Behind the Humiliation of Kevin McCarthy

John Cassidy: “The irony is that McCarthy had already prostrated himself before the ultras, offering them a series of rule changes, one of which would allow just five representatives to force a vote on ousting the Speaker. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties failed. It is the essence of a revolution, especially one staged for social media and Fox News, that the revolutionaries cannot be bought off by members of the corrupt establishment…”

“This gradual substitution of theatric self-promotion for serious politics has been ongoing ever since Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, and Tuesday’s events merely represented its logical culmination: a newly elected House Republican majority reduced to a rabble incapable of performing the basic function of selecting a leader.”