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    George Santos Attends State of the Union Address After His Expulsion

    When former Representative George Santos, the serial fabulist, was expelled from Congress by his colleagues in December, he left in a huff, declaring, “to hell with this place.”On Thursday night, the Tom Ripley of Congress was back.Dressed in a crystal-encrusted collar, Mr. Santos took a seat on the House floor in a surprise appearance ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union address, putting to use the lifetime floor privileges conferred on former members of the House — even the ones who are expelled.There, he was greeted more warmly than he was ever treated when his colleagues wanted nothing to do with him.On Thursday night, he sat and chuckled with Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia greeted him with a warm embrace. Even members who had been publicly critical of him in the past, like Representative Claudia Tenney of New York, stopped to snap his picture, while others made a beeline to greet him.It was fair to say that the disgraced former congressman, who is scheduled to go on trial in September on federal fraud charges that include accusations of stealing money from campaign donors for personal expenses, was doing something akin to holding court.Since leaving Congress, Mr. Santos has tried to launch a career on the video app Cameo, monetizing on his strange slice of fame by charging hundreds of dollars a pop for his short personalized videos. But interest in micro-celebrities can be fleeting.And he had been carefully planning his splashy return. Mr. Santos told some members of the press corps that he planned to return on Thursday night to seize back the spotlight, but swore them to secrecy.It was not clear what high jinks he had planned, aside from the fact of his presence alone. At last year’s State of the Union address, Mr. Santos got in a confrontation with Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, who told him, bluntly, “you don’t belong here.” Mr. Santos had stationed himself close enough to the action to reach out for a presidential handshake.Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Thursday tried to encourage members to show decorum during Mr. Biden’s speech.Not everyone was willing to make that promise.Mr. Santos appeared to be staking out a seat near the corridor where Mr. Biden was set to enter the chamber, along with some of the hard-right members of the Republican conference, such as Ms. Boebert.“Oh, you think I plan that stuff?” Ms. Boebert said, when asked how she planned to behave during the speech. “I’m more spontaneous than you think.”But minutes ahead of the speech, without a seat saved, Mr. Santos moved himself to the back of the chamber. More

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    For Anti-Trump Republicans, It All Comes Down to New Hampshire

    The old guard of the Republican Party has rallied around Nikki Haley ahead of New Hampshire’s primary, in a long-shot bid to stop the former president’s march to the nomination.The first-in-the-nation primary could be the last stand for the anti-Trump Republican.Since 2016, a shrinking band of Republican strategists, retired lawmakers and donors has tried to oust Donald J. Trump from his commanding position in the party. And again and again, through one Capitol riot, two impeachments, three presidential elections and four criminal indictments, they have failed to gain traction with its voters.Now, after years of legal, cultural and political crises that upended American norms and expectations, what could be the final battle of the anti-Trump Republicans won’t be waged in Congress or the courts, but in the packed ski lodges and snowy town halls of a state of 1.4 million residents.Ahead of New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday, the old guard of the G.O.P. has rallied around Nikki Haley, viewing her bid as its last, best chance to finally pry the former president from atop its party. Anything but a very close finish for her in the state, where moderate, independent voters make up 40 percent of the electorate, would send Mr. Trump on an all-but-unstoppable march to the nomination. The Trump opposition is outnumbered and underemployed. The former president’s polarizing style and hard-nosed tactics have pushed many Republicans who oppose him into early retirement and humiliating defeats, or out of the party completely. Yet, their long-running war against him has helped to frame the nominating contest around a central, and deeply tribal, litmus test: loyalty to Mr. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    The Best Sentences of 2023

    Over recent days, I took on a daunting task — but a delightful one. I reviewed all the passages of prose featured in the For the Love of Sentences section of my Times Opinion newsletter in 2023 and tried to determine the best of the best. And there’s no doing that, at least not objectively, not when the harvest is so bountiful.What follows is a sample of the sentences that, upon fresh examination, made me smile the widest or nod the hardest or wish the most ardently and enviously that I’d written them. I hope they give you as much pleasure as they gave me when I reread them.I also hope that those of you who routinely contribute to For the Love of Sentences, bringing gems like the ones below to my attention, know how grateful to you I am. This is a crowdsourced enterprise. You are the wise and deeply appreciated crowd.Finally, I hope 2024 brings all of us many great things, including many great sentences.Let’s start with The Times. Dwight Garner noted how a certain conservative cable network presses on with its distortions, despite being called out on them and successfully sued: “Fox News, at this point, resembles a car whose windshield is thickly encrusted with traffic citations. Yet this car (surely a Hummer) manages to barrel out anew each day, plowing over six more mailboxes, five more crossing guards, four elderly scientists, three communal enterprises, two trans kids and a solar panel.”Erin Thompson reflected on the fate of statues memorializing the Confederacy: “We never reached any consensus about what should become of these artifacts. Some were reinstalled