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At 4:45 p.m., the gavel fell on Kevin McCarthy’s speakership.

“The Office of Speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant,” the presiding officer, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), announced after the 216-210 vote to oust McCarthy.

From the front row of the gallery, I heard gasps from the floor. And then, from the Republican side of the chamber, a lone woman’s voice: “Now what?”

McCarthy, whose only evident ideology as speaker had been personal ambition, has secured his place in history: the only speaker in U.S. history to be voted out by his peers. His chaotic nine months in the job was the shortest tenure since that of Michael C. Kerr in 1876, as the Bulwark’s Tim Miller pointed out. But Kerr’s speakership ended because he died of tuberculosis. McCarthy, by contrast, was knifed by his fellow Republicans.

This is why Tuesday’s events are much larger than McCarthy, for they made it clear, if there had been any doubt, that the Republican Party has lost the ability to govern.

McCarthy’s term began in chaos, with his 15 rounds of balloting. It lurched from crisis to manufactured crisis, with a needless debt ceiling showdown, failed votes and pulled bills on the floor, recriminations and name-calling in Republican caucus meetings, the launch of impeachment proceedings on fabricated charges, and last week’s near-shutdown of the government. Now, it is ending in chaos, with Republicans openly savaging each other on the House floor and all legislative functions ceasing while the majority party tries to pick its next leader.

Under continuity of government procedures — designed for terrorist decapitation of the government rather than partisan zealots offing their own speaker — a predesignated speaker pro tempore took temporary control of the house. That man, revealed to be Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), did the only thing he could. “It would be prudent to first recess,” he told the body, so that leaderless lawmakers could “meet and discuss the path forward.” The House won’t return for an entire week.

Good luck with that. It doesn’t really matter who Republicans choose to replace McCarthy, who announced late Tuesday that he won’t run again. Nobody will succeed in that role because the party itself is ungovernable.

McCarthy’s final day as speaker proceeded like the others before it — in a leadership vacuum.

It was clear that there were more than enough hard-liners supporting Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) motion to vacate that McCarthy would need some Democratic votes to keep the speakership. But he offered Democrats nothing for those votes. This sealed McCarthy’s fate. Democrats unified against McCarthy at their own caucus meeting, after which the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), made it official by saying it was up to Republicans alone “to end the House Republican Civil War.”

On the House floor, the Republican combatants seemed ill-equipped to defuse the latest crisis they had created. Indicted Rep. George Santos (N.Y.) lifted up his sweater to reveal to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) his SpongeBob SquarePants tie. Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) played with her infant grandson.

“We need a speaker who will fight for something — anything — besides just staying or becoming speaker,” said Rep. Bob Good (Va.), one of the rebels.

McCarthy snickered and whispered with the member seated to his right, Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.).

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the genial chairman of the Rules and Administration committee, pleaded with those who are “willing to plunge this body into chaos and this country into uncertainty.”

Retorted Gaetz: “Chaos is Speaker McCarthy! Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word.”

McCarthy drummed the armrest while Gaetz spoke, put on reading glasses and perused his phone, then resumed whispering and chuckling with Ciscomani.

Republicans laughed, booed and heckled Gaetz as he spoke. Rep. Mike Garcia (Calif.) called the rebels “Republicans running with scissors and supported by Democrats.”

Rep. Tom McClintock (Calif.), warning of a “paralyzed” House, said, “Democrats will revel in Republican dysfunction and the public will rightly be repulsed.” Foreseeing “grave danger” to the country, he prayed: “Dear God, grant us the wisdom to see it.”

Gaetz (only Good and Rep. Andy Biggs joined his side in the debate) parried his GOP colleagues with one-liners. When Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) improbably claimed that “this Republican majority has exceeded all expectations,” Gaetz quipped: “If this House of Representatives has exceeded all expectations, then we definitely need higher expectations.”

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) spoke bitterly of Gaetz, using his motion to vacate to raise campaign cash. “It’s disgusting,” he said, and cries of “shame!” came from the Republican side. “We need to stand behind the greatest speaker in modern history!” Graves proposed, producing guffaws from the Democrats.

Replied Gaetz: “I take no lecture on asking patriotic Americans to weigh in and contribute to this fight from those who would grovel and bend knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership.” As his fellow Republicans jeered, he added: “Boo all you want!”

“You’re no martyr!” a Republican heckled.

No, he’s not. Gaetz, with his arched eyebrows and slicked back hair, looks the part of a cartoon villain. He’s more of a street thug than a legislator, and in his seven years in Congress, he has done nothing but tear things down.

But this street thug made quick work of McCarthy. As the clerk called the roll, the doomed speaker, sitting in the same seat he occupied during January’s 15 ballots, could be seen sitting silently, staring straight ahead.

It’s just a matter of time until Gaetz — and the many others like him — render McCarthy’s successor a failure, too. This is all they know how to do.

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