Know Your Enemy
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House of Pain (w/ Eric Levitz)
🕑 Added 2023-10-07 14:42:31 +0000 UTCRepublican congressman Kevin McCarthy always wanted to make history—and he did when, earlier this week, he became the first Speaker of the House to be ousted from the job after eight Republicans joined Democrats to approve a motion to vacate the position. How does a motion to vacate work? What events led to McCarthy's fall from grace? How deranged is the Republican caucus in the House, and how did they get that way? Were Democrats right to not bail out McCarthy? In this episode, Matt and Sam are joined by New York's Eric Levitz to provides answers to all these question—and more.
Listen:
Todd Snider, "Conservative, Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males" (2004)
Sources:
Robert Draper, Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind (Penguin, 2022)
Eric Levitz, "The GOP Is More Ungovernable Than Ever Before," New York, Jan 5, 2023
Ettingermentum, "The Art of Losing the Speaker's Gavel," Oct 3, 2023
Matthew Loh, "Mitch McConnell Says House Republicans Should Get Rid of the Motion to Vacate Because It 'Makes the Speaker's Job Impossible,'" Insider, Oct 5, 2023
Comments
PG-13
Great episode! I liked that anecdote about McCarthy’s younger years. Interesting you grouped the 8 GOP house members together in the way you did. I’ve been interested in the Nancy Mace of it all.. I think the Annie Karni wrote an interesting NYT piece tying the effort to War Room. Mace, Gaetz, Rosendale, Biggs, Burchett, Crane et al have appeared numerous times on the show strategizing for months https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/04/us/politics/bannon-republicans-gaetz-mace.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Know Your Enemy
Well, we didn't have him on to talk about democratic socialism, police budgets, or the left's utopian dreams, but instead to talk about the House GOP. Thanks for listening, Matt
Bill Wanjohi
I'm having trouble reconciling Sam's full-throated endorsements of Levitz's analysis ("one of our very best political columnists") with his agreement with Sam Moyn's statement just a few weeks ago on the pod: "Utopianism is not our main problem right now. If it were the main problem I think we'd be in a very different and much improved situation." Half of Levitz's oeuvre is devoted to pretty much the opposite principle, that any deviation from mainstream Democratic Party positions, whether in sentiment, messaging or action is immoral, because it will either elect Republicans or annoy the true deciders of serious matters, who should only be pampered. Whether it be embrace of democratic socialism, the proposition that police budgets should ever shrink, writing legislation with anyone other than the rightmost caucus members in mind, etc. etc. Levitz warns us constantly that utopianism is indeed a deadly sin. Millennial Chait.
