J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters hours after he was ousted as Speaker of the House, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, at the Capitol in Washington.
Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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Like everything else in the America we all wish was great again, it is just a matter of trust.
It’s not that we don’t have the greatest country on the face of the Earth; it’s just that when we look beneath the surface, there is plenty that doesn’t work when it should, there are plenty of people who don’t work when they could and far too many relationships that cannot work because people don’t seem committed to the idea that we are winners when we work together. Too many Americans choose a discordant path — the one that can make losers of us all.
Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, the person third in line to the presidency of the United States before his ouster, learned that lesson this past week in a historic slap down from members of his own party. Those Republicans came to Washington not to make America a better place for all Americans but to make as big a mess of our democracy as possible — with the active approval of the good ol’ folks back home, the voters who sent them there.
My wife, who never forgets anything, reminded me of a time just 30 years ago when we were taking the underground train that runs between the Capitol and the Senate office buildings. No, we weren’t by ourselves because the train is only for members of Congress and their guests.
Our host introduced us to two of his friends sitting behind us for that short ride. One was Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. The other was Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican. You couldn’t meet two greater political opposites in those days and, at the same time, you couldn’t meet two greater friends. They not only liked each other very much but, just as importantly, they trusted each other implicitly.
Even though typical American politics roiled beneath and around the train tracks and everything above them, it was a pleasant ride to the Senate side of the campus and it was a pleasant time to be in Washington, specifically on Capitol Hill.
A lot has happened since that time.
In 1995, Republican Newt Gingrich became the speaker of the House, and the GOP’s “Contract with America” took front and center stage in America’s political life.
That political movement wasn’t all bad, even though some of the characters who showed up in Washington did meet that definition. In my mind, some of the “contract” was a not-unreasonable check that would start to rebalance our political appetites.
What was bad was the requirement — unwritten as it may have been — that from that time forward members of the GOP in Congress were no longer free to consort with the enemy. The enemy, as it turned out, was anyone in the House of Representatives who sat on the other side of the aisle.
The children of GOP members were discouraged from playing with the offspring of Democrats. Bipartisan lunches were no longer the norm but the rare exception. New GOP members and their spouses were specifically encouraged to have dinners with their Republican colleagues to the exclusion of new Democratic members. And on and on.
In short, contrary to the example of Kennedy and Hatch, the “other” became the enemy, not the person with whom a trusting relationship could and should be developed.
That was a generation ago. This past week we witnessed the results.
McCarthy was trusted by no one in his caucus and in his House. Nor, it appears, did he trust them.
So when he did what most Americans would have done a few days earlier during the impending government shutdown crisis — which was to work for America and not for a misguided few crazy folks on the MAGA right wing — he knew the risk.
And because he had already burned every bridge that should have been built on trust with the Democrats, when push came to shove — or should I say when the nutcakes pushed and shoved at McCarthy — the soon-to-be former speaker didn’t even reach out for help.
The Democrats, on the other hand, not wanting to get in the way of the GOP suicide pact that was taking place in every living room in the country, did nothing.
In another world, the Democrats could have supported a man they trusted to do the work of the American people, regardless of political persuasion — just like Hatch and Kennedy used to do — but that is not the world that MAGA inherited and made so much worse these past few years.
And that brings us to today. Sometime in the coming days, the House of Representatives will elect a new speaker. We all hope.
When that happens, that person’s job will be to lead the Republicans and the House of Representatives to do the people’s business instead of just giving most Americans an unhealthy dose of the chaos business.
It remains to be seen if any of that can be done without the kind of trust that defined our politics just a few short years ago.
Building that trust will take time. In the meantime, there are more crises coming to America that will need a functioning House of Representatives: a House that will have to act immediately, as if it had a gun to its head.
And speaking of guns, now is actually a great time for thoughts and prayers.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
