Mad House

What happens when a razor-thin majority collides with a media ecosystem that pays for drama? In this book, you watch the 118th Congress turn lawmaking into performance. The core argument is blunt: a four-seat Republican margin plus attention-driven incentives transformed the House into a stage where spectacle beats substance. A handful of hard-right members leveraged procedures, outside media, and donor pipelines to hold leadership hostage; Kevin McCarthy won the gavel by giving away guardrails, then governed under constant ransom until the very concessions he made were used to depose him.

Across chapters, you see a system under stress: the debt ceiling showdown reveals how competent negotiators can still avert catastrophe; the post-McCarthy speaker fight shows a party unable to consolidate power; oversight morphs into theater; censures and purges normalize payback; and the human toll—threats, burnout, a wave of retirements—shrinks the talent pool. The book is not just a chronicle of chaos; it’s a field guide to how modern incentives, platforms, and procedural design choices can unmake governing coalitions.

A structural bind: math meets media

Start with arithmetic. With only a four-seat majority, leadership needed near-perfect unity to control the floor. That math, familiar to anyone who counts votes for a living, gave outsized leverage to a small, organized minority—Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, and allies. Layer on a media economy that rewards provocation—Fox, Newsmax, Steve Bannon’s War Room, podcasts, and virality—and you create a marketplace where disruption is a rational career strategy. A shouted floor speech or viral confrontation can bring more power than a subcommittee chairmanship. As Liz Cheney put it, “We’re electing idiots”—not as an insult, but as a diagnosis of perverse incentives.

Performance as power

You learn how procedures once used sparingly became power tools. The motion to vacate—restored as a concession to holdouts—let a single member force a vote to evict the Speaker. Rules Committee seats in the hands of hard-liners let them choke the floor. Even voting down the “rule,” a norm that was once sacrosanct, became a tactic. Each lever multiplied in potency because it could be paired with public pressure campaigns: phone trees lit up by Hannity segments, Bannon’s amplification of five-minute floor stunts, and social feeds that doxed colleagues as “RINOs.” The insurgents blended parliamentarian savvy with content creation and fundraising funnels.

Leadership caught in a vise

Kevin McCarthy’s leadership style—pleasing people, trading favors, reading the room—worked until it met this insurgent toolkit. He won the gavel after 15 ballots by giving away the very instruments that ensure stability. Governing then demanded further concessions: to pass the debt ceiling deal (the Fiscal Responsibility Act), he relied on Democrats for key rules votes, emptying his “red meat tank” and enraging his right flank. A single Sunday show misstep—blaming Democrats after they’d helped him avert a shutdown—cost him the goodwill that might have saved him when Gaetz pulled the motion to vacate. The lesson is unforgiving: trade away guardrails, and you’re governing on borrowed time.

Coups, paralysis, and an external veto

McCarthy’s fall wasn’t the end—it was the beginning of weeks of paralysis that exposed a party split between MAGA insurgents and institutionalists. Steve Scalise briefly won an internal vote, only to be kneecapped by Jordan loyalists who refused to honor the result. Jim Jordan then ran a public pressure campaign—repeated floor votes, escalated harassment (Don Bacon’s office fielded 31,000 calls; Ken Buck’s office got 20,000 voicemails), and media intimidation—that backfired as colleagues dug in. Tom Emmer’s bid collapsed within hours after Trump called him a “Globalist RINO” on Truth Social. Exhaustion, not consensus, produced Mike Johnson—a low-profile figure acceptable to enough factions. You see how a single external figure’s post can override internal majorities, making the conference less sovereign than its bylaws imply.

Real-world costs, not just vibes

The chaos had consequences. Ukraine aid stalled for months; Senate border talks (Sinema–Murphy–Lankford) died under MAGA pressure; impeachment became theater (Alejandro Mayorkas impeached in the House, dismissed in the Senate); and the House increasingly needed Democratic votes for core functions. Oversight veered into spectacle—James Comer’s probes chased headlines while Greene displayed explicit photos of Hunter Biden in committee—prompting Democrats like Jamie Raskin and Jasmine Crockett to fight spectacle with spectacle. The human price rose: threats, swattings, families sleeping with guns nearby, and a stream of retirements—Patrick McHenry, Mike Gallagher, Ken Buck, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Greg Pence—that drained institutional memory (compare to earlier eras when seniority and craft anchored stability).

