Kevin McCarthy mocked for suffering ‘unique humiliation’

The price of admission to the hottest club on the internet on Tuesday? Just type “Kevin McCarthy” into the Twitter search bar.

As the top Republican of the House of Representatives suffered loss after loss in his chaotic bid to become Speaker of the House on Tuesday, the California congressman faced a barrage of memes and taunts for his inability to support the far-right faction of his party as he inherits a razor-thin majority in the 118th US Congress.

This is despite his willingness to concede numerous points, including various rule changes called for as a condition of his speakership by members of the House Freedom Caucus – who have rejected McCarthy for being too dovish.

“This unique humiliation of a party’s candidate for speaker is a chicken coming home to sleep for McCarthy, who whitewashed the right-wing riot in the House,” said Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland tweeted during voting. “Nobody is getting killed now, but the GOP of the house is now sleeping in the bed they made with Trump and Bannon.”

Many others agreed.

“Feel like I’m living in a Worldstar video just as McCarthy is being crushed by his own party at the house.” meant Freshman Democratic Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost.

Others tipped their hats to media claims that enough “tired” Democrats unwilling to endure hours of McCarthy’s repeated defeats — up to three at the time of this writing — would leave the chamber, which would give McCarthy enough support to to overcome the 19 Republicans obstructing his speakership.

“People who say Dems will *get tired* and leave to make McCarthy spokesmen really don’t know anything about the powers of recovery when you watch like a guy tossing his hat with people coming into your office come to kill you, suffers repeated humiliations. ” tweeted Elie Mystal, a journalist for the Liberal magazine The nation.

Some insulted McCarthy even before they entered the room, including California Democrat Ted Lieu, for whom a picture spoke more than a thousand words.

“I’m about to go into the house,” he tweeted above a picture of himself holding a bag of popcorn.

McCarthy did some of this to himself. After Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan delivered a rousing speech naming McCarthy as the speaker, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz — and later Texas Republican Chip Roy — nominated Jordan to speak.

After his third round of voting, Jordan actually received 20 votes for the nomination from his peers, indicating that the conservative movement against McCarthy had indeed grown.

“Three ballots. Three losses for McCarthy.” tweeted Freedom Caucus member Andy Biggs. “He’s preventing Congress from doing its legislative work!”

Still, McCarthy persevered – even as his losses continued to mount.

“The funny thing about this insistence on voting again and again is that Kevin McCarthy will keep taking Ls.” tweeted Matt Fuller from The Daily Beast.