with additional historical context or placed in private hands, but many simply disappeared into storage. I like to think of them as America’s strategic racism reserve.”Pamela Paul examined an embattled (and later dethroned) House speaker who tried to divert attention to President Biden’s imagined wrongdoing: “As Kevin McCarthy announced the impeachment inquiry, you could almost see his wispy soul sucked out Dementor-style, joining whatever ghostly remains of Paul Ryan’s abandoned integrity still wander the halls of Congress.”Damon Winter/The New York TimesTom Friedman cut to the chase: “What Putin is doing in Ukraine is not just reckless, not just a war of choice, not just an invasion in a class of its own for overreach, mendacity, immorality and incompetence, all wrapped in a farrago of lies. What he is doing is evil.”Maureen Dowd eulogized her friend Jimmy Buffett: “When he was a young scalawag, he found the Life Aquatic and conjured his art from it, making Key West the capital of Margaritaville. He didn’t waste away there; he spun a billion-dollar empire out of a shaker of salt.” She also assessed Donald Trump’s relationship to his stolen-election claims and concluded that “the putz knew his push for a putsch was dishonest.” And she sat down with Nancy Pelosi right after Pelosi gave up the House speaker’s gavel: “I was expecting King Lear, howling at the storm, but I found Gene Kelly, singing in the rain.”Bret Stephens contrasted the two Republicans who represent Texas in the Senate, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz: “Whatever else you might say about Cornyn, he is to the junior senator from Texas what pumpkin pie is to a jack-o’-lantern.”Jamelle Bouie diagnosed the problem with the Florida governor’s presidential campaign: “Ron DeSantis cannot escape the fact that it makes no real sense to try to run as a more competent Donald Trump, for the simple reason that the entire question of competence is orthogonal to Trump’s appeal.”Alexis Soloski described her encounter with the actor Taylor Kitsch: “There’s a lonesomeness at the core of him that makes women want to save him and men want to buy him a beer. I am a mother of young children and the temptation to offer him a snack was sometimes overwhelming.”Jane Margolies described a growing trend of corporate office buildings trimmed with greenery that requires less maintenance: “As manicured lawns give way to meadows and borders of annuals are replaced by wild and woolly native plants, a looser, some might say messier, aesthetic is taking hold. Call it the horticultural equivalent of bedhead.”Nathan Englander contrasted Tom Cruise in his 50s with a typical movie star of that age 50 years ago: “Try Walter Matthau in ‘The Taking of Pelham 123.’ I’m not saying he wasn’t a dreamboat. I’m saying he reflects a life well lived in the company of gravity and pastrami.”And David Mack explained the endurance of sweatpants beyond their pandemic-lockdown, Zoom-meeting ubiquity: “We are now demanding from our pants attributes we are also seeking in others and in ourselves. We want them to be forgiving and reassuring. We want them to nurture us. We want them to say: ‘I was there, too. I experienced it. I came out on the other side more carefree and less rigid. And I learned about the importance of ventilation in the process.’”The ethical shortcomings of Supreme Court justices generated some deliciously pointed commentary. In Slate, for example, Dahlia Lithwick parsed the generosity of billionaires that Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have so richly enjoyed. “A #protip that will no doubt make those justices who have been lured away to elaborate bear hunts and deer hunts and rabbit hunts and salmon hunts by wealthy oligarchs feel a bit sad: If your close personal friends who only just met you after you came onto the courts are memorializing your time together for posterity, there’s a decent chance you are, in fact, the thing being hunted,” she wrote.Greg Kahn for The New York TimesIn The Washington Post, Alexandra Petri mined that material by mimicking the famous opening line of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American billionaire, in possession of sufficient fortune, must be in want of a Supreme Court justice.”Also in The Post, the book critic Ron Charles warned of censorship from points across the political spectrum: “Speech codes and book bans may start in opposing camps, but both warm their hands over freedom’s ashes.” He also noted the publication of “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” by Senator Josh Hawley: “The book’s final cover contains just text, including the title so oversized that the word ‘Manhood’ can’t even fit on one line — like a dude whose shoulders are so broad that he has to turn sideways to flee through the doors of the Capitol.”Rick Reilly put Mike McDaniel, the sunny head coach of the Miami Dolphins, and Bill Belichick, the gloomy head coach of the New England Patriots, side by side: “One is as open as a new Safeway, and the other is as closed up as an old submarine. One will tell you anything you want; the other will hand out information on a need-to-go-screw-yourself basis. One looks like a nerd who got lost on a stadium tour and wound up as head coach. The other looks like an Easter Island statue nursing a grudge.”Matt Bai challenged the argument that candidates for vice president don’t affect the outcomes of presidential races: “I’d argue that Sarah Palin mattered in 2008, although she was less of a running mate than a running gag.”David Von Drehle observed: “Golf was for decades — for centuries — the province of people who cared about money but never spoke of it openly. Scots. Episcopalians. Members of the Walker and Bush families. People who built huge homes then failed to heat them properly. People who drove around with big dogs in their old Mercedes station wagons. People who greeted the offer of a scotch and soda by saying, ‘Well, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere!’”And Robin Givhan examined former President Jimmy Carter’s approach to his remaining days: “Hospice care is not a matter of giving up. It’s a decision to shift our efforts from shoring up a body on the verge of the end to providing solace to a soul that’s on the cusp of