Key Idea

Modern Congress behaves according to its incentives. If attention is currency and procedural chaos yields leverage, you’ll get more of both—until leaders rebuild guardrails and rebalance rewards.

By the end, you hold a coherent map: how narrow math empowered a media-savvy insurgency; how McCarthy’s concessions and missteps set the trap; how Trump’s posts functioned as vetoes; how competent negotiators (Shalanda Young, Patrick McHenry, Garret Graves) could manage crises but not fix incentives; how oversight and censure became content; and how the human toll hollowed out expertise. If you manage teams or care about institutions, the book doubles as a governance manual: don’t give away procedural weapons; put agreements on paper (as Young says, “Serious people put shit on paper”); build internal legitimacy before going public; and treat media incentives as a design variable, not a sideshow. Otherwise the show runs you.

Kevin McCarthy is the story of a leader who climbs by pleasing and falls by conceding. You meet a politician who approaches power as a campaign problem: make friends, trade favors, absorb humiliation if it buys another vote. That instinct carried him to the Speaker’s gavel after a 15-round spectacle—but only because he gave away the very tools that Speakers rely on to discipline a fractious conference.

Winning the gavel by losing leverage

To become Speaker in January 2023, McCarthy restored the single-member motion to vacate, placed hard-right members on the Rules Committee, and greenlit procedural changes that empowered a small faction. He elevated once-marginal figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and made personal deals with Matt Gaetz and others to secure votes. C-SPAN’s roving cameras captured it all, turning a leadership rite into national theater (a reminder that transparency without trust can embolden performative actors). McCarthy later said, “Now we learned how to govern.” The text shows you the opposite: he learned how to count to 218 by renting his authority to those most willing to threaten it.

Governing under ransom

The debt ceiling showdown forced McCarthy to act like a traditional leader: designate negotiators (Garret Graves, Patrick McHenry), establish a House baseline (Limit, Save, Grow), and cut a deal with the White House (the Fiscal Responsibility Act). But the same concessions that won him the office required new concessions to govern. He needed Democratic votes to pass rules and avoid a shutdown; his right flank saw that reliance as betrayal. By the time the deal cleared, McCarthy’s political capital with conservatives was spent, while moderates and Democrats were ambivalent about saving him again.

The Face the Nation mistake

Small communications errors can have large structural consequences when you lead on a knife’s edge. After Democrats helped McCarthy pass a short-term funding bill to prevent a shutdown, he went on Face the Nation and blamed them for chaos. That broadcast choice evaporated the slender goodwill he might have drawn on when Gaetz filed the motion to vacate. In an era where televised clips ricochet across partisan media, one misframed message can lock the votes that unseat you.

Ouster by design, not accident

Gaetz didn’t invent a new weapon; McCarthy handed him the trigger. The restored motion to vacate let a small group translate grievance into a floor vote that, with united Democrats and eight Republicans, ended McCarthy’s tenure—an unprecedented act in modern times. Patrick McHenry, installed as Speaker pro tempore, chose a narrow caretaker role, underscoring the chamber’s freeze when no leader can command 218. The episode illustrates a mechanical truth: if you design a structure where one member can topple the edifice, eventually someone will.

Leadership Lesson

Short-term concessions that feel tactical can become strategic defeats when they alter rules, redistribute vetoes, or normalize brinkmanship.

A management parable in congressional form

If you run organizations, you recognize the pattern. Being liked is not the same as being empowered. Guardrails—clear rules, enforceable norms, and institutional legitimacy—are not bureaucratic fluff; they are the backbone of sustainable authority. McCarthy’s approach—personal deals, vibe management, overreliance on reading the room—worked in campaign mode but failed in governance mode. The book invites you to compare McCarthy to leaders who consolidate power through institutions (think Nancy Pelosi’s rule discipline or Sam Rayburn’s coalition-building). When you cede procedural weapons to short-term allies, you incentivize them to use those weapons again—often against you.

In the end, McCarthy’s rise and fall compresses the book’s thesis into one human arc: performance pays until the bill comes due; govern with lenders, and the lender sets terms; and once trust drains from the system, even a Speaker cannot rebuild it on charm. You’re left with a sober takeaway: never trade away the emergency brake to win the car.

