Susan Glasser: “The political-obituary writers will not be as kind to McCarthy as he was to himself. The fifty-fifth Speaker of the House turned out to be one of the weakest America has ever had, a man whose overriding ambition seemed merely to have been obtaining the job itself and whose willingness to make a bad deal to get it proved to be his predictable undoing.”
“By nature an accommodationist, McCarthy was brought down by the surging Trumpist forces within his caucus that he had sought for years to placate. His humiliation, in that sense, is the Republican Party’s writ large—the humiliation of bowing to Trump again and again, only to be met with more and more outrageous demands. McCarthy is modern proof that appeasement doesn’t work.”
“The record of his suck-uppery to Trump and the Trumpists is too long to recount in full. Perhaps it’s enough to recall that Trump nicknamed him ‘my Kevin,’ and that, during Trump’s Presidency, McCarthy was reported to have sent over to the White House a jar of Trump’s favorite Starbursts, carefully culled of all but his favorite red and pink candies.”
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