The historic fall, because it had never happened, of Kevin McCarthy as president of the Lower House and third position in the hierarchy of power in the United States, opens the greatest institutional crisis suffered in this country in decades. Once the rebellion of eight far-right Republicans against their own leader was consummated, with the support of the Democrats as a whole, all activity was postponed until next week and the negotiation period was opened to resolve the succession. This is limbo, a territory never explored. There is fighting, internal warmongering.
Some names appear on the conservative list, but it will not be easy, political commentators maintain, to find a consensus among the majority of the chamber given the level of internal confrontation, encouraged largely by the toxicity of Donald Trump.
Jim Jordan, legislator from Ohio, ultra-Trumpist and denier of the coup attempt on January 6, 2021 (the police repressed some “tourists”), was the first to announce his candidacy for the position this Wednesday. In these ten months of McCarthy’s presidency, the most short-lived since 1876, Jordan has been a good ally of the dismissed man. He has support but Steve Scalise, head of the Republican majority and somewhat less ultra, seems the natural successor. He has more supporters coming out and also initiated calls between colleagues to weigh his options. He finally announced his bet too. Play against him who is recovering from cancer.
There was also someone who brought into play Patrick McHenry, on whom the task of acting as interim substitute has fallen. He has been in Congress since 2005. He has been a good ally of McCarthy, whom the vast majority of Republicans supported in the face of the challenge launched by the extremist Matt Gaetz and his seven followers.
The dimension of the catastrophe is observed when there are voices among the conspirators and the most radical of the extreme right who propose that Trump himself be chosen as ‘speaker’. They say that this is the cotton test to know who is truly conservative, in the most radical sense.
Using his style between falsehood and exaggeration, the former president responded this Wednesday that “many” have asked him to take the step. He assured that he ruled it out. “He led the race for the presidency by more than 50 points,” he stated in reference to the rest of the conservative candidates for the US presidency in the upcoming 2024 elections.
“I am totally focused on the campaign, but if I can help in the process, I will. “There are very good people in the Republican Party who can do a great job as ‘speakers,'” he responded to journalists on his way to his third day of voluntary attendance at the trial about his alleged frauds against banks by inflating the value of his assets.
What is certain is that this unprecedented situation would not have been reached without Trump’s pernicious influence within conservative ranks. The promoters of this challenge were led by some of the former president’s main spokespeople, who opposed McCarthy, whom the former US president silenced despite being a good ally, and pursue total radicalization, sowing chaos.
However, at the heart of the matter is the poor result in the 2022 midterm elections for the Republicans. They were convinced that they were going to recover the Lower House with an overwhelming majority. The results contradicted them. Aside from the covert plebiscite on abortion, the endorsement of the lists of absolutely ineligible Trumpist candidates, according to analysts, caused the Democrats to obtain a much higher result than expected and gave a minimum majority to the conservatives.
These are the consequences. This week the error of surrendering to Trump’s wishes and his civil war legacy emerged clearly in Congress. Only five dissidents within the Republican ranks were enough to oust McCarthy if the Democrats voted as a bloc as they did, taking him to task for his disdain.
As many progressives highlighted on the hangover day, today, Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democratic minority in the Lower House, is the one with the most votes to be the president of the Lower House. It is impossible, but it is a fact.
The animosity that marks the relations from one bench to the other was evident when McHenry, in one of his first decisions as interim, informed Democrat Nancy Pelosi, president emeritus, that she had to move. Based on her version, the veteran legislator, who did not vote against McCarthy when she was in San Francisco for the funeral of her friend Senator Dianne Feinstein, was ordered to leave her office in the Capitol. She already has another one in the next building.
The chaos generated by the power vacuum and the confrontation only complicate the negotiation of government financing, since the provisional pact ends on November 17, and possible aid to Ukraine, an issue that is increasingly attracting more rejection among the Conservatives.