To understand the 118th Congress, follow the insurgents who made a minority feel like a majority. Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, and Freedom Caucus allies wielded three kinds of power: procedural levers inside the House, amplification from an outside media–donor ecosystem, and the threat of base mobilization against colleagues. You watch a small cohort turn parliamentary friction into headline fuel, and headlines into leverage.

Procedures repurposed as weapons

The motion to vacate, once an obscure tool, became an ever-present sword. Rules Committee seats—granted as part of McCarthy’s concessions—let hard-liners block floor action or dictate terms. The insurgents also normalized voting down the “rule,” a shattering of institutional etiquette that previously protected majority control of the agenda. These tactics worked because they didn’t require numerical dominance; they required a disciplined bloc willing to accept chaos as a tactic (compare to parliamentary systems where coalition agreements bind factions more tightly).

The outside ecosystem: memos and megaphones

Russell Vought’s Center for Renewing America provided strategy memos that encouraged maximalist demands (particularly on spending fights). Steve Bannon’s War Room offered an operational media hub: craft outrageous amendments, secure five minutes on the floor, get the clip amplified, convert attention into donations. Fox News and Newsmax functioned as accelerants. Together, these outlets created a pay-for-conflict loop: louder tactics earned more airtime, airtime produced small-dollar fundraising, and money validated the disruptive brand.

Performance as coalition glue

Personality mattered. Gaetz excelled at sound bites and whip-counting; Greene specialized in viral provocation; Jordan built an identity as a “legislative terrorist” who could keep the fight alive. As Gaetz says, “The way that you’re able to elevate your profile in Washington is to drive conflict.” In your feed, that looks like daily content; inside the chamber, it looks like leverage, because leaders know that denying them airtime feeds the martyr narrative.

Turning private disputes public

When persuasion failed, insurgents moved the battle outside the conference room. They published phone numbers, framed colleagues as “RINOs,” and encouraged harassment. The Jim Jordan speakership push epitomized this: coordinated calls from Hannity’s audience and activists swamped offices—31,000 calls to Don Bacon, 20,000 voicemails to Ken Buck, even a landlord evicting Buck’s district office. The tactic sometimes worked to scare moderates—but often backfired by galvanizing resistance among members who refused to let threats dictate votes.

Operating Principle

Small, cohesive factions can dominate large, diffuse majorities if they combine rule fluency with media leverage and a willingness to use pain as pressure.

Why the toolkit endures

The insurgents’ methods are portable: any future faction can copy them. They scale in a media era where viral content is a currency and where internal constraints (committee hierarchies, respect for rules votes) no longer command deference. Unless leadership rebalances incentives—tightening rules, reframing media rewards, and building coalitions that can absorb defectors—you should expect the toolkit to remain the playbook. The book leaves you with a practical caution: don’t assume numbers equal power; assume incentives do.

Why did the House look like a show? Because attention is currency, and the media–money feedback loop pays more for spectacle than for legislating. You see it everywhere: C-SPAN’s cameras turned the 15-ballot speaker marathon into appointment television; Fox and Newsmax booked the most provocative members; podcasts and alt-platforms (Rumble, War Room) monetized every cliffhanger. For many members, the fastest path to donors and name ID ran through stunts, not statutes.

The content-to-cash pipeline

It works like this: create a clip (a fiery five-minute floor speech, a committee clash, a viral hallway ambush). Get it amplified by friendly hosts and influencers. Convert the spike into small-dollar donations and list growth. Repeat. Steve Bannon said the quiet part loud: craft “outrageous amendments,” get your time, and “we’ll amplify it.” In that economy, substantive markups matter less than viral moments. Members who master the formula can out-raise more senior colleagues and become indispensable to media ecosystems hungry for conflict.

How norms erode on-camera

As the payoff for provocation rises, guardrails buckle. Marjorie Taylor Greene displayed nude photos of Hunter Biden in a hearing—an escalation that prioritized virality over decorum. Voting down the rule—once unthinkable—became another way to make headlines and humiliate leadership. Committees morphed into stages for dunk contests: when Jasmine Crockett’s “bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body” retort to Greene went viral, it turned into immediate fundraising for Democrats (the Biden campaign even merchandised the moment). The incentive for quiet, coalition-minded policy work shrank because it couldn’t compete with clicks.

