution’s core. ‘The speaker’s
chair is vacant because of mistrust and misaligned expectations’ BY BILL
SCHER

Bill Scher is a contributing writer to Politico Magazine, the politics
editor for the Washington Monthly and co-host of “The DMZ,” an online show
and podcast with conservative writer Matt Lewis.

T
he problem is too many people think American politics is more broken than
it is in reality.

In the past three years, broad coalitions have formed to invest in infrastructure, enhance gun safety, support semiconductor manufacturing,
aid Ukraine and even shore up the finances of the United States Postal
Service.

When Republicans took over the House and far-right nihilists agitated for
an economically devastating default on the federal government’s debt obligations, a robust bipartisan majority embraced the budget deal that
averted a crisis. Just last week, despite lingering disagreements about spending levels, border security and Ukraine, a similar bipartisan
coalition made sure the federal government would not shut down.

And yet, a small number of Republican ideologues and gadflies refused to
accept that now-former Speaker Kevin McCarthy had restrained spending as
much as politically possible. Meanwhile, as they watched McCarthy strain
to maintain Republican unity, House Democrats did not trust him to stick
with the spending levels set in the debt limit deal, or continue to keep
the government open. The speaker’s chair is vacant because of the mistrust
and misaligned expectations of these two groups.

Finding common ground in an evenly divided country will always be
challenging. But leaders in both parties have been picking their spots and finding pathways to success. American politics wasn’t broken. Until
Tuesday. ‘All three of the Guns have been shot down by their own gang’
BY NORMAN ORNSTEIN

Norman Ornstein is an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute.

I
t has been clear for some years that what is broken in American politics
is the Republican Party. The roots go back for decades — starting with
Newt Gingrich’s arrival in the House in 1979. But the current chaos was triggered, ironically, by the self-proclaimed “Young Guns” — Paul Ryan,
Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy — when they went around the country in 2009 recruiting tea party radicals, exploiting their anger after the financial collapse and the backlash against Barack Obama, promising to blow up the establishment in Washington with the hopes that they could use that anger
to catapult themselves into the majority. Their expectation was that once
these tea party radicals were in the House, they could co-opt them.
Instead, of course, they were co-opted. John Boehner was the first victim
of the Young Guns, but now all three of the Guns have been shot down by
their own gang. Cantor lost his seat to a tea party radical; Ryan suffered
the same fate as speaker as John Boehner, forced to leave by the radical
right. And now McCarthy, the last one standing, has been taken out by the
same forces in an even more dramatic manner. Kevin McCarthy speaking to
the media while Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor stand on either side of him.

All three of the Young Guns — Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor —
have been shot down by their own gang. | Paul Sakuma/AP Photo

Donald Trump was in some ways a logical extension of the nihilistic,
radical politics that emerged in the two decades before his emergence as a presidential candidate and president. But he was an accelerant, not the
cause. The GOP transformation into a radical cult was there before he
became its leader, and was itself shaped and incited by the rise of tribal media and social media, and advanced by gerrymandering and other political tools that insulated a minority in the country from the consequences of
their radical statements and actions. McCarthy paid the price — but we
will all pay a heavier price with an ungovernable House dominated by a
lunatic fringe that is now at the center of the GOP. ‘There had to be
payback against McCarthy’ BY SETH MASKET

Seth Masket is a professor of political science and director of the Center
on American Politics at the University of Denver.

W
hat we’re seeing this week is the populist takeover of the Republican
Party. These populists don’t have a very long list of public policy goals; rather, one of their chief goals is payback. People who cross them need to
be taught a lesson. And this is directed both at Democrats, who they feel
need to be punished for what they’ve done previously when in office, and
at their less faithful fellow Republicans — the people who should be on
board but aren’t. For someone like Rep. Matt Gaetz, who initiated the
effort to dethrone McCarthy, getting substantial media attention for successfully inflicting payback is a major accomplishment.

Former President Donald Trump has demonstrated this bent toward payback
pretty consistently. His rationale in encouraging House Republicans to
impeach President Joe Biden is that “they did it to us.” A second Trump
term would largely be focused on settling scores — purging the executive
branch of those who were not sufficiently loyal. It’s not exactly a
coincidence that today’s other big political story is that Trump now has a
gag order on him for trying to invite retribution on the clerk of Judge
Arthur Engoron in his New York civil case.

But this isn’t just about Trump. For Gaetz and others in the populist
wing, there had to be payback against McCarthy, as well; not for any
specific policy, of course, but rather for working with Democrats to keep
the federal government from shutting down. Gaetz had to make it clear
that, even if it was impossible for McCarthy to do his job by working
within his party, he wasn’t allowed to work outside it. And now he doesn’t
have that job anymore. ‘Seeking glamor by making news’
BY LILLIANA MASON

Lilliana Mason is the SNF Agora Institute associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.

