McCarthy Says ‘We’re In a Very Bad Place Right Now’ Thanks to ‘Crazy Members Led By Gaetz’

Thank you for granting me the opportunity to be pedantic. You are incorrect.

The entire party is literally rotten, the attempts to exclude oneself from it are laughable.

I would strongly argue that the comma in the above sentence should be a semicolon; I will treat it as one.

The subject is "party," a noun. "The entire" describes the subject. The verb is "is," and the predicate is "literally rotten." The predicate here is a descriptor of the subject.

In the second part, we need to determine what "it" refers to. "It" is a pronoun. Pronouns are shorthand for nouns. There are two nouns in the entire comment: "party" and "oneself." Context tells us that "it" cannot be a reference to "oneself," because it is absurd to "attempt to exclude oneself from oneself," and even if that was the meaning, it would be a complete non-sequitur from the first part of the comment.

That leaves one other noun for "it" to refer to: "party."

Furthermore, "it" cannot be referring to "rotten," because "rotten" is an adjective. "Rottenness" is a noun, but that's not the word here. If @iforgotmyinstance had intended to refer to the "rotten[ness]," they would have said something like: "The rottenness of the party is overwhelming; the attempts to exclude oneself from it are laughable."

Now let me get into your comment.

You are misquoting the comment above yours. The title of this post is an example of a member trying to exclude himself from the rottenness of the party.

In the first sentence, you refer to the "comment above [mine]." As explained above, I am not "misquoting" or misunderstanding it.

In the second sentence, you refer to "the title of this post," in a way that suggests that the post title and @iforgotmyinstance's comment are necessarily referring to the same specific subject: ("party" or "rotten[ness]"). They are not, and are not obliged to. They do refer to the same general subject: the rottenness of the Republican party. It is reasonable to refer to the "party" in a comment about it's "rotten[ness]."

The post title reads:

McCarthy Says ‘We’re In a Very Bad Place Right Now’ Thanks to ‘Crazy Members Led By Gaetz’

The title (of the post and the article) is quoting Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was briefly Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. One interpretation of that quote is that McCarthy is "trying to exclude himself from the rottenness of the party." I would argue that the simple statement is an extremely weak attempt, but I would otherwise agree.