In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.–Mark Twain

What has Speaker McCarthy’s accomplished?

Speaker McCarthy hides his party’s lack of significant accomplishments behind a list of dubious ones. Democrats won’t be fooled. Some of those bullets are bad ideas, some would have happened anyway, others haven’t happened and won’t.

What is Speaker McCarthy’s intended audience?

Speaker McCarthy’s intended audience is Republicans, particularly far-right Republicans. He needs to convince them that he is moving their agenda, so he can claim their support on must-pass bills. He needs to raise or repeal the debt ceiling, possibly act on firearms, and pass a farm bill. To do this he needs the support of the right-wing of his party. His other option is to seek support from Democrats, which sadly has been anathema for the GOP.

McCarthy’s first test may be to a farm bill. Red states will want more for farmers, Blue States will want more for SNAP, the far-right will want less for both. We will soon see if the GOP can write a farm bill that will pass the Senate and win support from the far-right or alternatively from enough Democrats to offset the far-right vote in the House.