This past week, who’da-thunk-it political history was made – by a most unlikely figure, in a most unacceptable way.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, never celebrated as a political muscleman, zig-zagged his way into an invitation to see the momentarily quiet Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He did it just so he could pull off a feat of political powerlifting that was both zany and Tarzany.
In a switch on the talking heads’ default cliché, the House’s top Republican threw his entire Grand Old Party bus under Donald Trump. (Note to readers: Do not adjust your eyeballs. You read that right.)
McCarthy has spent four years switching back and forth between what he knows in his heart is right and what he thinks in his gray cells is his politically safest play. We have seen him condemn Trump’s conduct one minute, then court Trump’s stroking the next, just to get a pat on the head and a smiley photo op.
Thursday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, McCarthy went all in on the latter. He gave Trump his total support, just days before Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. What he got in return was Trump’s promise to get his base to help make McCarthy the next speaker of a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.