(CNN)To assume lies would sink House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is to misunderstand the nature of today's Republican Party: They actually demonstrate his credentials to lead it.
That's not merely because Donald Trump remains the dominant GOP figure. The former President lies incessantly, and his aberrant behavior compels fellow Republicans to lie about him.
The problem runs deeper than one man. For a minority party joining blue-collar voters driven by cultural resentment with affluent donors fixed on the bottom line, gaining and wielding power requires dissembling beyond the conventional equivocation that politicians in all parties have always used to amass popular support.

One of the GOP's most successful political consultants of recent decades issued that judgment in a confessional 2020 memoir. Stuart Stevens titled his book: "It Was All a Lie."