The ‘biggest alligator’ lost his chance at greatness and is leaving the ‘swamp’

By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times

It was exactly one year ago this week that I wrote about how one of the extreme right-wing members of the 118^th Congress had described Rep. Kevin McCarthy during the four-day fight over picking a new Republican speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives.

We surely recall the name calling and deal making that resulted in the California congressman finally outlasting his critics and making enough concessions to extremist views to be elected on the 15^th ballot.

That colleague who called McCarthy the “biggest alligator” no doubt changed his mind when McCarthy was voted out of his nine-month-old speakership in September due to his failure to enact the agenda of the so-called Freedom Caucus.

McCarthy has since announced that he will not seek reelection to Congress and will go home to California, no doubt to ponder how quickly he went from political history’s penthouse to the outhouse.

Ironically, the congressman who replaced him is Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a state which has an abundance of real alligators.

And that new Republican speaker has quietly made agreements on limiting certain federal spending and improving security on the southern border that many in Washington believe will avoid a budget stalemate and a lockdown of most of the national government.

McCarthy actually enabled his own demise when he strangely agreed to support a rule change that would allow any member of the House to sponsor a motion to oust the speaker on a simple majority vote. That was the weapon the right-wing faction of the House GOP handed to McCarthy to commit political suicide.

Critics of big government nicknamed Washington, D.C., as the ”swamp” during the 2016 presidential election. Historians say most of the District of Columbia was a marsh when the federal government arrived in July of 1790.

With the 2024 presidential election approaching, we should all be hoping and praying that American democracy will remain afloat in that swamp after the votes are counted.

(Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com)