Two books to understand why Kevin McCarthy is fucked

 Your first reading assignment is the DSM-5.  Just kidding.  As we have seen in modern American politics, one can be as cognitively blinkered as possible, and still succeed.  Keb'Mc, who is nowhere near as cool as Keb'Mo, will not necessarily be held back, even though he should have been held back for his intellectual deficiencies.  Rather, he faces an impossible structural problem.  Here are two books.

The Theory of Political Coalitions, by William Riker.  1962.  Yes, his name really was William Riker, and he was a total badass of a scholar.  The key observation in this book was the idea of the minimal winning coalition.  If you are building a coalition strategically, there is a threshold for passage.  Say, 50%+1 in the House (or frequently 60 in the Senate, but we're discussing the House).  In order to maximize your utility, you make no more concessions than are necessary to get to 50%+1 because each additional vote you add into the coalition requires a sacrifice.  If you pass a bill by a large supermajority, according to Riker, you fucked up because you gave away more than you needed to give in order to win.  Cold blooded, right?  And yet there is something to the plan.

Here is the problem.  Keb'Mc will have no chance at getting Democratic votes on nearly anything, and his Republican caucus will have such a narrow majority that the only winning coalition will be essentially every Republican.  And while the DSM runs down a set of mental illnesses, it doesn't tell you Keb'Mc's real problem at an individual level.  He's about one neuron short of a synapse.  Dude ain't smart.  And if every concession to Republican A is a cost to Republican B, the winning coalition may not exist.  The GOP saw this problem in 2017 when they couldn't come up with a "repeal-and-replace" plan.  Does anyone seriously think that Keb'Mc is going to be a more adept strategist than Paul Ryan, who was not quite the supergenius he was reputed to be, but at least had enough lights for a Christmas tree?

Yeah, this'll go well.

Your next book recommendation.  Mine!  Incremental Polarization: A Unified Spatial Theory of Legislative Elections, Parties & Roll Call Voting.  2018.  The important chapter right now is the chapter on the GOP's intraparty struggles after the 2010 election, specifically relating to the debt ceiling.  That's going to be a big problem soon.  The issue is that most Republican Representatives want the debt ceiling raised, but don't want to vote for it because they are afraid of the electoral consequences of voting for it.  That cross-pressure created intra-party conflict which took down Boehner.  That same situation is about to occur again.

McCarthy cannot manage this.  He is toast.  I will write more about this, because I think my model tells you in detail why Keb'Mc is so fucked, but this guy just took the worst job in Washington.  So yeah, my book actually matters.  It isn't as good as Riker's, but for the record, I'm the one with the groovy beard.