“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker,” Kevin McCarthy told a crowd assembled at Georgetown University this past Tuesday night. “It’s because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old…”
Cue the record scratch.
In a normal world, that shocking allegation—leveled by a former Speaker of the House against a current member of the House, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—would have dominated news coverage for weeks. Instead, it barely elicited a yawn.
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To be sure, McCarthy later added, “Did he do it or not? I don’t know.” What is more, the Department of Justice dropped their investigation of Gaetz over a year ago, and Gaetz flatly denies the claims. On the other hand, the House Ethics Committee is still investigating, Gaetz’s close friend pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a minor, and McCarthy’s words seem to suggest he hasn’t ruled out the possibility it’s true.
Regardless, one would think McCarthy’s comments would have made a bigger splash. But we live in a post-Trump world, and particularly among the MAGA set, it takes a whole lot more than allegations like these to spark widespread furor.
Our outrage receptors have been burned out. The GOP has, in the words of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “defined decency down,” a phenomenon that aids any Republican caught up in a scandal.
Since his election to the presidency, Trump has changed the culture of the GOP, normalizing bad behavior. He has also served as a magnet, attracting new scoundrels who might previously have thought politics was boring, or that they had too much baggage to run for political office.
In this regard, Gaetz’s alleged behavior makes him something of a microcosm of the Trump-era Republican Party. A recent profile in The Atlantic provides plenty of examples of this.
First, unlike the old-school family values conservatism, Gaetz lets his freak flag fly, having allegedly shown his House colleagues nude pictures of his sexual conquests on the House floor, and having allegedly participated in a “Points Game” in the Florida legislature, where points were awarded based on which women a member slept with (married fellow members were worth more than lobbyists, for example).
This is no longer your father’s Republican Party; the MAGA GOP is full of figures who are alleged to have engaged in some sordid stuff. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has a long list of cuckoo ravings that would be disqualifying for most pre-Trump Republicans. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was caught on camera fondling her date at a Beetlejuice production. I could go on.
Second, like many of his MAGA colleagues, Gaetz puts a high premium on garnering attention, via cable news hits and social media clicks. “If you aren’t making news,” Gaetz once famously declared, “you aren’t governing.”
He may be one of the more thirsty members, but he is hardly alone. Again, though, what makes Gaetz interesting is not how he resembles the rest of the GOP, but in the ways that he differs from his colleagues.
Gaetz is one of the few people who, like Trump, seems to have the Houdini-esque “get-out-of-jail-free” magic. It’s impossible to know why the rules don’t seem to apply to him, but I have theories.
Like Trump (the son of a millionaire, who spent decades learning how to manipulate the media), Gaetz has been at this game for a long time. Back in high school, as The Atlantic notes, Gaetz was a talented debater, having “won a statewide competition” in Florida, during his senior year. Gaetz’s father is an incredibly wealthy former president of the Florida state senate, and Baby Gaetz (as Matt was once called) learned at his knee.
Now, you might be thinking that other Republicans tend to fail forward while getting away with outlandish behavior. And, to some degree, this is true.
But Boebert barely survived her last election, and is no shoo-in for reelection this time around. And although MTG represents a safe, deep-red district that grants her a certain immunity, it seems likely that she has reached her peak (it’s hard to imagine that she could parlay her House seat into statewide or national office, for example).
That’s not true of Gaetz. Indeed, as The Atlantic profile suggests, he seems likely poised to run for Florida governor, and—if he does—would likely be perceived as the frontrunner.
The comparison with MTG also invites a discussion about their respective efforts to influence House leadership. In 2023, Greene supported McCarthy, while Gaetz led the successful charge to oust him. As I noted at the time, Gaetz was the big winner of the House Speakership battle.
Conversely, Greene is currently embroiled in her own mutiny as she threatens to remove Speaker Mike Johnson from his position. Who knows where this will end, but it seems doubtful that Greene’s efforts will be as effective as Gaetz’s.
Advantage: Baby Gaetz.
A career that a decade ago would have been brief punchline material for late night hosts (before expulsion, and possible incarceration) is now ascendant. Thus far in the MAGA GOP for Gaetz, the sky’s the limit.
