Not only did the Republican Party fail to sweep the House of Representatives in November’s Midterms election, but the elected candidates don’t seem to form a close-knit family. It was only on the night of January 6 to 7, after 15 ballots and a week of heated exchanges, a record since 1859, that Kevin MacCarthy, hitherto leader of the Republican group in the Lower House of Congress, became the 55th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
It is finally the consecration for this 57-year-old man, a traditional republican in his convictions but who does not hesitate to adjust when the good pursuit of his career depends on it. Thus, in 2020, he first supported Donald Trump in his crusade against the result of the presidential election – supposedly rigged – before distancing himself during the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He did not however, he never severed his ties with the former president. To the point that Trump called on the deputies elected on his behalf to “vote Kevin”, like him climate skeptic and hostile to China.
Yet, as proof that Trump’s aura is no longer what it used to be, twenty of them have long refused, believing that McCarthy was too moderate and able to make concessions with the government.establishment from Washington. With cruder words, Republican Matt Gaetz judges him “sold to everyone”. “This group of twenty unmanageable people, who are not interested in legislative work, could not have weighed if the Republicans had had 240 elected officials”, explained this Thursday to L’Express the specialist in the United States, Françoise Coste. More Trumpists than the king, they take advantage of the small majority of Republicans to make their voices heard.
Negotiate at all costs so as not to relive the failure of 2015
Back to the wall, Kevin McCarthy redoubled his efforts, spending whole days negotiating with the twenty recalcitrants. The calculation was both simple and complicated: he should not, in the end, lose more than four votes. And it was out of the question for him to relive the nightmare of 2015, when he had scuttled himself just when his chances of reaching the third most important political post in the country were real. In a television interview, he boasted at the time that a commission of inquiry into the attack on the American embassy in Libya had undermined the chances of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the presidential campaign .
The political manipulation of this drama had shocked public opinion, and the elected official had to withdraw from the race, realizing too late that there were comments reserved for Trump. To achieve success in 2023, McCarthy and his allies changed tack and made important concessions, such as allowing a single member of the House to request a vote on the speaker’s ouster. This leaves very little room for maneuver for the winner.
But the essential is assured. McCarthy was all smiles this Friday evening, January 6, when he realized that the game was finally won. As House Chaplain Margaret Kibben thanked God for being “on the threshold of a new Congress”. Indeed, with this election, the smooth running of American politics can resume, because no decision can be made by the lower house before a president is elected to the roost. McCarthy’s power will lie in his ability to unite Republican forces for the 2024 election. To do this, he intends to rely on “the power of the stock market and that of summons”. Nothing beats, for starters, a typical recipe at the Grand Old Party so as not to offend anyone.