Kevin McCarthy is a man who fought so hard to get to the highest rung of power he could achieve. He cut deals along the way, carving a path to the role of Speaker of the House. That deal-making culminated in a long, drawn-out battle for the gavel, where McCarthy had to make concessions to conservatives in order to get their support. 

Fast forward a few months, and McCarthy had his first big test. He got the party united behind a bill that would reduce spending levels and do some real good in fixing the way our government spends our money. He beat Joe Biden, forcing the president to come to the negotiating table. However, he lost his next test when he gave up almost everything worth keeping from the original bill.

McCarthy praised his deal with Biden as a major win, but the blowback from conservatives was so fierce he backed away from the deal and eventually stopped mentioning it altogether. We are now at McCarthy's next test, and it seems more and more like his original victory was a fluke, and he has lost his caucus.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board has an absolutely scathing op-ed on the Republican caucus and its inability to come to a consensus.

But House Republicans have so far managed to pass only one of the 12 appropriations bills to fund the government, the one on veterans and military construction. Thus Congress is careening toward a possible government shutdown at the end of this month when the current fiscal year ends.

House Republicans can’t even pass the defense or homeland security spending bills, which should be the easiest and contain many GOP priorities on military spending and border security. Recalcitrant Members—“snipers inside the perimeter”—are demanding that somehow the House cut even more spending than the debt-ceiling bill stipulated.

They’re willing to shut down the government to make their point, which is the equivalent of holding your breath until you pass out. Conservative and moderate factions worked out a spending stop-gap bill that cuts overall non-defense spending by 1% from 2023 levels to keep the government running through Oct. 31, but even that seems to lack the votes.

Now, the op-ed goes on to say that a government shutdown is a sure political loser. Of this, I am not convinced. In 2013, ahead of the 2014 midterms, many were convinced Republicans would have a terrible election cycle because of the government shutdown orchestrated by conservatives. The most immediate election after the shutdown was in Washington D.C.'s backyard - the Virginia governor's race. Terry McAuliffe beat Ken Cuccinelli to become the state's new governor, and several were quick to point out that Virginians who work in D.C. and were furloughed were angered by the Republican-forced shutdown. 

But Cuccinelli received virtually no support from national GOP groups - like the Republican Governor's Association - and on election day nearly closed the polling gap with McAuliffe when a robocall went out explaining to voters McAuliffe's extreme pro-abortion stances. In the following year, Republicans had a great election cycle, giving them full control of Congress.

However, things are different right now. A shutdown isn't a guaranteed loser by any means, but a caucus in chaos is a guaranteed way to look like a joke to voters, and the buck stops with the man in charge: Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy is a lifelong Big Government Republican who wasn't just part of the Establishment but actually helped create it. He makes deals with everyone he can in order to maintain power and influence. But, like the dog who caught the car, he does not seem to have a plan now that he has the power and influence he sought. The Republicans are being derailed not by conservative reformers but by people who hate McCarthy personally. His majority is so slim that those few holdouts - not the larger number of Tea Party Republicans who forced a shutdown a decade ago - can derail his ambitions.

And the Democrats feel no need to come to his rescue. They think a shutdown will hurt Republicans, and the Biden administration is content to sit back and let it happen, convinced that McCarthy's caucus will be his undoing. They may not be wrong.

President Joe Biden has steered well clear of the chaos engulfing the House, where Republicans are battling each other over a government funding bill. Within the White House, aides have settled on a hard-line strategy aimed at pressuring McCarthy to stick to a spending deal he struck with Biden back in May rather than attempt to patch together a new bipartisan bill.

“We agreed to the budget deal and a deal is a deal — House GOP should abide by it,” said a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the private calculations. Their “chaos is making the case that they are responsible if there is a shutdown.”

Biden world’s wait-and-see approach comes against the backdrop of an increasingly likely shutdown, which would be the first of the Biden era.

Likewise, House Democrats, Senate Democrats, and even Senate Republicans are working not on a plan to avoid a shutdown but a plan to get out of one. The deal-making is already happening. And because the Republicans have a slim majority in the House and a two-seat deficit in the Senate, all it takes are a few people to crossover and let Washington D.C. continue as normal.

Under normal circumstances, I'd be excited for a government shutdown. But there has to be a plan. There needs to be a condition for victory. Or at least an honorable retreat. But the holdouts don't have a plan. Solid conservatives, like Byron Donalds and Chip Roy, had a plan, but those holdouts sided with Democrats and scuttled it. And, because of that, it seems like McCarthy doesn't seem to have a plan, either. He's just trying to cobble something together in an effort to save face.

McCarthy tried to be all things to all people. He tried to come across as a conservative, despite his big spending past. He sought the power of the office but once he got there, he began flailing. The result is a caucus that cannot properly stand against the Democrats and their excessive government spending. Instead of spending time weighing in on the presidential primary and defending the man whose ring he had to kiss to get his power, he should perhaps be working on ways to unite his caucus, instead of letting the entire movement be derailed and highjacked by Democrats eager to pick up the scraps.

Or, perhaps he needs to rethink his commitment to the role he sought for so long.