First, those Republicans who voted to remove Mr. McCarthy are not traitors, no matter what former Speaker Newt Gingrich says. They had a disagreement with management and used the rules of the House to solve their problem. They did not commit treason.Mr. McCarthy’s demotion does not signify the end of the world. The truth is that what the House of Representatives does on a daily basis is just not that important to the rest of the country.
Similarly, Republicans in Congress remain firmly wedded to the status quo despite what you might have heard. The ostensible dispute between the revolutionaries and the speaker was over about $100 billion in a $6.5 trillion budget, or, as most people like to describe 1.5%, a rounding error. This sort of thing is bound to happen to Republicans more often than Democrats. Republicans were born in the years immediately before the Civil War as a messianic party devoted to ending slavery . The Democratic Party was the child of Andrew Jackson and has always been about keeping together awkward coalitions — the party of rum, Romanism and rebellion.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis keeps grinding away, especially in Iowa, where he has the highest favorability ratings in the race and is probably the only candidate who can defeat former President Donald Trump. He didn’t miss the chance to compare his steady-as-she-goes approach to the more idiosyncratic gyrations of the crowd in Washington.