My Take | Demise of Kevin McCarthy more than downfall of one US politician
- Drama reveals there is perhaps no democracy today more desperate for political reforms or no country more blind to that need than America
Democracy is messy but in the end, it will work itself out. How many times have you heard that refrain? It’s hard to say whether it is a factual observation or a profession of faith. Is there no limit to “messy” beyond which things truly fall apart? The United States may be offering the world a live experiment on that question.
This week, something happened in the US Congress that has never occurred in American history. Its House of Representatives ousted its own speaker. A vote of 216 to 210 sealed the fate of Republican Kevin McCarthy. A small group of Republicans of the extreme right have been universally blamed for the extraordinary outcome. But they could not have done it without the opportunism of all the Democrats in the House. And McCarthy was helping to avert a government shutdown!
But underneath, what happened this week is the result of America’s fractured body politic and extreme polarisation. The Republican Party has grown to represent so many diverse groups and interests, some of which conflict with each other outright that it really should be broken up into two or even three parties. That may actually be the best, possibly most peaceful outcome for the US. But it’s unlikely.
Of course, the Democrats are no better. The hard left wants to take on the moderate or “establishment” Democrats in the same way that the hard right wants to do the same to their own “establishment” colleagues. But it seems the Democrats have not reached the breaking point that the Republicans have, the shocking outcome of which we have just witnessed.
Such intraparty struggles are worsened, rather than ameliorated, by the political structure. House members are increasingly driven by what political scientists have termed dyadic representation (DR). By contrast, the Senate is supposed to be more in accord with collective representation (CR). Sadly, both DR and CR increasingly tend towards polarisation and ideological extremism.