Back in 2018, of course, the political media fixation du jour was The Squad, the group of young Democratic freshmen whose arrival supposedly heralded an age of pinko-progressive, social-media-fueled insurgency. Four years later, with Republicans recapturing the House, there’s a similarly excitable media narrative coalescing around the “Taliban 20”—the mostly early-career far-right members of Congress who nearly derailed Kevin McCarthy’s speakership this month. They are, in fact, a sort of inverse of The Squad, with a terminally online ideological agenda and a mission to reshape Washington in their own radical image. 

Intriguingly, official Washington is already starting to treat them as a distinct power bloc, recognizing that these twenty-or-so members hold the key to McCarthy’s narrow majority. To wit: I’ve recently learned that FreedomWorks and the Heritage Foundation, among other conservative organizations, are scheduled to co-host a private reception for the twenty members on Wednesday night. (It’s unclear whether Rep. Victoria Spartz will be in attendance: I’m told that she was initially not part of the Never Kevins’ plans, and that her decision to throw in with them was a pleasant surprise. “She has been at a bunch of the events even though not fully part of the 20,” a source close to the bloc told me. “She’s still enjoying it.”)