Celebrity without governance

George Santos embodies the extreme: a member with a paper-thin relationship to truth who used Congress as a platform for brand-building, spent campaign funds on cosmetic treatments, and treated committee assignments as optional. His expulsion was rare and justified, but the duration of his celebrity underscores the book’s point: attention itself can sustain a political career for a time, even as governance starves (note the parallel to other democracies where populist entertainers translate fame into office).

Systemic Insight

Institutions that don’t price attention correctly end up subsidizing chaos. If going viral is the best way to raise money, more members will go viral and fewer will govern.

Designing against dysfunction

What can you do about it? The book suggests indirect answers. Leaders can re-center substance by rewarding members who deliver negotiated outcomes (committee gavels, legislative wins), not just media hits. Reformers can tweak rules to make performative sabotage harder (e.g., tightening motions, restoring consequence to voting down the rule). Parties and donors can prioritize candidates who demonstrate craft over clout-chasing. Most of all, you should treat media incentives as a design variable: unless institutions actively counterweigh the outrage machine, spectacle remains the rational strategy.

If you want to predict Republican leadership outcomes, watch Donald Trump’s feed. The book shows how a single post or call can override internal majorities and collapse candidacies. In a party where the base’s enthusiasm is synchronized by Trump’s signals, the conference’s private preference often yields to a public veto from Mar-a-Lago.

Case studies in one-man arbitration

Tom Emmer’s speakership run is the cleanest example. Despite winning the conference nomination, he was branded a “Globalist RINO” on Truth Social. Within hours, his bid was dead—undone by a mix of prior votes (same-sex marriage recognition, flirtation with the National Popular Vote effort) and the power of that label to mobilize opposition. Steve Scalise’s earlier collapse also owed to a refusal by Jordan-aligned members to respect the conference vote, while they waited for outside signals. The pattern is consistent: internal consolidation is necessary but no longer sufficient without external blessing.

Endorsements as synchronization devices

Why does a single post work? Because it aligns ecosystems—media, donors, activists—instantaneously. An endorsement pings through Fox segments, talk radio, podcasts, and small-dollar platforms; a denunciation does the same. Members calculate survival not only by whip counts but also by the likelihood of a Trump-backed primary. Nancy Mace’s trajectory, buoyed by Trump’s support, underscores how valuable that shield can be. In a world where tens of thousands of calls can swamp an office in hours, avoiding Trump’s ire becomes a top-tier strategic objective.

Institutional consequences

This gatekeeping diminishes internal sovereignty. The point of a conference vote is to settle disputes privately and present a unified face. But when public posts can nullify those votes, internal bargaining loses authority. The result is a House majority that behaves like a coalition government subject to an external party boss. That fragile arrangement invites repeated brinkmanship, as factions test whether Trump will bless or bury a path forward.

Practical Takeaway

If you manage coalitions in the Trump era, factor the outside veto into every count. Either secure the signal early or build a strategy to survive without it.

Backlash and limits

The book also shows the limits of public pressure. Jim Jordan’s attempt to “smoke out” defectors—naming and shaming them via media—produced harassment that hardened opposition (Don Bacon, Ken Buck). The tactic rallied movement supporters but alienated colleagues needed to govern, proving that even a kingmaker’s shadow can’t substitute for institutional trust. In short: Trump’s signal is decisive in nominations and short-term fights, but it cannot manufacture durable majorities for governing in a chamber built on relationships and rules.

After McCarthy’s ouster, the House entered a vacuum that revealed how deeply norms had eroded. What used to be a straightforward transition—conference vote, quick floor ratification—became a rolling crisis with cascading candidates. You watched a party litigate its soul in real time, while the chamber’s business froze.

Scalise wins, then vanishes

Steve Scalise initially secured the conference nomination by secret ballot. In prior eras, that would have ended the contest. But hard-right holdouts refused to honor the result publicly. Without a path to 217 on the floor, Scalise withdrew within 36 hours. The episode codified a new norm: losing internally no longer means you lose. You can keep fighting in public, mobilize activists, and try to flip the result through intimidation and media pressure.

