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Item one: Little Kevin has just hurt either himself or Donald Trump

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came out Thursday and denied that he had promised Donald Trump votes on expunging his two impeachments by the House. Politico Playbook broke the story that Trump, angry that McCarthy had said, last month, that Trump might not be the GOP’s strongest presidential candidate for 2024, asked—er, “asked”—McCarthy to endorse him for president. Wanting to stay neutral, McCarthy reportedly put Trump off by promising to hold votes on wiping his impeachments from history’s obelisk.

The notion, of course, is chimerical. There’s no provision in the Constitution or in law for impeachments to be officially erased, so they would remain in the historical record. The votes would be purely for Trump’s ego. Anyway: “There’s no deal,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday, adding, however, that “I support expungement.”

Why the denial? Because the matter puts McCarthy in a horrible bind. We’ll get to that, but the more interesting point here for our purposes is how this shows what a shell the party of Lincoln has become. Everything that’s sick and warped and desiccated about today’s Republican Party is present in this deal (or “deal,” if McCarthy is to be believed).

What, precisely, is sick and warped and desiccated about today’s Republican Party? At least three things.

Number one: It’s a cult of one man—not a political party anymore in any remote sense of the word. Trump says jump, and they ask how high. In fact, these days, Trump rarely even has to say jump. A certain situation arises, and congressional Republicans anticipate that he’s about to say jump, so they start jumping, trying to guess the height that will please him most.

Elise Stefanik, the upstate New York congresswoman whose tongue must be purple from all the Kool-Aid she’s slurped down, is leading the chorus of jumpers here. And there are plenty of others. It so happens that this resolution is in trouble (more on which in a bit). But the fact that something this extreme is even being considered is proof of the congressional GOP’s servility.

Number two: The party is driven more than ever by its extremes, which is something that has never been the case for any political party in American history. You’ll recall, when Democrats had the majority, Nancy Pelosi was obsessed about what she called her “frontline” members—the vulnerable ones in purple districts. She was loath to make them cast a politically tough vote. This made her more progressive members grumpy at times. McCarthy is exactly the opposite. He has a few moderate-ish members (again, more on which in a bit), but just about everything he’s done so far has been to pander to the hard right.

Number three: There is no normal small-d democratic accountability in the GOP anymore. In theory, American political parties are accountable to the voters. But because of the way Republicans have gerrymandered congressional districts, most Republicans can’t lose—except to a primary challenger who’s even more MAGA than they are.

And that in a nutshell is why the party has become what it has become: an extremist cult that has no incentive to behave otherwise—and in fact has every incentive to keep behaving exactly this way or worse.

Now: What makes this episode delicious is that there is no good outcome for the GOP. Since the story broke, a number of House Republicans have said, on the record or on background, that they’re not so enthusiastic about this. Why? Because they think it might fail on a floor vote. Why? Because there are 18 Republican House members who represent districts Joe Biden won, and they’re terrified of having to vote on this. They’d all, or mostly, want to vote “no.” And they know very well what would happen: Trump would find a primary opponent to run against them, and those candidates would have instant access to big dollars and would be lionized by the right-wing media. So they might vote “yes” to prevent that from happening—in which case they would hand their Democratic opponents instant clubs with which to hammer them. McCarthy’s five-seat majority would be at serious risk.

You get the picture, I trust. There are three possible outcomes here, and all of them are bad for the GOP:

It’s great fun to watch. But it’s really tragic for the country. Step back and mull it over. A sitting president tried to subvert a foreign leader into getting involved in an American presidential campaign, threatening to withhold aid unless the leader did so. A clearly impeachable offense. Then he literally led an insurrection against the government he’s supposed to lead—an offense that was not only clearly impeachable but, as we appear to be about to learn from special counsel Jack Smith, may well have been criminal.

And the response of his party? To try to wipe these crimes from the books. I hope they succeed. It’s clear at this point that some percentage of the American electorate needs to be hit over the head to finally see the Republican Party for what it is. Expungement is the blunt instrument that might just do it.

Item two: A few things you should know about Tommy Tuberville

Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville comes to the Senate from the world of college football. Now I grew up a college football fan, and I admit that I still am, although the avaricious cesspool that the game has become tests my interest more and more each year. Twenty years ago, I could sit there on an October Saturday and watch games from noon to midnight. But I watch less and less every fall.

Tuberville was once the coach at Auburn, a fabled program for those of you who don’t know such things (thirteenth-winningest program of all time). Tuberville amassed an impressive record there. He beat hated foe Alabama six straight times. But he was forced out eventually. Why?

The simple answer is that he started losing. But I read with interest this week this contemporaneous report from 2008 by Gerald Ball of BleacherReport.com. The basic thesis is that Tuberville, a defensive mind, meddled too much in the offense and didn’t keep up with how the offensive game had changed. Laced throughout, though, was a pretty clear racial subtext. Tuberville had a Black quarterback named Jason Campbell who led the Tigers to a perfect 13–0 season. But even during and after that run, Ball writes, Tuberville “allowed the story line to develop on talk radio and internet boards that Campbell wasn’t intelligent enough to pick up the offense.” Tuberville even actually said, according to Ball’s article, that Campbell’s replacement, Brandon Cox, “was more intelligent and more of a leader.”

You can click here to see Cox’s skin color, though it shouldn’t be hard to guess.

I bring all this to your attention, of course, because Coach made a little news recently by saying, “My opinion of a white nationalist is an American.” He later bobbed and weaved and said that if white nationalists were racists, well, he was against that, because he was “110 percent” against racism, and after all, he was a football coach; he shaped and molded hundreds of young Black men—how could he possibly be racist?

I suspect that argument is probably persuasive to a lot of people; hence my little story. Proximity and familiarity in life usually help people overcome prejudice. Usually—but not always. Sometimes they confirm in people their already-held views. Google “racist comments by football coaches.” I got 8,660,000 results.

This week’s quiz: “Gee, queen of the prom!” It came down to an Oppenheimer or a Barbie quiz. I know, I know. I’m the editor of a big intellectual magazine. But my mind, and heart, are in the pop-culture gutter. Barbie it is.

Terrific review of the new movie, by the way, at NewRepublic.com by our own Grace Segers. Answers next week. Oh—and the other Ford shooter was Sarah Jane Moore. Feedback to [email protected].

—Michael Tomasky, editor

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