When all is said and done, Kevin McCarthy will be as famous as Neville Chamberlain.

Of course, that's not a good thing.

From the National Archives of the UK -

Chamberlain and Hitler 1938

After the First World War, the map of Europe was re-drawn and several new countries were formed. As a result of this, three million Germans found themselves now living in part of Czechoslovakia. When Adolf Hitler came to power, he wanted to unite all Germans into one nation.

In September 1938 he turned his attention to the three million Germans living in part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. Sudeten Germans began protests and provoked violence from the Czech police. Hitler claimed that 300 Sudeten Germans had been killed. This was not actually the case, but Hitler used it as an excuse to place German troops along the Czech border.

During this situation, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew to meet Hitler at his private mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden in an attempt to resolve the crisis. Use this lesson to explore documents concerning Chamberlain’s original meeting with Hitler and advice given to him at home in Britain.

Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative, is doing his best Chamberlain imitation (don't misunderstand me - the most extreme members of the House's R caucus are NOT Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, but neither are they honorable public servants or even simply decent human beings).

From Truthout (but many other outlets have stories on the same topic), from 9/27 -

A Small Cadre of GOP Hard-Liners Is Pushing US 

Toward Government Shutdown

If the shutdown occurs, it will be because Speaker McCarthy let the far right 

dictate critical legislative decisions.

The U.S. government is set to run out of money later this week, not because the U.S. has suddenly gotten poor, but because hard-liners within the GOP are looking for major policy concessions from the White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate simply to keep government operations afloat. Without those concessions, many Republicans have made it clear they will refuse to cast their votes for the 12 appropriations bills that keep the system ticking along.

This is the latest installment of what has become an entirely dysfunctional congressional ritual — using vital legislative deadlines as bargaining chips in a high-stakes effort to impose a far right agenda on the body politic. If the borrowing limit needs to be raised, a significant number of Republicans simply refuse to vote for the increase. If government needs to be funded through appropriations bills, as is the case this week, these same hard-liners see it as an opportunity to leverage their votes in exchange for massive cuts to federal spending and the adoption of a raft of other policy demands.

Guess that McCarthy would rather be called "Mr. Speaker" than "Mr. Public Servant."

I've already predicted that McCarthy will be a one-termer as Speaker; his performance regarding the potential shutdown of the federal government doesn't change that prediction.