If anyone still labors under the impression that Donald Trump invented the shitshow that is the modern Republican Party, Tuesday's performance on Capitol Hill will have disabused them of that notion. It was déjà vu all over again, just like in 2015 when Kevin McCarthy was humiliated by far right bomb-throwers simply because he was so easy to humiliate, thus giving them leverage and pleasure in equal measure. Poor McCarthy spent the next seven years groveling and genuflecting to these extremists under the foolish impression that they would reward him for his fealty. As Salon's Rae Hodge lays out in detail, on Tuesday afternoon they simply laughed in his face and humiliated him again.
Back in 2015, the newly formed Freedom Caucus, born out of the Tea Party class that came into Congress five years before in the 2010 "shellacking," managed to force then-Speaker John Boehner to resign for having the temerity to make deals with the Democrats in the Senate and the White House in order to keep the government functioning. They were a rump caucus that didn't have the power to stop bipartisan legislation, but they had the leverage to both force Boehner out and prevent the ascension of McCarthy, his anointed successor.
