If McCarthy tries to consolidate power by appeasing the far right, he will piss off moderates.

The battle puts McCarthy in a particularly difficult position. Any concession to the far-right risks alienating more moderate Republicans, some of whom are already very publicly frustrated with the mutiny in their ranks.

“This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves […] and can’t do anything about it,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) told the Washington Post. “This is insane. This is not the way a governing majority is expected to behave, and, frankly, I think there’ll be a political cost to it.”

McCarthy’s relationship with the House Freedom Caucus has always been tense

McCarthy’s mandate to lead has never been strong; you might remember January’s dramatic 15 rounds of voting for the speakership, caused in part by opposition from his party’s ultraconservative caucus.

McCarthy had, through developing a relationship with far-right Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, sought to court that extreme wing of his party in order to avoid the pitfalls of the previous Republican speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan. But his relationship alone with Taylor Greene, the former QAnon follower elected to Congress in 2020, could not win his GOP opponents — McCarthy had to agree to several measures, including restoring a rule that allows any single member of the House to trigger a recall vote on the speaker.

Not every part of the agreement between McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus holdouts has been made public, but as Vox’s Prokop wrote in January, those agreements fall into three major categories: government spending, including on appropriations and the debt ceiling; the snap-election rule change; and committee assignments for Freedom Caucus holdouts, including on the influential Rules Committee.

Any legislation to adjust the debt ceiling was going to be deeply contentious. The GOP has long used the nation’s debt, and efforts to raise the debt limit, as a cudgel to attempt to pass aggressive spending cuts for social programs. During President Obama’s first term, House Republicans tried to enact dollar-for-dollar spending cuts for debt ceiling increases; that failed, but the administration eventually agreed to deep spending cuts in exchange for three debt limit increases.

Roy had worked alongside Republican leadership to draft far more extreme debt ceiling legislation than what ultimately passed last month. Roy called the final deal a “betrayal” of conservatives and the agreement the Freedom Caucus members made with McCarthy to advance his speakership.

As Vox’s Li Zhou wrote before the debt limit vote, any compromise with Democrats and perceived betrayal of Roy and the Freedom Caucus agreements over the debt ceiling deal were likely to spell trouble for McCarthy:

Looming over the vote is also an unspoken threat against McCarthy’s leadership, which, according to House rules, can be challenged if just one member wants to do so. A majority of the House, however, would have to vote to remove him as Speaker, and it’s unclear whether there are enough votes from either party to achieve that.

This week’s obstruction by Roy and his compatriots falls conspicuously short of calling for McCarthy to vacate the chair but reminds McCarthy of the sway they hold not just over his leadership, but the work of Congress, too.

McCarthy risks alienating moderate Republicans, too

McCarthy has outwardly expressed confidence that the different factions of his party will come to an agreement and get the Republican agenda back on track. “We’ve been through this before; you know we’re in a small majority,” McCarthy said Wednesday. “I don’t take this job because it’s easy. We’ll work through this, and we’ll even be stronger.”

For now, it seems as though McCarthy’s power is even further blunted by the far-right contingent in his own party — and it’s not clear how he’ll bring them into the fold without alienating more moderate factions of his own party, much less the Democrats he’ll need to pass future legislation.

Indeed, some more moderate Republicans are already frustrated with the party’s move to the right, as Politico reported Wednesday. A plan to put forward a bill codifying restrictions on federal spending on abortion — commonly called the Hyde Amendment — reportedly angered South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, who has argued that the party needs to move toward the center on some issues to avoid alienating voters.