The Atlantic

GOP Fantasy Collides With Reality

The requisite for Republican leadership is serving delusion—that Trump won in 2020, that the Republicans did not lose in 2022. Fail at that and you’re out.
Source: Photo-illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Anna Moneymaker / Getty.

Last night was the night a lot of bills came due for Kevin McCarthy.

The bill came due for pandering to his party’s extremes, for desperate deals and broken promises. Most of all, the bill came due for the House Republicans’ failure in the elections of 2022.

Republicans have had a lot of bad elections since Donald Trump took over the party. They lost the popular vote for president in 2016, they lost the House in 2018, they lost the presidency in 2020, and they lost the Senate in

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