Jordan’s pressure cooker

Jim Jordan stepped forward and leaned on his signature tactic—external coercion. Aides circulated lists of defectors’ phone numbers; Hannity and other hosts turned up the heat; conservative influencers rallied the base. On the floor, Jordan kept calling votes even as defections grew: 22, then 25 Republicans opposed him. The pressure campaign produced measurable pain—31,000 calls to Don Bacon, 20,000 voicemails to Ken Buck, an eviction from Buck’s landlord—but failed to deliver the speakership. Instead, it cemented a backlash among members who rejected governance by harassment.

Emmer’s hour, then Trump’s no

Tom Emmer, the majority whip, briefly looked like the compromise path. But skepticism over prior votes (same-sex marriage recognition, flirtations with national popular vote ideas) made him vulnerable. Trump’s post calling him a “Globalist RINO” finished the job. Emmer withdrew the same day he won the nomination, proof that in this GOP, a Truth Social veto trumps a conference majority.

Exhaustion selects Mike Johnson

With the institution paralyzed—Patrick McHenry operating as a narrow Speaker pro tempore—members opted for a low-profile consensus: Mike Johnson. He had few enemies, strong conservative bona fides, and no high-profile baggage. His ascent, born more of fatigue than fervor, teaches a quiet lesson: in fractured parties, survivability can matter more than stature (compare to coalition governments abroad where compromise figures ascend after maximalists cancel each other out).

Institutional Cost

Weeks of leaderless drift delayed urgent business—Ukraine aid, appropriations—and signaled to allies and markets that the House could not self-organize under stress.

You finish this chapter of the story understanding two durable shifts: internal votes no longer settle leadership questions, and public coercion is now a normalized tool of intra-party warfare. Both changes make future transitions slower, meaner, and more damaging to the House’s capacity to act when time matters most.

Amid the chaos, the 2023 debt ceiling saga stands out as a case study in how technocratic craft can still avert disaster. The U.S. neared default—the “X-date”—and the book puts you inside the room with the players who mattered: Garret Graves and Patrick McHenry for McCarthy; Shalanda Young and Steve Ricchetti for the White House. The episode is a negotiation clinic and a political cautionary tale.

Two styles, one imperative

House conservatives, buoyed by Russell Vought’s maximalist memos, pushed for deep cuts and structural changes. The White House’s priority was singular: avoid default. Shalanda Young imposed discipline—“Serious people put shit on paper”—while McHenry contributed vote math and sequencing, and Graves built bridges. The House passed Limit, Save, Grow to define a bargaining floor, but the real work was a grind of spreadsheets, baselines, and credibility checks (a reminder that governing is often clerical excellence performed under duress).

The deal and the downdraft

The Fiscal Responsibility Act lifted the ceiling, imposed modest spending caps, and added work requirements that rankled Democrats. Markets exhaled—until Fitch issued a downgrade in August, citing political brinkmanship as much as fiscal math. For McCarthy, the win carried poison pills: to move the package, he relied on Democrats for key procedural votes, enraging his right flank and draining the reservoir he needed to survive future rebellions.

Negotiation lessons you can use

Three insights stand out. First, paper beats posturing. Young’s insistence on documented offers created shared facts and narrowed the bargaining space. Second, personnel is strategy: McHenry’s counting discipline and Graves’s rapport provided ballast against performative grandstanding (contrast with members like Chip Roy or Thomas Massie, whose skepticism complicated unity). Third, sequence matters: passing a House product early framed the deal, even if the final terms moderated.

Governance Paradox

Solving real problems can weaken political leaders when their coalition values purity over outcomes.

The debt ceiling chapter reassures and warns at once. Reassurance: skilled negotiators can still keep the country from the brink. Warning: in a spectacle-driven Congress, averting disaster may cost you your job. If you lead teams, take the operational counsel—document terms, assign roles by competence, manage sequence—and the political counsel—save capital for the backlash that follows a responsible deal.

Oversight is supposed to be the branch’s conscience; in this Congress, it often became content. Under Chairman James Comer, the Oversight Committee chased Biden-related storylines—bank records, whistleblowers, laptop material—feeding a media loop where leaks begot segments and segments begot subpoenas. The aim wasn’t always prosecution; it was audience capture and electoral framing.