M
cCarthy’s ouster is just another symptom of a few underlying processes.

First, an extremist far-right movement (which has always existed in
American politics but used to feel politically isolated) has grown
organized within the Republican Party. Trump acted as a lightning rod to attract Americans who had always held negative feelings toward
traditionally marginalized groups such as Black people, Latinos, Muslims
and LGBTQ+. By embracing this group of citizens, the Republican Party has encouraged rabble-rousing on behalf of these anti-pluralistic movements. Representative Matt Gaetz speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol
after he triggered a motion to remove Representative Kevin McCarthy from
his position as Speaker of the House.

Journalists surrounded Rep. Matt Gaetz outside the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 2
after he triggered the motion to remove McCarthy. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Second, the gamification of politics encourages fame-seekers like Matt
Gaetz to ignore serious matters of governing and focus instead on
attracting attention by sowing chaos. Effectively running a nation is
rarely glamorous — but contemporary American politics has attracted
exactly the type of candidates who are seeking glamor by making news.

Third, our political news media privileges stories about conflict. This
focus plays into deep-seated human inclinations to pay attention to bad
things — and is rewarded with public attention. This incentivizes news
media to tell Americans a story about politics that is largely about
division, animosity and attention-seeking strategies — all laid over an
“us vs. them” framework. Politicians know that all they need to do to gain attention is to start a fight. Very little news media focus on the hard
work and compromise of governing a nation, partly because they know that
very few Americans will pay attention. ‘Our electoral and governing institutions … are not designed for modern American politics’ BY JENNIFER VICTOR

Jennifer Victor is an associate professor of political science at George
Mason University’s Schar School Policy and Government.

T
he erosion of democratic values in the Republican Party is a function of,
and enabled by, our electoral and governing institutions that are not
designed for modern American politics.

Our current political situation includes robust individual partisanship
that is increasingly polarized and weak political parties neatly organized along ideological lines. This division is the result of a long-brewing
storm fed by (1) segmented, vigorous social backlash to advances in civil rights in the 1960s and 2010s, (2) campaign finance regulations first
adopted in the 1970s, (3) tax reforms first adopted in the 1980s and (4) modernization and deregulation of media technology in the 1990s that makes
it easier for populist demagogues to gain a following. Together, these generated and exacerbated inequalities in America.

The political reaction to this grand storm produced the political parties
as they exist today, organized on racial, ideological and educational
lines. We should expect further dysfunction, political violence and
aberrant political events until something disrupts the current
equilibrium.

The dysfunction would improve if two things were different. First, the recalcitrant faction in the Republican Party, which is unwilling to
negotiate compromises and has a penchant for leveraging rules to maintain
a grip on power, must be restrained or quashed. This is difficult because
such a faction has existed in at least one of the major U.S. political
parties throughout U.S. history — it’s why it took 175 years to rid the
country of chattel slavery and Jim Crow.

Second, the U.S. would benefit from improved systems of representation. Alienated populations are often drawn to anti-democratic political
solutions. Improving representation requires fundamental changes to how representatives are elected and how parties are organized.

Several reform movements are gaining traction in the United States,
although none is a panacea. Promising approaches include expanding opportunities for candidates, parties and policy agendas, such as
enlarging the House, implementing multimember congressional districts,
ballot reforms and constraining election funding. Many of these changes
would require constitutional amendments, Supreme Court reversals or supermajority legislative coalitions, making them unlikely to happen
anytime soon. However, persistence and unwavering dedication to reform are
the only things that have ever achieved it. ‘The problem is not American politics, per se. It is one party.’ BY JOSHUA ZEITZ

Joshua Zeitz, a Politico Magazine contributing writer, is the author of Lincoln’s God: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation.

A
constitutional democracy requires at least two functioning political
parties, each willing to accept that it will sometimes lose elections. As
was the case during the Secession Winter of 1860-1861, today, one party
refuses to acknowledge the outcome of free and fair elections, the
legitimacy of the democratic process and the necessity of negotiating with one’s political opponents. A sign mocking the Republican Party is seen
outside the U.S. Capitol.

Until the Republican party recommits itself to the ideals of
constitutional democracy (or is replaced by a viable conservative party
that will), our politics will remain broken. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Of the many broken elements of American politics, one stands out above the rest: the Republican Party. As was the case 160 years ago, the “problem”
in American politics is not American politics, per se. It is one party —
its leaders, its base. Until that party recommits itself to the ideals of constitutional democracy (or is replaced by a viable conservative party
that will), our politics will remain broken, and dangerously so. ‘While
the political system is broken, the culture of democracy is robust’ BY
CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS

Cornell William Brooks, the former president of the NAACP, is the
professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice and
director of the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at
the Harvard Kennedy School.

