Opinion | GOP ‘Young Guns’ Are Out of Ammo. Time for New House Leadership – By William Wolfe (Newsweek) / Dec 30, 2022
It wasn’t exactly the “shot heard ’round the world.” But when Dave Brat defeated Eric Cantor, the then-House majority leader and second-highest-ranking House Republican, in a shocking upset primary win on June 10, 2014, it was unmistakably the opening salvo in another war. This war was not a fight for a new nation but for new leadership—the leadership of the House Republicans in the post-Tea Party era.
It’s been over eight years now since Brat took down Cantor. In that time, the Trump administration has come, gone, and could come back. But the war is still raging. The Tea Party Republicans, many of whom now refer to themselves as America First Republicans, have won some battles. One by one, they’ve picked off the “Young Guns”—the self-appointed trio of Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy who published a book calling themselves a “new generation of conservative leaders.”
Except they weren’t that. After the 2010 red wave, it quickly became apparent to millions of disappointed Republicans that these men were neither conservatives nor leaders. The trio rallied behind Ohio moderate John Boehner for House speaker, pledged their allegiance, and dutifully fell in line for their cushy regime appointments.
From then on, Boehner, McCarthy, Cantor, and Ryan moved not from strength to strength but from compromise to compromise, selling out the base at just about every turn. Over and over, they cut deals with President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to keep the gravy trains running. They folded on immigration, debt ceilings, sequestration—you name it.
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