It was late in 2011, the year after an excruciatingly selective red wave flipped 63 seats to Republicans in the House of Representatives, but left Democrats in charge of the Senate. (Thanks, Christine “Not a Witch” O’Donnell and bumbling Sharron Angle.) And, of course, Barack Obama presided in the White House.

If you’re keeping score at home, that left the GOP in charge of one-half of one-third of the federal government. Sound familiar?

This did not stop swaggering Tea Party rank-and-file from flipping their tricorn hats over the failure of Republicans to deliver on campaign promises, projections, and plans. A year after the election, their frustration and rancor roiled town hall meetings with GOP members of Congress. Where was the Obamacare repeal? Where were the spending cuts? Where was the rollback of any of the Obama agenda?

They didn’t want to hear about the limitations (anticipated by the very founders Tea Partiers thought they adored) of divided government then. “But you promised!”

A dozen years later, they’re still at it. Accordingly, Tea Party 2.0 voters — wittingly or (most likely) otherwise — conspired, as a result of the red-trickle midterms of 2022, to double-dog-dare-ya down on the worst lessons of 2011, to give the whip hand to a tiny Thelma-and-Louise minority of a meager majority. 

You know the backstory. You also know Gaetz claimed ousting McCarthy wasn’t personal, Gaetz says. You can believe that if you want to. 

Now there’s all sorts of talk about the 95% of Republicans who voted to retain McCarthy should take up an ouster of their own, booting Gaetz from the GOP caucus. There are those ethics allegations against him, after all, and an ongoing investigation led by House Republicans.

But when you’re on the kind of headline-stealing antiestablishment roll Gaetz has been lately, you kind of get the feeling he’d welcome the attention.

What’s this all about, then? Time magazine’s Philip Elliott has a thought, finding Gaetz on the east steps of the Capitol Tuesday afternoon.

The sun started to sink behind the Capitol as reporters crowded around this evangelist for chaos, hungry for his insight on the carnage he had caused. Gaetz took his time, giving seemingly every reporter a chance to ask a question and hear Gaetz explain Gaetz’s brilliance. Never mind that 210 Republicans—94% of the chamber’s GOP caucus—wanted to stay the course with McCarthy wielding the gavel. And it was exactly as Gaetz had hoped: every shred of coverage from the Capitol put the Florida Republican at the center of the story, exactly where he thought he should be.

Back home in Florida’s Panhandle — which, except for its enduring affection for the University of Florida Gators, is content to be regarded as L.A. (Lower Alabama) — post-coup media canvassing found scant wavering for their District 1 congressman. Voter-on-the-street interview by local TV news registered virtually zero dismay.

Meanwhile, the New York Times discovered Gaetz to be “polarizing” within his “ruby red” district.

There’s this: 

“If we got rid of the speaker of the House, hopefully we get someone in there who doesn’t make backdoor deals with Democrats,” said Sandra Atkinson, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of Okaloosa County, adding that Republicans were proud of him for following through on his word.

And this:

John Roberts, chairman of the Escambia County Republican Party, said that Republicans, even those typically sympathetic to Mr. Gaetz’s views on other policies like immigration and the national debt, generally supported keeping Mr. McCarthy as speaker.

 “It’s not like we’re mad at Matt Gaetz; he’s still a good congressman,” he said. “But I think this was probably the wrong move.”

But also this:

Tim Hudson, 26, a lifelong Pensacola resident, has voted for Mr. Gaetz. Upon learning on Tuesday about the congressman’s successful ouster of Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Hudson offered only more praise.

“That just makes me support him even more,” Mr. Hudson said.

He added that the ouster of Mr. McCarthy “speaks to how the world really is right now. We’re tired. We’re fed up. We want to see people start getting things done.”

What Gaetz has gotten done, exactly, besides raise his profile, is difficult to pinpoint. Was this the action of a principled statesman, or simply another look-at-me gambit from a four-term congressman who, before Tuesday, had never gotten a significant piece of legislation or even a resolution past House membership.

Granted, sometimes a revolution begins with getting bloody in a high-profile skirmish or two. And there’s nothing wrong in pointing out that, lately, when Republicans have had authority over Congress and the White House, they’ve made a right nonconservative hash of things. We’d like to believe, as our colleague, David Strom, does, that Gaetz’s heart is in the right place.

But if this, as has been proposed, is part of Gaetz’s plan to be a major force in Florida’s 2026 gubernatorial race, color us dubious. 

“You’d have to ask Rep. Gaetz about his ultimate intentions, but certainly this is something that the grassroots of the party, in particular, in places like Florida are paying attention to,” said Matt Terrill, a Republican strategist and former Florida GOP consultant. “Whether it’s in a congressional district or statewide, I think those Republican base voters agree with a lot of what Rep. Gaetz is saying right now.”

Maybe. Gaetz would not be the first Florida congressman to leap from firebrand quote-machine backbencher over the GOP establishment to the governor’s mansion … and perhaps beyond.