Daily Herald opinion: The crisis facing Republicans after McCarthy's ouster doesn't affect GOP alone

This editorial is a consensus opinion of the Daily Herald Editorial Board.

Before he was ousted Tuesday after 269 days at the helm of the U.S. House of Representatives, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy had this to say about the prospects for his job and his party:

"If you throw a speaker out that has 99 percent of their conference, that kept government open and paid the troops, I think we're in a really bad place for how we're going to run Congress."

So it seems. So it seems.

The nation, and the 96% of the Republican congressmen who wanted to keep McCarthy in position, are left only to ask, "What now?"

The eight members of the Republican Party who led the drive to remove McCarthy don't have an answer for that question and don't particularly seem to care. Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, one of that 4%, told The New York Times, "I think there's plenty of people who can step up and do the job," but then offered no one he thought could fill the bill.

Nor have Democrats shown particular concern for the prospects of governance in the coming weeks and months. Although decisions on House speaker are traditionally the purview of only the party in power - in this case Republicans by a narrow margin - the situation facing Democrats was anything but traditional. Though they were obviously concerned about McCarthy's apparent fealty to former President Donald Trump and hard-line right-wing politics, they also had seen twice in four months that he at least understood the risks of holding the nation's economy hostage to hardline politics. Had he held onto his position, we might have had a bit more hope that we won't find ourselves again flirting with fiscal disaster in 40 days when the budget compromise he and Democratic leaders brokered expires.

There is certainly no room for Democrats to gloat over the chaotic mess confronting the majority party. That mess now disrupts the entire government. In the context of our times, it may seem safe to assume a partisan "not our problem" posture toward McCarthy's troubles, but the American people don't necessarily see it that way. They see it as a failure of the government. The whole government.

So, the "what now" question is not solely the province of the Republican Party. Considering the difficulty McCarthy had reaching the speakership in the first place - it took 15 rounds of voting to secure his election, with, as now, no clear alternative waiting in the wings - Tuesday's action leaves Congress in unprecedented and distressing territory. The challenge to McCarthy was only the second such effort in House history and the first to succeed.

If Congress is to restore the faith of the American people, surely it must find a way to keep the 4% tail of the ruling party from wagging the whole dog. But it also must secure some creative involvement from the supposedly loyal opposition.

Without it, McCarthy's all-too-apt assessment that "we're in a really bad place for how we're going to run Congress" won't be limited to the Republicans generally in charge of the place, but will extend to everyone who works there.