forever.”In his newsletter on Substack, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar appraised the Lone Star State’s flirtation with secession: “This movement is called Texit and it’s not just the folly of one Republican on the grassy knoll of idiocy.”In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Emma Pettit experienced cognitive dissonance as she examined the academic bona fides of a “Real Housewives of Potomac” cast member: “It’s unusual for any professor to star on any reality show, let alone for a Johns Hopkins professor to star on a Bravo series. The university’s image is closely aligned with world-class research, public health and Covid-19 tracking. The Real Housewives’ image is closely aligned with promotional alcohol, plastic surgery and sequins.”In The Los Angeles Times, Jessica Roy explained the stubborn refusal of plastic bags to stay put: “Because they’re so light, they defy proper waste management, floating off trash cans and sanitation trucks like they’re being raptured by a garbage god.”In The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., Josh Shaffer pondered the peculiarity of the bagpipe, “shaped like an octopus in plaid pants, sounding to some like a goose with its foot caught in an escalator and played during history’s most lopsided battles — by the losing side.”Space Frontiers/Getty ImagesIn Salon, Melanie McFarland reflected on the futility of Chris Licht’s attempts, during his short-lived stint at the helm of CNN, to get Republican politicians and viewers to return to the network: “You might as well summon Voyager 1 back from deep space by pointing your TV remote at the sky and pressing any downward-pointing arrow.”In Politico, Rich Lowry contextualized Trump’s appearance at his Waco, Texas, rally with the J6 Prison Choir: “It’d be a little like Richard Nixon running for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination, and campaigning with a barbershop quartet made up of the Watergate burglars.”In The Atlantic, Tom Nichols observed that many Republican voters “want Trump, unless he can’t win; in that case, they’d like a Trump who can win, a candidate who reeks of Trump’s cheap political cologne but who will wisely wear somewhat less of it while campaigning in the crowded spaces of a general election.”Also in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson needled erroneous recession soothsayers: “Economic models of the future are perhaps best understood as astrology faintly decorated with calculus equations.”And David Frum noted one of the many peculiarities of the televised face-off between DeSantis and Gavin Newsom: “In the debate’s opening segments, the moderator, Sean Hannity, stressed again and again that his questions would be fact-based — like a proud host informing his guests that tonight he will serve the expensive wine.”In The New Yorker, Jonathan Franzen mulled an emotion: “Joy can be as strong as Everclear or as mild as Coors Light, but it’s never not joy: a blossoming in the heart, a yes to the world, a yes to being alive in it,” he wrote.Also in The New Yorker, David Remnick analyzed the raw, warring interpretations of the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7: “There were, of course, facts — many of them unknown — but the narratives came first, all infused with histories and counterhistories, grievances and 50 varieties of fury, all rushing in at the speed of social media. People were going to believe what they needed to believe.”Zach Helfand explained the fascination with monster trucks in terms of our worship of size, noting that “people have always liked really big stuff, particularly of the unnecessary variety. Stonehenge, pyramids, colossi, Costco.”And Anthony Lane found the pink palette of “Barbie” a bit much: “Watching the first half-hour of this movie is like being waterboarded with Pepto-Bismol.” He also provided a zoological breakdown of another hit movie, “Cocaine Bear”: “The animal kingdom is represented by a butterfly, a deer and a black bear. Only one of these is on cocaine, although with butterflies you can never really tell.”In The Guardian, Sam Jones paid tribute to a remarkably durable pooch named Bobi: “The late canine, who has died at the spectacular age of 31 years and 165 days, has not so much broken the record for the world’s longest-lived dog as shaken it violently from side to side, torn it to pieces, buried it and then cocked a triumphant, if elderly, leg over it.”In The Wall Street Journal, Jason Gay rendered a damning (and furry!) judgment of the organization that oversees college sports: “Handing the N.C.A.A. an investigation is like throwing a Frisbee to an elderly dog. Maybe you get something back. Maybe the dog lies down and chews a big stick.” He separately took issue with a prize his daughter won at a state fair: “I don’t know how many of you own a six-and-a-half-foot, bright blue stuffed lemur, but it is not exactly the type of item that blends into a home. You do not put it in the living room and say: perfect. It instantly becomes the most useless item in the house, and I own an exercise bike.”Also in The Journal, Peggy Noonan described McCarthy’s toppling as House speaker by Matt Gaetz and his fellow right-wing rebels: “It’s as if Julius Caesar were stabbed to death in the Forum by the Marx Brothers.” In another column, she skewered DeSantis, who gives off the vibe “that he might unplug your life support to recharge his cellphone.”On her website The Marginalian, the Bulgarian essayist Maria Popova wrote: “We were never promised any of it — this world of cottonwoods and clouds — when the Big Bang set the possible in motion. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Children of chance, we have made ourselves into what we are — creatures who can see a universe of beauty in the feather of a bird and can turn a blind eye to each other’s suffering, creatures capable of the Benedictus and the bomb.”Finally, in The Mort Report, Mort Rosenblum despaired: “Too many voters today are easily conned, deeply biased, impervious to fact and bereft of survival instincts. Contrary to myth, frogs leap out of heating pots. Stampeding cattle stop at a cliff edge. Lemmings don’t really commit mass suicide. We’ll find out about Americans in 2024.” More

