The Democrats’ mascot may be the donkey, but Republicans tried to scapegoat them on Tuesday.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted as House speaker after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) filed a motion to declare the speaker’s position vacant.
The measure passed by a vote of 216-210, thanks to eight Republicans and all Democrats in the House voting against McCarthy.
But while Democrats provided the majority of votes to remove McCarthy, the effort was the work of Republican Gaetz, who says he is upset that McCarthy colluded with Democrats last week to prevent the federal government shutdown.
Therefore, it seems that the people angry about McCarthy’s downfall should be angry at Gaetz and not at the Democrats, who essentially left it up to the Republican members to save McCarthy or not.
Although the Republican House of Representatives is facing a dumpster fire over who can be chosen as the next speaker, Republican politicians and pundits have concluded that Democrats are to blame.
Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary in the George W. Bush administration, appeared to accuse House Democrats of bringing about McCarthy’s political downfall “with the help of Matt Gaetz,” when the opposite was true.
Others joined in their own blame game.
Many people rightly thought it was ridiculous that an overthrow orchestrated by a disgruntled Republican congressman should be blamed on the Democrats.
Although McCarthy could run to replace himself as House speaker, he said after his ouster that he would not seek the position.