Kevin McCarthy's betrayal of the United States of America
Kevin McCarthy was my friend. He betrayed the United States of America and his duty and obligations to the Constitutional Oath that he took.
His conduct over the Trump era has been abhorrent. McCarthy is cynical, dishonest, delusional and toxically transactional — sometimes all at once. He knew full well what was happening on January 6, 2021, because he helped light the fire. When it was over, he obstructed the investigation and accountability. He slandered the Capitol Police officers who risk their lives protecting him. He personally travelled to Mar-a-Lago and singularly gave Trump immunity from his seditious conduct and criminal behavior by appeasing it, rewarding it and encouraging it.
Kevin McCarthy is utterly unfit for national political leadership. He is deeply dishonest and a brazen liar who believes he is beyond scrutiny, accountability or rebuke. He is part of a conspiracy to permanently seize political power. He has made clear what his role will be in destabilizing the United States over the next two years in an attempt to create a crisis big enough to end democracy. He will revel in authoritarian executive orders and decrees around a crisis of his own making in early 2025.
First, Kevin McCarthy will embrace and empower extremism for the chance to be the Speaker of the House. Here is what Marjorie Taylor Greene, the most extreme and crazy politician in America, said about the power that will be hers when a MAGA/GOP majority controls Congress:
"I think that to be the best speaker of the House and to please the base, he [McCarthy] is going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway. And if he doesn't, they're going to be very unhappy about it," referring to GOP supporters. "I think that's the best way to read that. And that's not in any way a threat at all. I just think that's reality."
She is a toxic loon nut who is smart enough to know that McCarthy will serve at her pleasure. Extremists run extremist movements and Kevin McCarthy is a political extremist. The difference between McCarthy and MTG is cynicism. MTG is crazy, not cynical. McCarthy is cynical, not crazy. Together, they bundle both vices and multiply it exponentially when it combines with the MAGA/GOP conference. The conference is a hive of sedition, disordered personalities, sociopaths, Christian nationalists, and the clinically certifiable.
Second, Kevin McCarthy has committed the country to mayhem with his announcement foreshadowing his coming economic vandalism over the raising of the debt ceiling. It goes without saying that his threat to destabilize the global economy to please Fox News nihilists comes after his complete and abject silence as Trump immorally added $7 trillion to the national debt in four years — making him the biggest and most reckless spender in US history. The country will be hurled into an economic crisis at the edge of a recession by a MAGA Congress. The ability for politicians to turn a recession into a depression should not be underestimated. If anyone can do it, it will be the disgraceful trio of pathological liars who comprise team McCarthy: Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and Elise Stefanik.
Lastly, Kevin McCarthy has signaled that the MAGA conference will cut off weapons and funding for Ukraine in its life and death struggle for liberty against naked Russian aggression and war crimes. That decision will make the world profoundly more dangerous. It will also turn a war that the Ukrainians are winning into one in which American treachery will seal their fate. The war will spread to Moldova next. It will keep spreading, and the world will spiral towards danger.
The Russians have allied themselves with both the Saudis and Iranians. The MAGA conference, led by McCarthy and controlled by Trump/MTG, has allied themselves with the Iranian and Russians against Zelensky, Biden, Ukraine, the United States and NATO. That is the truth. It is incontestable and irrefutable. It is despicable and an affront to American values, decency and dignity.
Kevin McCarthy has basically asked for power to light a fire. Is that what Americans want?
Do the American people want economic calamity, war and chaos?
I don’t.
Kevin McCarthy broke somewhere along the way. It makes me sad. He was a fun guy with whom to hang out before he betrayed America. Now, all anyone should ever think about when they look at McCarthy is this: why did he become a domestic enemy of the US Constitution? Why did he sell out to Trump? Why was he so pathetic and weak at a moment of testing and crisis? Why wouldn’t he fight for America?
McCarthy hasn't "changed." As Adam Schiff tells it, early on he sat next to McCarthy on a flight back to DC. They chatted. McCarthy then totally distorted Schiff's side of the conversation to the press. Confronted by Schiff, McCarthy said, “You know how it goes." From Schiff's book:
"I said, 'No, Kevin I don’t know how it goes. You just make shit up.' That is how he operates...he was really made for a time like this when, within his party, truth is for losers. You say what you need to say, you do what you need to do to take power and to keep it. Someone with that lack of devotion to the truth or any ethical compass simply cannot ever be allowed in my view to go near the speaker’s office."
There you have it.
He was your friend, Steve...so how and why did this conversion to extremism happen? Had he changed...have you changed (the latter, obviously so .) Is there more insight into his motivations? I am still confounded by the breadth of this takeover. It’s like Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy: “gradually, then suddenly.”