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    The Best, Worst and Weirdest Political Stories of 2023

    It has been such a special political year, brimming with extraordinary, even historic moments. From an ex-president indicted to a Senate staffer busted for making porn at work, each fresh development made you proud to be an American.Singling out the exceptional events and players was tougher than ever. I mean, when Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t even merit a mention …. But making hard calls is part of my job, and the true standouts deserve a shout-out.Most Likely to Be Picked Last in Gym Class: Matt GaetzMany Americans fantasize about taking up their pitchforks and storming the boss’s office. But in the history of Congress, only this Florida Man has succeeded — metaphorically, of course — leading a coup against his own party’s speaker. The ouster of Kevin McCarthy, followed by the chaotic scramble for his replacement, became a slow-rolling, breathtaking fiasco that ground the House to a halt and made the entire Republican conference look like a pack of petty, pouty, incompetent preschoolers. Way to build the brand, guys!Most Fabulous Fabulist: George SantosMany politicians lie, but this recently ousted congressman from New York approached the task with a baroque panache of which few could even conceive. Falsely asserting that the Sept. 11 attacks “claimed” his mother’s life? That he was a college volleyball star? That he was a producer of the Broadway atrocity “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”? So macabre. So pointless. So bizarre. Cannot wait to see his next act.Slowest Learner: Robert MenendezLet’s say you got yourself indicted on federal corruption charges that, luckily for you, ultimately resulted in a hung jury. What lesson would you learn from the experience? The senior senator from New Jersey seems to have taken his 2017 near miss as a license to go all in on the sketchy behavior. He was indicted again, and accused of a yearslong bribery scheme in which he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for serving the interests of three New Jersey businessmen — and of the government of Egypt. Mr. Menendez insists he has done nothing wrong and that the government is engaged in “primitive hunting.” Anything’s possible. But the gold bars and envelopes fat with cash stashed around his house are not a good look.Worst Date Night: Lauren BoebertProps to the Colorado congresswoman for putting the thrill back into taking your kids to the theater: Hey, honey, are you sure our “Beetlejuice” seats are in the no-groping section?Least Likely to Succeed: The Republican-led HouseLet’s give it up for one of the most dysfunctional, unproductive Congresses of modern times!Least Surprising Downfall: Kevin McCarthyAt this point, what is left for me to say about this tragically hollow figure? He sold his soul and betrayed American democracy for nine lousy months in the speaker’s chair. Once dethroned, he wasted no time packing up his toys and slinking out of the House — which may have been his first smart move in years.Most Boring Reboot: Impeachment, the Joe Biden versionAlso known as Donald Trump’s revenge.Worst Catchphrase: BidenomicsNo, no, no. The administration geniuses who embraced this sad portmanteau should be tried for political malpractice. And even if you can’t stop the spread, people, don’t let the president tweet about it!Biggest Turnaround: John FettermanThe early months of 2023 were rough for the Pennsylvania senator, who was struggling with the lingering effects of a stroke and wound up hospitalized for depression. Even many of his fans were wondering: Was he up to the job? But at some point he found his mojo and began calling out political B.S. wherever he perceived it, often to the dismay of progressives. He has come out swinging for Israel, called out fellow Democrats who fail to grasp that “it isn’t xenophobic to be concerned about the border” and dinged Gavin Newsom, the attention-thirsty governor of California. He denounced the planned acquisition of U.S. Steel by a Japanese company. And he went hard at his colleague Mr. Menendez for allegedly being a corrupt sleazeball, including paying Mr. Santos to record a troll-y video advising “Bobby from New Jersey” on how to ride out a scandal. Agree with him or not, the guy is en fuego.Best Poison Pen: Mitt Romney and Liz CheneyWe have a tie! First came “Romney: A Reckoning,” McKay Coppins’s book in which the retiring Republican senator and erstwhile presidential nominee laments the sad devolution of his political party. Then, just in time for the holiday gifting season, Ms. Cheney topped the best-seller list with “Oath and Honor” — which isn’t, as its subtitle proclaims, “A Memoir and a Warning” so much as an evisceration of Mr. McCarthy and other Trump toadies. So festive!Biggest Masochist: Mike JohnsonAt this point, what sensible person would want to be speaker of the House?Best Breakout Performance: Nikki HaleyAs the lone woman in the Republican presidential primary debates, she repeatedly outshone the other candidates, giving a big boost to her campaign for top Trump understudy.Biggest Flop: Ron DeSantisAfter all the hype, it turns out that “Trump without the crazy” is just an awkward, aggrieved, opportunistic, anti-charismatic, aspiring autocrat with a mile-wide cruel streak and the people skills of Mark Zuckerberg crossed with Richard Nixon.Most Likely to Be Given an Atomic Wedgie: Vivek RamaswamyIf Ms. Haley doesn’t get him, Chris Christie will.Most Pathetic Nepo Baby: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Seriously, man: Put your shirt back on, spare us the anti-vax lunacy and stop pretending you are some courageous anti-establishment rebel outsider. Your last name is Kennedy, for God’s sake.Most Problematic Nepo Baby: Hunter BidenA lot of families have their own version of Hunter. And the president’s unconditional love for his troubled child is heartwarming. That said, with an impeachment investigation and his re-election campaign heating up, Biden père needs to finally figure out how to handle questions and accusations about his younger son without losing his cool or sounding defensive. Also, standing by Hunter is one thing. Letting him slouch around at a state dinner is quite