House Speaker Kevin McCarthy weakened himself two years ago by calling out then-President Trump for inciting the violent Capitol insurrection, then rushing to his golf resort to beg forgiveness.

That was the tipping point for the Bakersfield Republican. It showed everyone — including future far-right opponents of his speakership — that he could be bullied into backing down. He had no hard and fast convictions. His words couldn’t be trusted. He lost respect among allies and enemies alike.

That’s how I figure it, anyway. And he disappointed some politicians, consultants and lobbyists who remember him as a trustworthy, straight-shooting Republican legislative leader in Sacramento.

McCarthy has spent six years kissing Donald Trump’s ring in an effort — now proved successful — to elect enough Republican House members to crown him speaker.

But in appeasing Trump and the far right, McCarthy lost credibility. That led to last week’s Republican debacle when four days and 15 ballots were required before the Californian could be elected speaker. Meanwhile, he was shoved around by “Never Kevin” hard-liners demanding and receiving concessions.

OK, hold on. That may be accurate, but it’s also simplistic. It’s not the whole story. The underlying truth is that the politics McCarthy grew up with and mastered in California is no longer as effective in polarized America as it was pre-Trump, pre-social media and pre-Fox News.

McCarthy climbed the political ladder from volunteer gofer for a hometown congressman to U.S. House leadership by building relationships and compromising.

But for many of today’s demagogic politicians, relationships — even with leaders — aren’t as important as social media clicks and cable TV interviews that enable them to communicate directly with a monolithic, anti-Washington political base. They’re cheered for attacking a potential House speaker, not collaborating with him.

In this era’s polarized politics, compromise has become a dirty word among extremists on both the right and the left.

“For most of the 20th century, being a deal maker in Congress was considered to be a good thing. But during the speakership fight, ‘deal maker’ was an insult used against McCarthy,” notes Dan Schnur, a political science professor at USC and UC Berkeley and a former Republican operative in Sacramento.

“The national drumbeat is that McCarthy coveted the speakership so much that he surrendered much of its power to acquire the office.

But the rap on McCarthy for giving away too much could be off base. We don’t know yet how these rules will work. They may turn out to be relatively innocuous. In legislative bodies, there are always paths around rules if there’s strong-willed leadership.

The new speaker has been ridiculed for allowing far-right Freedom Caucus members more seats on the powerful Rules Committee. But coalition governing is normal in most democracies. What’s different here, of course, is that the coalition is solely within the GOP. Democrats are barred.

McCarthy is remembered in Sacramento as a pragmatic centrist, personable and down-to-earth.

When he was Assembly minority leader, Republicans still were relevant in the state Capitol. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. Democrats held a comfortable Assembly majority, 48 to 32, but it wasn’t a supermajority like today’s 62 to18. Unlike today, state budgets required a two-thirds vote, so the GOP was in play.

“He was very easy to work with, a straight shooter — not someone who would say one thing and do another,” recalls then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, a Los Angeles Democrat. “He was very likable. And incredibly competitive.”

Last week, Trump tried to help McCarthy by urging hard-liners to stop blocking “my Kevin.”

So, it’s a mixed bag. Crawling down to Mar-a-Lago two years ago made McCarthy look weak. But if he hadn’t, would the Bakersfield native have become speaker? We’ll never know. But he’d be more respected.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.