McCarthy Won’t Run For Speaker. Now What?
We won't have Kevin to kick around anymore.
The Hill (“McCarthy won’t run for Speaker again“):
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he will not seek the Speaker’s gavel again after being removed from the position on Tuesday, a stunning decision that capped off a historic day on Capitol Hill.
“From the day I entered politics, my initial mission has always been to make tomorrow better than today. I fought for what I believe in, and I believe in this country of America,” McCarthy said in a press conference. “My goals have not changed. My ability to fight is just in a different form.”
“Unfortunately, 4 percent of our conference can join all the Democrats and dictate who can be the Republican Speaker in this House,” McCarthy continued. “I don’t think that room is good for the institution, but apparently I’m the only one. I believe I can continue to fight, maybe in a different manner. I will not run for Speaker again. I’ll have the conference pick somebody else.”
McCarthy first informed members of his conference Tuesday night that he would not run again in a closed-door meeting, multiple lawmakers told The Hill, before later addressing the press.
“Everybody was kind of stunned,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told reporters.
[…]
McCarthy let loose on his detractors in a lengthy press conference — namely Gaetz.
“You all know Matt Gaetz,” McCarthy said. “You know it was personal. It had nothing to do about spending, it had nothing to do about everything he accused somebody of he was doing. It all was about getting attention from you.”
“I mean, we’re getting email fundraisers from him as he’s doing it. Join in quickly,” McCarthy continued, referring to Gaetz fundraising off his motion to vacate. “That’s not governing, that’s not becoming of a member of Congress. And regardless of what you think, I’ve seen the text, it was all about his Ethics, but that’s alright.”
Gaetz, whom the Justice Department declined to charge after a lengthy sex-trafficking investigation, is facing another investigation by the House Ethics Committee. McCarthy has said that he thinks the Florida congressman has blamed him for the investigation. Gaetz has denied that the ethics probe factored into his move.
McCarthy rejected the suggestion that those who voted to remove him were more conservative.
“They are not conservatives,” McCarthy said, later adding: “They don’t get to say they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic.”
He also accused former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) of reneging on a promise to help him keep the gavel after recommending that he give in to demands from his detractors in January to lower the motion to vacate threshold to just one member. Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Blaming the Democrats for this mess likely makes sense for him politically but it’s rather silly. It would be highly irregular, indeed, for even a single Democrat to cast a vote for a Republican Speaker. And, if Pelosi did promise help under these extraordinary circumstances, I suspect she feels no longer bound by that promise after McCarthy reneged on promises he made in the debt ceiling negotiations.
Then again, it might explain this:
POLITICO (“McHenry ordered Pelosi to leave her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday“):
As one of his first acts as the acting speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry ordered former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vacate her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday, according to an email sent to her office viewed by POLITICO.
“Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” wrote a top aide on the Republican-controlled House Administration Committee. The room was being reassigned by the acting speaker “for speaker office use,” the email said.
McHenry, a close McCarthy ally, was first on his list to become acting speaker after the Californian was booted in a Tuesday afternoon vote.
Only a select few House lawmakers get hideaway offices in the Capitol, compared to their commonplace presence in the Senate.
[…]
The former speaker blasted the eviction in a statement as “a sharp departure from tradition,” adding that she had given former Speaker Dennis Hastert “a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished” during her tenure.
It’s a jerk move given her long service, compounded by the fact that she’s in California preparing for Dianne Feinstein’s funeral.
NYT Congressional reporter Annie Karni, writing ahead of the vote to oust him (“There Is No Clear Replacement Candidate for McCarthy“), asks the obvious:
If not Speaker Kevin McCarthy, then who?
[…]
“I think there’s plenty of people who can step up and do the job,” Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, one of the rebels bent on pushing Mr. McCarthy out, said Tuesday morning, but he said he did not know who he had in mind for the job instead.
Representative Eli Crane of Arizona, another one of the hard-line holdouts against Mr. McCarthy, said he wasn’t there yet in terms of supporting someone else.
“I don’t like to get the cart before the horse,” he said. “For me, right now, this is just about representing my voters and holding the speaker accountable for deals made and deals broken.”
Some names were starting to be bandied about, even as all of the potential successors vowed that they were not looking to replace Mr. McCarthy, whom they said they still supported.
Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, on Monday night said he was open to supporting Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the current No. 2 House Republican and a longtime McCarthy rival who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment for blood cancer.
“I am not going to pass over Steve Scalise just because he has blood cancer,” Mr. Gaetz told a horde of reporters as he left the Capitol on Monday night.
Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 Republican in the House who serves as the majority whip, has also been mentioned by some of his colleagues as a viable option. Mr. Emmer, who has hosted many late night sessions in his office with various factions of the Republican conference, trying to help the group find common ground, has gained the trust of the far-right members. But they don’t view him as a particularly strong leader.
“He’s a good sounding board. He’s got some nice conference rooms. He doesn’t lie to us,” Mr. Gaetz said of Mr. Emmer in an earlier interview. “We know he can’t make anything happen.”
Another logical person to turn to would be Representative Patrick McHenry, the longtime North Carolina congressman who is close with Mr. McCarthy and has previously served in leadership. But Mr. McHenry would most likely resist any attempt to draft him into the role. He chose not to run for a leadership role last year, opting instead to lead the powerful financial services committee.
In a scramble, Representative Elise Stefanik, the top woman in leadership whose role means she works closely with all members of the conference, could emerge as another potential alternative. Serving as conference chair and overseeing messaging for all House Republicans, she is widely seen as someone with big political ambitions outside of the House — like potentially serving in a future Trump administration.
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of the longest serving Republicans in the House who leads the Rules Committee, is also respected by both Republicans and Democrats alike.
Scalise is indeed mulling a run. Ditto Jim Jordan. I’m skeptical any of them can gather near-unanimous support from the GOP caucus and trying to appeal to Democrats is clearly a firable offense.
Indeed, journalists and pundits aren’t the only one with no idea what comes next.
Axios’ Andrew Solender (“GOP tensions explode after McCarthy bows out of speaker race“) reports that the caucus is equally confused.
House Republicans were distraught, furious and concerned for the future of their party after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced he won’t run for speaker again after being ousted on Tuesday.
Why it matters: Several Republican lawmakers suggested it will be a challenge for any would-be McCarthy successor to unify the fractious conference he failed to tame.
What they’re saying: “Frankly, one has to wonder whether the House is governable at all,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) coming out of the closed-door meeting where McCarthy made his announcement.
- Johnson, the chair of the 70-member Main Street Caucus, said he doesn’t have a favored candidate for the role: “I’m not sure I would wish this job on anyone. Kevin McCarthy was the most talented member of our conference.”
- “I’m at a loss … I don’t know who would want to operate under this set of rules,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said of McCarthy’s announcement, adding that the “right people may have to be convinced” to run for the job.
- “We have a lot of talented individuals in the conference,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) told Axios. But, he said, “the problem lies” with the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy: “Who are they going to accept? Are they going to attack him or her?”
State of play: The House is set to adjourn for the week and return Tuesday for a candidate forum followed by a possible GOP election on Wednesday to determine their next nominee for speaker, according to multiple members who were at the Tuesday night meeting.
- The decision to skip town on a Tuesday met with anger from some members: “It’s absolute horses**t we’re jumping on a plane and heading home when our work isn’t done,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said.
Zoom in: Some Republicans also vented their fury at the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to remove McCarthy as speaker.
- “I think we have eight selfish a**holes that undermine the institution and the conference,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.). “It’s wrong. I think Kevin McCarthy certainly did not deserve that.”
- Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), a vocal McCarthy ally, said he was “very disappointment, very hurt” by the former speaker’s decision “because it means that a group of terrorists have won.”
- “The man just loves chaos,” Murphy said of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who introduced the motion to vacate.
The other side: Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who voted to remove McCarthy, called the vote a “win for America because it’s a win for change in Congress.”
- “I think the American people are looking for a Republican conference, Republican speaker that’s going to fight in full force, with every tool at our disposal, to attack and defeat the radical leftist agenda,” Good said.
What we’re watching: Republicans are in for a hectic week as they scramble to find a replacement for McCarthy.
- Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced plans to nominate former President Trump for the job: “Donald J. Trump should come back and be the speaker.”
Yes, why not bring in a guy under multiple criminal indictments whose also running for President?
POLITICO’s John Harris rightly declares “The House GOP Is a Failed State.”