W
hat’s broken in American politics is the unbalanced tilt toward zealous righteousness over commonsense reasonableness. Gerrymandered uncompetitive House districts reward the politics of racialized zealotry. Special
interest money immunizes partisan hardliners from broad public interest appeals. And lastly, social media incentivizes clicks and likes over
record and legacy.

That said, while the political system is broken, the culture of democracy
is robust. We have generationally unprecedented levels of activism, where
young people openly embrace an intersectional analysis, diverse, coalition building and a historical sense of urgency — punctuated by climate
change’s existential deadline on the planet. Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz
both seem politically infantile compared to today’s young advocates. ‘It’s important not to confuse stability with democratic health’ BY JULIA AZARI

Julia Azari is a professor of political science at Marquette University.

M
y first instinct was to challenge the premise of the question that
something is broken. From a safe enough distance, what’s going on in the
House looks recognizable: three political parties maneuvering within a legislature — but in our case, it happens to be taking place within a
two-party system. If we think of the Gaetz faction as a small far-right
party, then neither of the two mainstream parties has a real majority in
the House, though both parties are close. And while it’s not great to be
in a situation where no real majority exists, especially in a majoritarian
body like the House, it’s not intrinsically bad. The U.S. Capitol Dome is reflected in a rain puddle on the compass star.

Now the ability of the House of Representatives to operate is in question.
| J. David Ake/AP Photo

Furthermore, breaking with precedent isn’t always bad — it’s ok to dust
off rarely used procedures like the motion to vacate and use them when appropriate. The House has periodically revised how power works within the chamber and redistributed it to be more or less centralized, concentrated
in the speaker and the majority, or dispersed among the committees. It’s important not to confuse stability with democratic health — that’s part of
how we got here.

So what is wrong? If we look closer, we can see the elements of
dysfunction more clearly. Here are two other problems, related and quite difficult. First is the drive for minority rule. We can say that a faction
of the slim majority party in the House wants to hold the country hostage,
or we can say that it’s a separate, far-right party, but whatever they
are, they threatened to halt government operations if they didn’t get
their way. They didn’t succeed in causing a government shutdown, but now
the ability of the House of Representatives to operate is in question.
Those are the duly elected representatives of the people of the United
States, most of whom didn’t vote for this.

And the second reason is that while a bipartisan majority existed to
continue funding the government for the next 45 days, that coalition did
not extend to supporting McCarthy’s speakership. There are lots of
explanations for why Democrats didn’t come to his rescue, but an important
one is that more mainstream Republicans like McCarthy have consistently coalesced with the far-right, the Matt Gaetzes and the Marjorie Taylor
Greenes in their midst — even when it was clear that they found their
actions objectionable.

The reason this far-right group is pivotal, of course, is because the
margin of control is so close. Again, it’s not that unusual for a small
faction of one party or another (or even both) to be pivotal in a
legislative context. What’s unusual is that it’s a group so hostile to cooperation, and whose commitments to basic tenets of democracy are so questionable. ‘There’s a straight throughline between Trump and the
Republicans in Congress’ BY JEFF GREENFIELD

Jeff Greenfield is a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author.

I
suspect that you’ll be seeing a lot of Mark Twain in the effort to explain
what happened in the House this week. “Suppose you were an idiot, and
suppose you were a member of Congress,” he once said. “But I repeat
myself.”

But I’ve got a different go-to voice: William of Ockham, an English
Franciscan monk who died in Germany around 1347 — roughly half a
millennium before the United States was born.

His observation? “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” In simpler terms, the simplest solution is usually the right one, as Occam’s
razor is now known. “When you hear hoofbeats,” a common example goes,
“think horses, not zebras.”

Why is this key to deciphering Congress? One fact that has dominated
Republican thinking for eight years now defines the behavior of the party: There is virtually no behavior, however repellent, however malicious, that
will trigger a political cost, because the beating heart of the Republican
base will not care.

It began, of course, with Trump. In 2016, in the wake of his graceless, sometimes ugly behavior — mocking a disabled reporter, bragging of sexual harassment — four of the last five GOP presidential nominees refused to
endorse him. That should have been the precursor to a resounding
repudiation; instead, Trump got a larger share of the GOP vote than John
McCain or Mitt Romney. The behavior was a feature, not a bug. Indeed, a
platoon of Republicans who responded to Trump with condemnation found themselves out of office — from Jeff Flake to Liz Cheney. President Donald Trump greets members of Congress on the House floor.

There is no standard to which either Donald Trump or his party acolytes
defer. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

From that example, like soldiers springing from dragon’s teeth, a new
approach to politics spawned the emergence of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes,
the Matt Gaetzes, the Lauren Boeberts — immune to what once was the power

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