McCarthy ousted as speaker as respect for institutions utterly crumbles

Eight Republican voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from his position as speaker, while 210 GOP members backed the former speaker.

Howard Kurtz is the host of FOX News Channel's MediaBuzz (Sundays 11 a.m.-12 p.m. ET). Based in Washington, D.C., he joined the network in July 2013 and regularly appears on Special Report with Bret Baier and other programs.

But while McCarthy, who averted a government shutdown, was the first speaker in American history to suffer this fate, what happened Tuesday goes way beyond the increasingly bitter politics of his caucus. It is a collapse of faith in institutions, which goes far beyond the halls of Congress, on the part of the power brokers and a major portion of the public.

The point of running for Congress, in what seems like eons ago, was to accomplish something, whether conservative or liberal, and that required compromise, which is now treated as a dirty word. And lawmakers with policy goals patiently rose through the ranks to become leaders. As messy as the process was, there was an end product. And party leadership enforced discipline against anyone going too rogue, with the ultimate sanction of cutting off the money spigot during the next primary.