another.Biggest Loser: Fox NewsThe network agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems. But even without a messy trial, the case revealed plenty about the conservative outlet’s willingness to lie to viewers. Plus, in the process, the Murdochs felt compelled to cut loose their biggest, most unhinged MAGA star, Tucker Carlson — much to the disappointment of his “postmenopausal fans.” And oh, yeah, there is another defamation suit, this one from Smartmatic, still grinding on. So much winning.Runner-Up: Rudy GiulianiThis month, a federal jury ordered the man previously known as America’s mayor to pay two former Georgia election workers $148 million in damages for defaming them in the course of spreading election fraud lies. Immediately after the ruling, Mr. Giuliani re-upped his lies about the women, prompting them to sue him again. A couple of days later, he filed for bankruptcy protection. It’s all a bold strategy. Let’s see if it pays off for him.Biggest Legal Curveball: The Colorado Supreme CourtOn Dec. 19, the Colorado Supreme Court found that Mr. Trump had participated in an insurrection and is thus barred from holding office again under the 14th amendment. The stunner of a ruling disqualifies the Republican front-runner from appearing on the state’s presidential primary ballot. Similar suits in other states have fallen flat, and the Trump campaign said it is appealing this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court — which, it should be noted, includes three justices appointed by Mr. Trump. Just when you thought the 2024 election couldn’t get any weirder.Speaking of the MAGA king: As usual, he was ineligible for our regular awards, seeing as how he operates in a political class all his own. That said, it seems appropriate to recognize his historic status as the first former president to be criminally indicted. Big time. We’re talking 91 felony counts, state and federal, ranging from obstruction of justice to racketeering. Is this achievement more or less notable than his being the only president to earn two impeachments? Hard to say. But at this rate, to distinguish himself in 2024, Mr. Trump will need to go really big — perhaps by running for president from prison?Source photographs: Haley: Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times; Kennedy: Mark Makela/Reuters; Giuliani: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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    How the Right’s Purity Tests Are Haunting the House G.O.P.

    When Casey Stengel had the misfortune to be the manager of the historically inept 1962 New York Mets, his famous plaint was, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”The question for House Republicans, mired in a weekslong demonstration of their internal dysfunction, is: Does anybody here want to play this game?It is tempting to interpret the chaos in the House as the function of a dispute between the pro- and anti-Trump elements of the party, but this isn’t quite right: The deposed speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is in no way anti-Trump. Instead, there were pre-existing trends, either represented or augmented by the rise of Donald Trump, that have undermined G.O.P. coherence and made the Republican House practically ungovernable in the current circumstances.The conservative movement has warred against the party establishment since its inception. Conservative heroes like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich rose by arraying themselves against Republican powers-that-be that they considered too timid and moderate.The Tea Party of the 2010s seemingly reflected the same tendency toward greater conservative purity. Yet, it was more populist and more disaffected with the G.O.P., which is why so many of its leaders and organizations lined up so readily behind Donald Trump.On top of this, the two losses to Barack Obama, especially the second one in 2012, convinced many Republican voters that their party was feckless and naïve. Mitt Romney was serious, civic-minded and conscientious, and got absolutely bulldozed by the Obama campaign, which portrayed him as some kind of monster.The thinking of a lot of Republicans after that was, basically, If you portray all our candidates as crude, unethical partisan haters, well, maybe we should give you one.At the same time, the power of the party establishment had atrophied thanks to all sort of factors, from campaign-finance reform to social media, while it still remained a hate object for much of the right. This made the establishment a ready target for Donald Trump in 2016, but ill-suited to fighting back against him.Mr. Trump is a little like Bernie Sanders — a forceful critic of his party’s mainstream who isn’t at his core a member of the party. (Senator Sanders isn’t a registered Democrat, while Mr. Trump became a Republican again after flitting among various affiliations and would surely quit once more if things didn’t go his way.) The difference is that Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination in a hostile takeover, whereas the Democratic Party had the antibodies to resist Mr. Sanders.Even as Mr. Trump was something new in Republican politics, he was also something familiar. Even before his rise, Republicans were much more susceptible than Democrats to nonserious presidential candidates running to increase their profile for media gigs, book sales and the like. Mr. Trump was this type of candidate on a much larger scale, and, again, happened to actually win.One way to look at it is that the very successful model that the commentator Ann Coulter forged in the world of conservative media — generate controversy and never, ever apologize — came to be replicated by candidates and officeholders.Both Vivek Ramaswamy and Matt Gaetz are creatures of politics for the sake of notoriety. It creates entirely different incentives from the traditional approach: Stoking outrage is good, blowing things up is useful, and it never pays to get caught doing the responsible thing.At the congressional level, there was a related, although distinct phenomenon. With the rise of the Tea Party, the tendency of the right flank of the House Republican caucus to make the life of the party leadership miserable became more pronounced. This was