Opinion: Kevin McCarthy and humiliation politics

If your name is Kevin McCarthy, your 2023 began with utter humiliation. McCarthy endured a brutal 15 rounds of votes to attain the title of speaker of the House — the longest battle for the speakership since 1859. This was the product of a small faction of extremist Republican House members of the Freedom Caucus who firmly proclaimed “never Kevin,” rather than support a member of their own party. Yet, McCarthy was never deterred and continued to negotiate with these members until a path to speaker of the House was cleared. Humiliation served as a particularly interesting motivator throughout this grueling process. McCarthy was willing to suffer a certain amount of public humiliation for the victory and honor of winning the speakership. How might negative emotions and experiences, such as humiliation, influence our politics?

A 25-year-long study analyzing the effects of persistent humiliation amidst political violence concluded that exposure to such humiliation had a definite negative effect on human functioning. Associated emotions like injustice, outrage, and powerlessness are detrimental to personal identity, and these emotions can manifest more intensely than general anger or sadness. The study also found that humiliation of a collective can have the potential to create more social cohesion, but, unsurprisingly, humiliation deriving from the ingroup towards one of its own members has the potential to further divide that group. At a time of intense partisanship in America, it is essential to understand how we reject and ostracize individuals or groups in order for bipartisanship to prevail.

A different study focusing on ingroup rejection by Tinka Veldhuis and her colleagues narrows in on subsequent behaviors of the rejected. Particularly, feelings of inferiority or the feeling of being controlled by a third party are prevalent and force the person rejected to be acted upon. In McCarthy’s case, he eventually won the speakership only after conceding integral powers to the group of extremists holding him back, illustrating the claims of the study in real life by presenting as powerless and at the will of others. Among these concessions, McCarthy agreed to place members of the Freedom Caucus on important House committees and agreed to empower members of the House to call for a vote to oust him as speaker at any given time. These concessions further diluted McCarthy’s power as speaker, and instead returned that power to those responsible for his humiliation.

In total, enduring humiliation can be consequential to all involved, both the rejected and the rejectors. Although there are, at times, residual positive responses to this humiliation, the example of McCarthy’s humiliation spells a turbulent forecast for his future and the future of his party. Today, when working and reaching across the aisle is necessary for progress, McCarthy’s concessions only serve to prove the extremists in the House have a strategy that works to give them the political power they desire. Who can say how much further humiliation McCarthy will endure to remain speaker of the House, even if that role is only a title, given the power he was forced to fork over? When our leaders seek titles for the sake of the title, we should question their motivations and discourage ingroup humiliation as a means of manipulation.

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