The historic removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives plunges the United States into a political crisis. The effects could soon be felt far beyond America’s borders.
“I will survive,” said Kevin McCarthy. A few hours later, however, eight right-wing radical Republicans under their leader Matt Gaetz, together with the Democrats, ended his career as Speaker of the House of Representatives by voting him out. McCarthy announced that same evening that he would not be available for re-election. Never in the more than two hundred year history of the United States has anything like this happened. And the consequences are currently difficult to predict.
A gesture at the end of Kevin McCarthy’s historic vote-out made it clear how great the anger is about the mutineers in his own camp. Republican MP Patrick McHenry, who had to end the session as speaker pro tempore, i.e. interim speaker, hit the desk so hard with his gavel that the mallet could easily have burst.
A broken hammer would have been the most appropriate symbol for the current state of the “Grand Old Party” (GOP). The Republican Party is on the verge of collapse after years of Trump dominance. This development is happening in the USA, a country that is consistently tailored and dependent on two functioning major parties. The dysfunctionality of the Republicans is becoming a danger to the entire political system.
Video | Here the US House of Representatives deposes its chairman
Quelle: t-online
The USA is in dire straits
America, still the most influential country in the world, is slipping further into a democratic crisis with Kevin McCarthy’s vote out of office. In addition to the notoriously divided Senate and House of Representatives, there is now an open break among the Republicans. US democracy, which thrives on constantly having to find non-partisan compromises, appears paralyzed and unable to act in this situation. This is all the more dramatic as an important vote for further aid to Ukraine is due this week, for which the Speaker of the House of Representatives is actually indispensable as a negotiator.
But how long can this situation last? In this situation, a year before the upcoming presidential election, are there any scenarios that offer a way out?
Scenario 1: Republicans agree on a new speaker
Precisely because the Republicans themselves are deeply divided and because they only have a wafer-thin majority, this scenario initially seems unlikely. Not only personal dislikes stand in the way, but also extreme differences in content. While a significant number of Republicans are still willing to compromise with the Democrats when in doubt, the radicals around Matt Gaetz rely almost exclusively on blockade. Most recently, when it came to adopting the new US budget and the associated debt. Because governing is not possible without a budget, the majority of Republicans ultimately gave in for reasons of state. There was no other way out, because the Democrats have the majority in the second chamber of parliament, the Senate.
The election of conservative Kevin McCarthy at the beginning of this year was already a dramatic deadlock. Because the so-called Freedom Caucus, which was already busy at the time, and the free radical Matt Gaetz denied him the necessary votes for the office of speaker over 14 rounds of voting. This wing of right-wing extremists, Trumpists and conspiracy theorists within the Republican faction only finally gave in when Donald Trump personally called them and after they had squeezed important positions and serious changes to parliamentary rules from Kevin McCarthy. The most important innovation now cost McCarthy his office: from now on, just one member of parliament was enough to request the removal of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. That representative was McCarthy’s opponent, Matt Gaetz.
