The chaos that plagued the United States Congress last week as now speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy desperately clung onto power, has me pondering a phenomenon that I find endlessly fascinating: the confidence of mediocre white men.
As Republicans descended into scenes taken straight out of British Parliament, McCarthy sat smirking through FOURTEEN failed votes and four days of public humiliation to win the speaker’s gavel. Even though he ultimately got what he wanted, it came at a high cost that leaves extremists in the Republican party with the real power, making McCarthy one of the weakest speakers in history.
Despite not having anywhere near the political clout possessed by his Democratic predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, I can’t stop thinking about how McCarthy just would not give up. It’s important though to remember that his determination had nothing to do with his love of country and everything to do with his ego. He wanted to be speaker at any cost and he felt entitled to it.
“Things don’t come easy to me,” McCarthy, 57, once said in an interview. “I have to work harder at everything.”
But how hard has McCarthy really worked? I mean, this is the guy who sponsored zero significant legislation as he was rising through the House, and even as political theater raged around him last week, he just sat and smiled through failed vote after failed vote. How can loser men like Kevin McCarthy face such public humiliation and still be rewarded? How did he expose his mediocrity and still see it pay off?
Because there are few things that are better than being a white guy in America. Most of them are mediocre at just about everything but they still end up in positions of power and status, always failing up.
Kevin McCarthy reminds me of Jared Kushner, another example of what I call “unbearable whiteness.” Kushner was the guy who, in addition to being a potential risk to national security, recklessly called the Trump Administration’s coronavirus response a “great success story” in May of 2020. He faced zero consequence for his statements during the early months of the pandemic even as the country plunged into the depths of COVID.
But what really angers me about the confidence of mediocre white men is how so many women grapple with self-assurance. Incredible women constantly underestimate themselves. In fact, “Imposter syndrome,” or doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud at work, is an actual diagnosis often given to women. The concept was developed in the 1970s and took a “fairly universal feeling of discomfort, second-guessing, and mild anxiety in the workplace and pathologized it,” especially for women.
While authors Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey point out in the Harvard Business Review that the structure of the study was itself flawed for not taking into account the effects of systemic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases, the fact remains that too many women, especially of color, still sell themselves short while too many basic white guys overplay their hand and get hugely rewarded. It’s systemic and sickening.
However, there is something we can learn from men like Kevin McCarthy and Jared Kushner and that’s how to make delusional-level confidence work for you. The next time you get a seat at the table or find yourself in the room where the power is, don’t question if you belong there. Hold your head up and proceed with the boldness of mediocre white men—just like Kevin and Jared (and Tucker) would.
Why Are Mediocre White Men So Confident?
Wow, you hit the nail on the head!!! Thanks for this