especially true in spending fights. The pattern was that the right, associated with the House Freedom Caucus after its founding in 2015, would hold out a standard of impossible purity, and then when leaders inevitability failed to meet it, denounce them as weak and traitorous.There are, of course, legitimate disagreements about tactics and priorities, and the leadership doesn’t always make the right calls. But some of these members consider the legislative process in and of itself corrupt, and refuse to participate even if they can increase the negotiating leverage of their own side or move spending deals marginally in their direction.This was a notable dynamic in the spending fight that led to the toppling of Speaker McCarthy. His fiercest critics did nothing to help keep him from having to resort to the option they found most hateful — namely, going to Democrats for a kick-the-can deal in advance of a government shutdown.Representative Gaetz, the Gavrilo Princip of the Republican meltdown, exemplifies almost all these trends. He is a House Freedom Caucus-type in his attitudes toward the leadership and his rhetoric about federal spending, but his ultimate political loyalty is to Donald Trump. He’s overwhelmingly concerned with garnering media attention. And no one has the power to bring him to heel.There’s no dealing with the likes of Mr. Gaetz because he’s operating on a different dimension from someone like Mr. McCarthy, a pragmatist and coalition-builder who is trying to move the ball incrementally. It’s the difference between politics as theater and politics as the art of the possible; politics as individual brand-building and politics as team sport.In the last Congress, Nancy Pelosi had a slim majority like Mr. McCarthy and a restive handful of members on her left flank, the so-called Squad. Yet she held it together. The difference is that Ms. Pelosi still had considerable legitimacy as a leader, which gave her the moral power to keep everyone together. It is instructive to contrast her not just with Mr. McCarthy, but with the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. Whereas Ms. Pelosi, an institutionalist concerned with getting things done, is a legend among Democrats, Mr. McConnell, also an institutionalist concerned with getting things done, is hated by much of his party’s own base and constantly attacked by the party’s de facto leader, Donald Trump.The situation in the Republican House caucus has now developed into a sort of tribal war, where memories of real or alleged wrongs committed by the other side lead to more conflict and more bad feelings. So, establishmentarians and relative moderates were willing to take down the speaker candidacy of the House Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan, rejecting his new argument that everyone had to come together for the good of the whole.It may be that exhaustion sets in and Republicans eventually settle on a speaker, or it may be that the problem is unresolvable and they will have to find a way to govern under the speaker pro tempore, Patrick McHenry. Regardless, it’s become obvious over the last three weeks that no, not nearly enough Republicans want to play this game.Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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    The People Who Broke the House

    When it comes to Congress, Americans have come to expect a certain baseline of dysfunction. But I think most of us can agree that the current House Republican majority is something special. Overthrowing a speaker for the first time in history. Rejecting multiple nominees to replace him. Members publicly trashing one another. One faction’s supporters threatening opposing members.And so here we languish, with the government’s most basic functions held hostage by a conference divided over everything from ideological differences to petty personal slights: Candidate X broke his promise! Candidate Y ignores me! Candidate Z never votes for my bills! It’s like watching a pack of middle-schoolers hopped up on hormones and Skittles.To help make sense of this dark farce, it is useful to dig into the warring factions that have already destroyed the speaker dreams of multiple colleagues. Boiling down the action so far: A tiny gaggle of eight Republicans, mostly hard-right extremists, took down Kevin McCarthy. Then a larger group of hard-liners quashed the candidacy of Steve Scalise, the majority leader, before it even came up for a floor vote, with an eye toward elevating one of their own, the chronically belligerent Jim Jordan. But a coalition of moderates, institutionalists and members who just can’t stomach Mr. Jordan struck back, voting him down again and again and again — and again, if you count Friday’s closed-conference ballot effectively stripping him of the nomination.The Republicans Who Blocked Jordan and McCarthy From the SpeakershipAcross four votes in the House, both conservative and moderate Republican holdouts ousted Kevin McCarthy and denied Jim Jordan the speaker’s gavel. The colored dots show where those holdouts fall on the ideological spectrum, based on their voting records. More

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    For Gaetz, Washington Drama Could Fuel Florida Ambitions

    As rumors swirl about a 2026 bid for governor of Florida, Matt Gaetz said his only political goal was “electing President Trump again.”Representative Matt Gaetz’s successful push to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy has ratcheted up speculation that the fourth-term Republican congressman already has his eye on his next target, still three years away: the Florida governor’s mansion.Mr. Gaetz, a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, has swatted away rumors that he is planning to run statewide in 2026. But that hasn’t stopped Florida’s political class from chattering. A lot.