Republicans have become agents of political chaos

BACK in 2010, he was considered to be one of the rising stars in the Republican Party. Elected to the US House of Representatives from California’s 22nd district, Kevin McCarthy was hailed four years later as one of the party’s “Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders”, that included Representative Paul Ryan, who went on to become Speaker of the House of Representatives.

But as Representative McCarthy and the Young Guns, who were seen as political disciples of former president Ronald Reagan and the darlings of the party’s establishment, were celebrating their rise in power in 2010, a new force of political hard-right populists was emerging in the Republican Party, in the form of the so-called Tea Party.

The members of this class of Republicans who challenged the basic tenets of Reaganism, advocating reducing the size of the federal government, ended up sweeping the ranks of the Grand Old Party (GOP) in Congress after the 2010 election.