When scrutiny slips into spectacle

The most jarring moment came when Marjorie Taylor Greene displayed explicit images of Hunter Biden during a hearing. The stunt hijacked the proceeding’s purpose and flouted norms about privacy and relevance. Instead of clarifying IRS whistleblower claims, the committee delivered a lurid clip calibrated for virality. It’s a telling choice: in a performance economy, shocking visuals outcompete spreadsheets and timelines.

Democrats adapt to the medium

Democratic members like Jamie Raskin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jasmine Crockett adjusted, meeting spectacle with counter-spectacle. Raskin reframed hearings with rapid-fire fact sheets. AOC used social media-native questioning to generate shareable clips. Crockett staged symbolic rebuttals—like a jail-house tour to counter Greene’s January 6 narrative—and delivered viral one-liners that the Biden campaign promptly monetized. Both sides learned: if the hearing room is a studio, you produce for the audience you need.

Impeachment as messaging

The Mayorkas impeachment distilled the logic. After an initial failed vote (foiled in part by Rep. Al Green arriving from the hospital), Republicans pushed it through on a thin margin, only for the Senate to dismiss it. The process consumed months of bandwidth but yielded no structural remedy at DHS; it did, however, feed narratives useful for campaigns. That trade—airtime over outcome—recurs throughout the book.

Ethical Line

Accountability demands discipline—respect for privacy, evidentiary standards, and institutional decorum. Without it, oversight curdles into revenge theater that weakens public trust.

If you care about functioning checks and balances, the book’s counsel is clear: rebuild committee norms that prioritize facts over frames; enforce rules against gratuitous spectacle; and recognize that the public’s appetite for drama can’t be the metric of success. Otherwise, you’ll get more hearings that trend on social media and fewer that fix problems the public can feel.

Chaos isn’t free. The book tallies the policy delays and personal toll that followed the House’s turn toward spectacle. If you think the show is mostly noise, the consequences say otherwise: allies wait, agencies drift, and the people doing the work burn out.

Ukraine aid in limbo

Intra-party fights repeatedly stalled supplemental aid to Ukraine. Hard-right skeptics, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, threatened the Speaker for even considering a bipartisan package. Analysts like Anne Applebaum warned that delays had battlefield effects—air defense gaps, ammunition shortages, lost ground. The House’s calendar—once a procedural abstraction—became a matter of life and territory for an ally at war.

Border bargaining that died on cue

A bipartisan Senate deal (Sinema, Murphy, Lankford, with Mitch McConnell’s involvement) paired border reforms with Ukraine funding. It included an emergency shutoff if crossings exceeded a threshold—a policy conservatives had long demanded. MAGA-aligned media framed it as amnesty-lite and tanked GOP support. Months of work vanished, and the linkage that might have unlocked Ukraine aid unraveled. This is what external veto power looks like in policy, not just personnel.

Governing on borrowed votes

With a brittle majority, the House often leaned on Democrats to pass rules or keep the government open. That reliance undermined Republican credibility with its own base and emboldened the very insurgents who argued leadership was too conciliatory. It’s the vicious circle the book returns to: the more you must rely on the other party, the more your purists are empowered to rebel.

Threats, burnout, exits

The human ledger is sobering. Don Bacon’s office fielded 31,000 menacing calls; his wife slept with a loaded gun. Ken Buck’s office endured 20,000 voicemails and a landlord eviction. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spent heavily on security amid repeated threats. Staffers absorbed abuse; families bore the anxiety of swattings and harassment. Then came the exits: Ken Buck, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Greg Pence, Mike Gallagher, Patrick McHenry, and others announced retirements—some citing dysfunction and family, others seizing private-sector opportunities. Each departure drained institutional memory, moving expertise (cyber, defense, financial services) out of Congress.

Structural Warning

When threats rise and rewards skew to spectacle, competent lawmakers leave. What remains is a chamber less able to do hard things, ensuring more spectacle.

The book closes your loop: narrow margins and media incentives birthed a Congress that traded policy for performance; that trade delayed national-security aid, wasted months on performative impeachments, and burned out people you need to govern. If you want better outcomes, change the incentives—tighten rules, protect members and staff, prize craft, and make attention a byproduct of results, not their substitute.