“He’d be the front-runner in any Republican primary he wants to run in right now,” said State Representative Alex Andrade, a Republican who represents the Pensacola area, which is in Mr. Gaetz’s Panhandle district. “He’s got his finger on the pulse of the Republican base better than anyone I see.”The ambitious Mr. Gaetz boasts significant name recognition and is a favorite to receive Mr. Trump’s endorsement. He knows how to dominate the news spotlight. And he has extensive connections with political operatives, lobbyists and donors from across Florida, dating back to his and his father’s years in the State Legislature and to his role leading Gov. Ron DeSantis’s transition in 2018.Much could happen between now and 2026. But the potential for a new job outside of Washington might be a welcome notion for Mr. Gaetz, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 2016.Ousting Mr. McCarthy showed how few allies he has within his party in Congress, where he is openly reviled — just seven members joined him to help topple the speaker. Many Republican lawmakers accused Mr. Gaetz of knifing Mr. McCarthy with no endgame beyond pursuing his own personal interests.Should he choose to run, Mr. Gaetz will still have liabilities as a statewide candidate. Federal prosecutors targeted him as part of a sex-trafficking investigation that did not lead to charges against him but revealed embarrassing personal details that opponents would no doubt reprise. Influential conservative media pundits have turned on him over removing Mr. McCarthy.And while Mr. Gaetz may have Mr. Trump’s strong support now, if the former president loses his 2024 bid to return to the White House, it is unclear if he would continue to play kingmaker in future elections.Speculation about Mr. Gaetz’s political future is happening unusually early, before next year’s presidential election — a sign, Florida Democrats say, that Republicans are ready to move on from Mr. DeSantis, who is running for president.“They want to look forward because they’re tired of this chaos, but obviously Matt Gaetz is not the solution to that,” said Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, who ran in the primary for governor last year and could try for the job again. But, she added: “Everybody’s attention needs to be on 2024.”Unlike Mr. Gaetz, Mr. DeSantis was a largely unknown congressman from Northeast Florida when he ran for governor in 2018. His candidacy succeeded in large part thanks to Mr. Trump’s endorsement. Now in his second term, Mr. DeSantis has made the governorship an even more attractive job, expanding its authority to make the office perhaps more powerful than ever before.If the current Republican dynamics persist, the 2026 race could turn into a proxy fight between a candidate backed by Mr. Trump and one backed by Mr. DeSantis — keeping Florida at the center of the nation’s political conversation.Speculation about Mr. Gaetz’s political future is happening unusually early — a sign, Florida Democrats say, that Republicans are ready to move on from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president.Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesFor now, Mr. Gaetz insists he has no plans to seek the office, saying in a text message this week that he is “not running for governor.”“I’m exactly where I am supposed to be. And I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing,” he said. “My only political ambition is electing President Trump again.”He called a recent NBC News report that he planned to run “overblown clickbait.” But in August, Mr. Gaetz seemed to acknowledge that leading Florida had crossed his mind.“I would definitely enjoy that job so much,” Mr. Gaetz said during a livestream appearance with Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who encouraged him to run. “I would never leave it if I ever got that opportunity.”Among the other possible Republican contenders are the entire Florida Cabinet — Ashley Moody, the attorney general; Wilton Simpson, the agriculture commissioner, and Jimmy Patronis, the chief financial officer — as well as Lt. Gov. Jeanette M. Núñez and several members of Congress, including Representatives Byron Donalds and Michael Waltz.Mr. Donalds is seen as being particularly close to Mr. Trump. Mr. Simpson has at times clashed with Mr. DeSantis, who is term-limited. Ms. Moody and Ms. Núñez have endorsed the governor for president.There is no doubt that Mr. Gaetz is polarizing. Steve Vernon, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Manatee County, in Southwest Florida, called Mr. McCarthy’s ouster “a total mistake” by Mr. Gaetz.“Democrats are all cheering and laughing,” Mr. Vernon said. “All of the attention has switched from Biden” and immigration and other issues, he added, “and now we’re in limbo.”Were Mr. Gaetz to run for governor, Mr. Vernon said, he would have “no chance.”“He’s too extreme,” he said, “and he wouldn’t win.”Republicans in Florida’s congressional delegation, who are usually deferential to their colleagues, were angry at Mr. Gaetz and the other Republicans who ousted Mr. McCarthy. “Fringe hostage takers,” Representative Carlos A. Gimenez of Miami called them.Representative John Rutherford of Jacksonville blasted Mr. Gaetz by name. “Rep. Gaetz’s ‘concern’ for the American people is hollow,” he said. “Rep. Gaetz is driving our nation toward the brink of another government shutdown, all for clicks and cash and a boost in his national profile.”Despite his hard-line conservative views, Mr. Gaetz has also taken positions on marijuana policy and other issues that have made him friends across the aisle. One of them is John Morgan, a major Florida political donor who describes himself as a “Biden Democrat” but is registered without a party affiliation. Mr. Gaetz recently had him on when he guest-hosted a show on Newsmax.Mr. Morgan said that if the Republican field for governor is as crowded as expected, Mr. Gaetz would be well positioned to get enough votes — perhaps 30 percent — to win. “It’s kind of the Trump formula,” he said.Most people do not follow the ins and outs of Congress, Mr. Morgan added. Their takeaway from the McCarthy ouster will be that Mr. Gaetz is a “fighter,” he said, and that he is tight with Mr. Trump.Mr. Gaetz could also be helped by his family. His father, Don Gaetz, served for a decade in the Florida Legislature, including two years as Senate president, until 2016. This week, he filed to run for Senate again.In an interview, the elder Mr. Gaetz dismissed the suggestion that he was running again to be positioned to help his son, saying he was encouraged to return to politics by people in Northwest Florida.“He and I talk almost every day, and I can tell you that he is singularly focused on budget issues and spending issues and trying to get a vote on term limits in Washington,” he said. “He has not told me that he intends to run for governor. I don’t think he has an interest in it.” More

