I have to admit that McCarthy's backing of a short-term CR without significant concession over the weekend and his statements since then has been an act of political seppuku I did not expect. Knowing how desperate he was to become Speaker, though, I can't help but believe to my core that this was really a final act of defiance, a desperate attempt to save some semblance of a legacy of an inauspicious speakership marred by disorder, by an arrogant narcissist finally realizing he would, all along, inevitably reap what he'd sewn in the end. Given how blinded and crippled he is by his ambition, I doubt he possesses the self-awareness to consciously recognize any of this. That eight or so lunatics can run the asylum is perhaps as much of an indictment of the institution (and the process by which its members' consituencies are determined) as it is of McCarthy. But there's little doubt in my mind that McCarthy's obvious desparation was but fuel on the fire.

All institutions need some amount of good faith to function. That is currently gone.

All institutions need some amount of good faith to function. That is currently gone. And not only this, but its very framework (see, e.g., gerrymandering which assures that a primary will be the only competitive race in many districts inevitably produces a handful of lunatics who represent said districts) works directly against it. "Good faith" cuts against the direct political interest of these members -- utility-maximizing, self-interested "rational" actors gaming in a system of perverse incentives. Of course, you well know all this. It's cathartic to verbalize my cynicism.

utility-maximizing, self-interested "rational" actors gaming in a system of perverse incentives Or perhaps more accurately (and cynically), irrational actors with perverse choice preferences whose preferences mesh with the perverseness of the incentives. I've a hard time imagining many of these folks becoming responsible lawmakers even if their voters demanded it of them. In any case, the structure elevates certain folks who otherwise probably'd be muttering to themselves in the corner of a bus station or something (or on a TV show for one of the networks trafficking in ideologically self-assuring propoganda).