After a brief but predictable mainstream media freakout about the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republicans are now getting down to the business of naming their next speaker.

This isn’t to say that the media are finished freaking out yet. Indeed, get a load of this headline from The Amazon Washington Post: “Vote to oust McCarthy is a warning sign for democracy, scholars say.” The subhead, a quote from one of those esteemed “scholars,” was even more foreboding: “If you want to know what it looks like when democracy is in trouble, this is what it looks like.”

First, what would we do without “scholars”? Second, how rich is this faux concern, coming as it does from the very same Democracy Dies In Darknessers whose preferred political party voted unanimously to oust McCarthy? And third, what would be so awful about our too-big, too-profligate government grinding to a halt for a week or so? Would it kill us if instead of doing something, they all just stood there for a spell?

Matt Gaetz is the most hated man in Washington today, and he certainly bears responsibility for it. Stir up a Beltway hornet’s nest and that’s what you get. Even conservative stalwarts like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin are incensed.

In a lengthy X woodshedding, necessarily excerpted, Levin wrote: “Let’s cut to the chase. Gaetz is a POS demagogue who repeatedly lied during the House floor debate yesterday, and then, of course, simultaneously was fundraising and collecting email lists on behalf of the people. … Gaetz said he’s sick and tired of deficit spending and pointed to the $33 trillion debt. I know of few conservatives who disagree. But what has he done about it? … The worst, to me, is Gaetz working with the Marxists in the Democrat Party, who are literally destroying our country politically, culturally, and every other way, then denying it, while accusing the former speaker of being the Democrats’ speaker, trashing Jim Jordan and Jamie Comer’s investigations, accusing Chip Roy of being a RINO, and not uttering one word against Hakeem Jeffries, AOC, or the rest of the reprobates.”

Still, once Levin and all the other huffers and puffers take a deep breath and get over the ugly way this went down, they’ll come to realize that, at least politically, there’s barely any breathing room between themselves and Gaetz, whose lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 91 speaks for itself. It’s not Jim Jordan’s 100, but still. What Gaetz and the other seven have done is rip off a Band-Aid. As one of them, Ken Buck, said shortly thereafter, “There were dozens more who would have voted for [McCarthy’s ouster] but didn’t need to. They didn’t need to stick their necks out. They didn’t need to make everybody in this town mad.”

Gaetz took the heat, which he surely knew was coming. But if the end result is a more effective, more conservative speaker, then his many critics of the Right will owe him a grudging measure of gratitude.

Moving on, and as we noted about the vacant speakership yesterday:

There are at least four candidates who’ve already emerged within the Republican caucus: Majority Leader Steve Scalise; House Majority Whip Tom Emmer; Republican Study Committee leader Kevin Hern; and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who announced his bid this morning. Scalise, from Louisiana, has a lifetime ACU rating of 91 and is considered a natural frontrunner. His health is a consideration, though, as he was diagnosed earlier this year with multiple myeloma and has thus been undergoing aggressive chemotherapy. Emmer, whose lifetime ACU rating is a middling 80, comes from a contested district in Minnesota and would thus bring that reach-across-the-aisle perspective to the job. Hern, from Oklahoma, has a lifetime ACU rating of 98, leads the largest caucus within the Republican House, and is seen as having a good working relationship with both moderates and conservatives. And Jordan, the Freedom Caucus leader whose lifetime ACU rating is 100, would bring unmatched energy, toughness, and tenacity to the role.

Of these, Emmer is a non-starter. Too moderate. Kern is fascinating but unknown, and might ultimately be a sort of consensus pick between the more establishment Scalise and the more sharp-elbowed Jordan. Scalise is a good man, but his health must be a consideration. Which leaves Jordan, one of the founding members of the Freedom Caucus to which Gaetz belongs.

Asked about the “tyranny of the one,” the rule to vacate that cost Kevin McCarthy his speakership, Jordan told Fox News, “It is what it is.” Translation: Jordan thinks he can do the necessary blocking and tackling and relationship-building to keep such a rule from toppling him as speaker. He also says he made more phone calls yesterday than any other day in his life. Asked about whether he’s evolved over the years, he says he was fighting for the same things 10 or 12 years ago that he’s fighting for today. Which is good and right because folks who’ve been in and around the Swamp too long tend to develop a permanent case of Beltway Fever.

Asked about the battle ahead for Republicans, Jordan invoked Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s memorable quote from her State of the Union rebuttal: “The choice,” she said, “is between normal or crazy.”

A self-described free thinker and despiser of totalitarianism by the name of Cynical Publius had an insightful take on this whole speakership kerfuffle:

Let me explain why the ouster of Speaker McCarthy is a good thing. When Democrats are in power, they ruthlessly and aggressively pursue the agenda their voters elected them on, with a united front. When Republicans are in power, they immediately abandon the campaign promises they made, disregard the desires of their voters, and prioritize “comity” and “bipartisanship” while seeking to never anger the mainstream press that despises them anyway. As a result, when Democrats are in power we drive at warp speed into a totalitarian nightmare, whereas when Republicans are in power we drive at a slightly slower speed into a totalitarian nightmare.

This is good stuff. And It’s also an admonition: This time, let’s not opt for a go-along, get-along, fiscally conciliatory speakership. That’s the sort of thing that gets a nation $33 trillion in debt and puts its once-almighty dollar on the road to Palookaville.

Instead, this time, let’s elect a speaker who’s the Republican version of Nancy Pelosi — a committed conservative and fiscal adult who’s willing to break a few kneecaps eggs in order to make some five-egg constitutional omelets.