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    Scalise and Jordan Seek House Speaker Backing as Trump Hangs Over Race

    The two lawmakers sought support from members of their fractured party as the former president threatened to get involved in a potentially fierce struggle over who will lead the House.The two leading candidates to become the next Republican speaker of the House worked the phones and the halls of the Capitol on Thursday, vying for support from within their party’s fractured ranks as the chamber remained in a state of paralysis after the ouster of Representative Kevin McCarthy of California.Representatives Steve Scalise, the majority leader, and Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman, had each landed more than a dozen endorsements by the afternoon as they raced toward a vote of Republicans tentatively scheduled for Tuesday. An election on the House floor could follow the next day, though the process could stretch much longer if no consensus can be reached.Far from the Capitol, former President Donald J. Trump, whose far-right acolytes in Congress helped lead the rebellion that has plunged the House into chaos, weighed in on what could become an epic struggle.Representative Troy Nehls of Texas wrote Thursday evening on X, formerly Twitter, that he had spoken with Mr. Trump, and that he had said he was endorsing Mr. Jordan. “I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party,” Mr. Nehls said. “I fully support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House.”Mr. Jordan picked up an important G.O.P. backer and cleared a potential challenger from the field with the endorsement of Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, who had previously been exploring his own run for speaker, according to a person familiar with his calls to lawmakers. Mr. Donalds said on the social media site X that Mr. Jordan “has my full support to become the next Speaker of the House!”Both Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan are faced with the difficult challenge of attempting to unite a fractious Republican conference that is reeling after Mr. McCarthy’s removal from the speakership.For Mr. Jordan, an Ohioan and co-founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, the task will be to convince more mainstream Republicans that he can govern and not simply tear things down. He met on Thursday with members of the Main Street Caucus, a group of business-minded Republicans.For Mr. Scalise, a Louisianian who has won conference elections before as majority leader, the challenge will be to stay one step ahead of Mr. Jordan, and make better inroads with the right wing of the party.Both men are considered further to the right than Mr. McCarthy, a point Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who led the drive to oust Mr. McCarthy, has noted with a sense of satisfaction.“If it’s Speaker Jim Jordan or Speaker Steve Scalise, there will be very few conservatives in the country who don’t see that as a monumental upgrade over Speaker McCarthy,” Mr. Gaetz said on Newsmax.Casting a long shadow over the race is Mr. Trump, the G.O.P. presidential front-runner who holds heavy sway among congressional Republicans because of his strong standing with the party base, including many of their constituents.Some right-wing Republicans had been encouraging Mr. Trump to make a run for speaker himself, though the party’s current conference rules would block him from doing so because he is under multiple felony indictments and facing the possibility of significant prison time. Speaking Wednesday outside a Manhattan courthouse where he is facing a civil fraud case, Mr. Trump seemed to enjoy dangling the possibility of a run for speaker, telling reporters: “Lot of people have been calling me about speaker. All I can say is we’ll do whatever is best for the country and for the Republican Party.”“If I can help them during the process,” he added, “I’ll do it.”Back in the halls of the Congress, a serious race was taking shape.Mr. Scalise, who has been in leadership since 2014, has built relationships across the Republican conference. He has been quietly securing commitments through one-on-one calls with members.On such calls seeking support, Mr. Scalise has emphasized that he is second only to Mr. McCarthy in fund-raising prowess, and he has locked up a string of commitments from the south and the Midwest, according to a person familiar with his private calls, who described them on the condition of anonymity.“Not only is Steve a principled conservative, he has overcome adversity far beyond the infighting in our conference right now,” said Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa, who endorsed Mr. Scalise after speaking with him.One clear point of contrast between Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan is their dueling positions on continued aid to Ukraine for its war against Russian aggression, which has become increasingly politicized and is now regarded by many Republicans as toxic.Mr. Jordan was one of 117 Republicans who voted last week against continuing a program to train and equip Ukrainian troops, while Mr. Scalise sided with 101 Republicans in supporting it.“Why should we be sending American tax dollars to Ukraine when we don’t even know what the goal is?” Mr. Jordan said Thursday on Fox News. “No one can tell me what the objective is.”Several Republicans said they were waiting to hear more from the candidates before deciding whom to support.Representative Marc Molinaro of New York said he had spoken with both Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan by phone.“There really wasn’t any one person in Congress who worked harder to help me get to Congress or to earn my support than Kevin McCarthy,” Mr. Molinaro said.“We now have individuals who have a week,” he added. “And so I’m going to observe, I’m going to listen, and I’m going to demand that members like me and the people we represent have a seat at the table, and then make a decision.”Robert Jimison More