McCarthy became the latest victim of Trump’s extreme GOP revolution

Kevin McCarthy’s big mistake was trying to govern.

The now ex-speaker’s historic ouster came only three days after he was forced to use Democratic votes to head off a damaging government shutdown that his own party’s absolutism was about to trigger. This compounded his original sin, earlier this year, of blinking when House GOP hardliners threatened to cause a disastrous default on America’s debts that could have thrown the economy into chaos and caused global panic.

McCarthy’s short speakership underscored how the Republican Party in the age of Donald Trump has turned into one of the great forces of instability in American life, and potentially the world, with the ex-president dominating the 2024 GOP primary as he takes aim at a wrecking ball second term. A party that once defined conservatism as preserving a traditional sense of steadiness and strength has evolved over the last three decades into a haven for chaos agents, stunt politics and a perpetual ideological revolution that keeps driving it to new extremes. The party’s willingness to accept the outrageous was also on display Tuesday in New York, where Trump ranted in a corridor outside a courtroom hearing his fraud trial and was slapped with a gag order for attacking a judge’s clerk on social media.

McCarthy was no moderate and did little to check the GOP’s turn away from democracy. But his defeat, at the hands of far-right rebels he complained last week want to “burn the whole place down,” is an eloquent commentary on his party. His political assassins, led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, toppled their leader with no plan for what comes next – leaving a hugely important wing of the US government paralyzed for at least a week. The self-inflicted chaos will hamper the party’s effort to capitalize on President Joe Biden’s vulnerability, and the fresh show of incompetence and extremism could hamper the…