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There’s a movement brewing among some members of the House Republican caucus to expel colleagues who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership.
The push appears to rest on a simple, yet unconvincing, insult that’s emerged in recent weeks — that Rep. Matt Gaetz and other GOP hard-liners who joined his bid to remove McCarthy are not real conservatives.
We’ll get to the absurdity of that allegation in a moment but, for now, let’s just take a look at the wave of Republicans who’ve deployed it against Gaetz and company.
In his remarks after being ousted, McCarthy claimed conservatives who moved to vacate his speakership “are not conservatives, and they do not have the right to have the title.”
Conservative commentator and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently claimed that Gaetz and his backers “aren’t real conservatives. These are opportunists who are totally irresponsible."
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., slammed Gaetz’s behavior as “not conservative” and denounced him as a charlatan last week, as the Florida Republican was upping the pressure on McCarthy with a potential government shutdown looming.
Another New York Republican, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, said that Gaetz’s move to eject McCarthy from the speakership amounted to “one of the greatest acts of heresy."
And Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who supports kicking Gaetz out of the caucus, claimed that he is “not a Republican,” calling him an “anarchist” instead.
It seems Republican lawmakers could use some self-awareness.
The problem, of course, is that these days it’s almost impossible to tell the difference. And that’s a problem House Republicans are going to have to sort out among themselves. Unfortunately for people like McCarthy and his allies trying to police the boundaries of Republicanism, the GOP has spent the better part of the past decade promoting — one could argue, demanding — the kind of fanatical politicking that Gaetz has engaged in.
In fact, as I wrote last week, former Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor recently talked about how that brand of extremism, which he saw firsthand when Republicans forced a government shutdown in 2013, has pervaded the GOP ever since. So when Republicans talk about Gaetz and his fellow MAGA allies as though they aren’t representative of the broader conservative movement, it sounds like fantasy — not fact.
It seems Republican lawmakers could use some self-awareness. It might serve them better than trying to act as though Gaetz has defied conservative ideals. Because the idea of someone touting their own moral superiority over others, and issuing demands under threat of shutting down (and potentially, destroying) the government, sounds precisely like the kind of Republicanism many Americans have come to know and hate.