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There is no shortage of differences between Republicans and Democrats on any given day in America, but five votes and counting into California Congressman Kevin McCarthy's failed bid to become Speaker of the House and one key difference has emerged over all others: The Democrats are united and the Republicans are in disarray.
For as the Republicans squabble over who should become Speaker of the House with their slim majority, the Democrats have unanimously voted for New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to replace Nancy Pelosi as leader of their caucus. Jeffries has since received unanimous support from the Democrats to be Speaker of the House.
Jeffries has become a uniting figure at a time where one would expect great division; after all, the Democrats just lost the House. But the Dem House loss has done the opposite: It brought Democrats closer together.
Former President Trump, too, can be thanked for this unity. That's where Democrats really learned it from. Trump was an easy villain to unite against, and the Democrats seem to have learned a crucial lesson from the Trump years: There is absolutely nothing to gain from splintering. The greatest show of force right now is unity. The greatest show of weakness is would be fracturing, like Republicans are doing right now.
Take it from the new House Democratic Caucus Chair, Rep. Pete Aguilar who said, "We are gonna stay here to get this done. We are unified, and we're all gonna support Hakeem Jeffries for speaker."
But no one deserves credit for uniting the Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, an absolute warrior when it came to rallying the troops. Unlike the Republicans, Pelosi never brought a vote to the floor without knowing she had the votes to win. And though there is plenty of dissent in her party, she never let it get in the way of progress.
The Republicans could take a page out of her playbook. Rep. McCarthy appears to have lost his fifth vote for Speaker, despite a public endorsement from former President Trump Wednesday morning. It failed to convince the holdouts imperiling his victory, who keep nominating other potential candidates.
McCarthy keeps losing despite making humiliating concessions to the breakaway group, amending rules in the House to try and appease members of the Freedom Caucus. McCarthy even conceded some of his potential power, committing to allowing just five members to bring a vote to remove him as Speaker at any time, and that didn't work. It wasn't enough for the rightwing nut jobs in his caucus.
The disunity on the Right runs deep. And it's a self-inflicted wound.
This is what happens when you let pathological liars who should have no role in public life take over your party. This is what happens when you let a maniac like Trump hold the helm of the GOP, instead of holding him accountable for his crimes.
McCarthy helped create the monster that's now destroying his party and his dream of being House Speaker.
McCarthy has no one to blame for the Republican clown car that is being driven off a cliff right now but himself. If he had held Trump accountable, if he had some sort of standard for ethics within the GOP, if he had any sort of discipline against those who committed vile acts on January 6, maybe, just maybe, he would have solidarity around him right now.
Kevin McCarthy deserves all of this—but the American people don't. Republicans are already failing the American people. This absolute clown show should serve as a reminder that Democrats, the united party which actually represents democracy and is against corruption, needs to win back the House in 2024.
This week's shenanagins will be a stain on McCarthy forever. One that he deserves.
Scott Dworkin is an author, and serves as Executive Director of The Democratic Coalition. He is the host of The Dworkin Report podcast and co-hosts The Report Card podcast. He was a deputy director for the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee and the 2012 Democratic National Convention, and a senior adviser to the Draft Biden and Run Warren Run campaigns. Follow him on Twitter: @funder.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
