[Rajoo]

The Speaker’s race is McCarthy’s to lose, and yet he could lose it still. During the first round of voting, McCarthy’s only official competitor was Andy Biggs, a legislator from Arizona, who received thirty-one votes but who vowed to fight on. Biggs is part of a far-right faction called the Freedom Caucus. The group, which has about forty members, has been a wrecking ball since its creation, in 2015, when it forced out John Boehner as Speaker and sabotaged McCarthy, who was running to replace him. Two years earlier, congresspeople who became core members of the Freedom Caucus had shut down the government and tried to force a federal default, in order to make a point about excessive federal spending. Its ranks have grown with election deniers, QAnon conspiracists, and diehard Trumpists. Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist, told me, “The Dems’ extreme people are extreme on progressive policies. The Republicans’ extreme are extreme on the level of the insane taking over the asylum.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...-to-gain-power