On Tuesday evening, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) made good on his threat to oust Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The vote was 216-210, with eight Republicans (including Gaetz) joining Democrats to remove McCarthy. According to Gaetz, McCarthy was guilty of many sins, chief among them his willingness to work with Democrats.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I have no sympathy for Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy’s principles are penumbral on their brightest day. His sole ambition in life, it seems, was to attain the Speaker’s office, regardless of the consequences to his soul. To see him shunted aside feels just in a cosmic sense. McCarthy had to placate the clown car caucus to become Speaker. We should not be shocked he fell to a pie in the face delivered by a member wearing the biggest shoes and sporting the reddest nose.

That aside, I do understand some of the frustrations expressed. Spending is out of control. Leadership has exercised too much influence over the legislative process, which strips members of their purpose. At the same time, party leaders are too weak to coerce members through committee assignments, access to fundraising, or pork barrel spending. For many members of Congress, divorced from significant impact on the law, the job is about performance, podcasting, and the promotion of their own ambitions, which are untethered from policy achievements.

There is also very little competition in far too many legislative districts. The only real threat faced by too many members is in a heated primary. There is no need or desire to appeal to moderates or even to every segment of your own party. If members can keep the activist base, stoked on siloed information, happy, they can assure themselves re-election. They do this, in part, through unreasonable promises, which create unfulfillable expectations to curb spending, fix the border, or dictate foreign policy, all from the slimmest of majorities in one house of Congress. Therefore, to be seen as “fighting” for impossible demands is good enough, even if it is far removed from actually governing.

We have a real knot of a political problem. We are punished by one party rule in many local areas, which breeds a certain kind of authoritarian corruption. But we also have evenly divided parties at the aggregate level, with neither party in a position to impose a meaningful government agenda for any period of time. This is not a recipe for getting stuff done. Welcome to current American politics.