After the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, Kevin McCarthy had a choice. As the head of the House Republican caucus, he could have shown leadership by condemning former president Donald Trump for inciting the riot, ensuring Trump and his accomplices were held accountable, and then steering his party away from the cauldron of extremist politics that boiled over into violence that day.
Indeed, as evidence produced by the Jan. 6 commission showed, that was McCarthy’s initial instinct. He reportedly wanted to call on Trump to resign. Though McCarthy himself had indulged Trump’s election denialism, and had even joined in the votes against certifying the election, the violence that day seemingly shocked him.
But McCarthy — who has long aspired to be speaker of the House — chose the craven path instead, stifling his initial instinct to do the right thing. Within weeks, he was back at Trump’s side at Mar-a-Lago, and he was soon voting against establishing the bipartisan commission to investigate the events of that day.
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We’ll never know how history might have unfolded if McCarthy had shown courage back then. But it was just one of many missed opportunities for the Republican leadership to take a stand against Trump and Trumpism and to begin the process of pulling their party back from the brink of his brand of destructive political nihilism.
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