For nine months, McCarthy had the title and the gavel and a Capitol suite with a nice view. But he never really held the office of speaker in anything like the historic meaning of that job. He never inspired fear. He sought favor from GOP colleagues — 210 of whom actually stayed with him until the end — but he had scant influence to bestow favors in return. He wasn’t associated with any particular governing idea.
At the start, his speakership was effectively an optical illusion. At the end, it was an exercise in self-abasement.
[…]
McCarthy’s ouster is dramatic evidence, if redundant, about the state of the modern GOP. A party that used to have an instinctual orientation toward authority and order — Democrats fall in love, went the old chestnut, while Republicans fall in line — is now animated by something akin to nihilism. The politics of contempt so skillfully exploited by Donald Trump is turned inward on hapless would-be leaders like McCarthy with no less ferocity than it is turned outward on liberals and the media.
The GOP dissenters who joined Democrats in evicting McCarthy professed to be concerned about controlling spending, and some surely are genuine about that. In the case of Gaetz, the ringleader, it is clear the dispute is primarily about personal animus, not ideology. He wanted McCarthy’s antlers on the wall of his rec room, and he got them. Needless to say, there are many Republicans who are now hunting for him.
And, yet, in the nihilistic spirit of the age, it is worth asking of these intraparty feuds: Who cares? Certainly, in McCarthy’s case, it is far from obvious that anyone should care that much. He simply never made the case for being consequential.
With a go-along personality that many colleagues found sufficiently agreeable, he did not cut a large public profile of the sort cultivated by Gingrich or even a former vice-presidential nominee like Ryan. Perhaps under different circumstances he might have governed the House like Hastert, who projected a bland and impassive exterior while the real deal-making was carried out with ruthless precision by Rep. Tom DeLay, who eventually left the House amid ethical and legal storms. (Hastert came to grief and went to prison, only after leaving the speakership, when he was convicted of financial offenses related to his sexual abuse of teenage boys.) McCarthy didn’t draw interest in his political dramas in the fashion of John Boehner, whose chain-smoking and merlot-quaffing habits suggested an old-style coalition-building pol who found himself lost in an angry new age.
Most of all, McCarthy showed his malleable core on the paramount question of Republican politics, or for that matter all American politics: Where do you stand on Trump?
[…]
The House GOP now resembles a failed state. The party elects leaders with no capacity to lead members who have no interest in being led. McCarthy is like one of the succession of short-lived Soviet leaders who followed the long reign of Leonid Brezhnev, before the radical disruption of Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War.
Gorbachev is, of course, better remembered. But (SPOILER ALERT) it didn’t end well for his party.
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McCarthy reaped what he had sown: when you will say and do ANYTHING to get what you want, no one will trust or respect you. The Tea Party/Freedom Caucus/Clown Car has now taken out 3 Speakers (Boehner, Ryan and McCarthy). The tail will continue to wag the dog as long as performance artists and grifters keep getting elected.
@Charley in Cleveland: The Freedom Caucus only has power because the rest of the Republicans give it to them. Until some 8 or 10 other Republicans stop cowering and do their duty, nothing will change.
@Scott:
The party has a four-seat majority. They can’t elect a Speaker without most of the Freedom Caucus voting for that person.
@James Joyner: They can’t elect a Speaker without most of the Freedom Caucus voting for that person.
Hey, here’s a wild and crazy idea: how about they do what other wanna-be speakers throughout American history have done and tried to get along with the Democrats across the aisle? You know, those people who were also elected by Americans to serve and represent their districts? And who also get to vote to elect a speaker?
Nothing McCarthy ever said indicated he realized he was supposed to be Speaker of the HOUSE, not just the GOP part of it. His conception of the job was closer to the leadership of a party in a parliamentary system.
I will always remember his comment back in January when he said he wasn’t stepping aside for the speakership election because he had the most votes. In fact the Democratic candidate had the most votes at that moment, but Democrats apparently don’t matter for anything except taking the blame for his screw-ups and miscalculations. So in a way, he’s stayed true to himself on that front, anyway.
Bye-bye, Kevin. It was a pain to know you.
It’s fun to see the Party of Personal Responsibility…. is once again trying to blame their screwups on Democrats. Democrats have finally learned that they’re right to offend the Sacred Order of Fence Sitting Independent Swing Voters Who Always Vote Republican.
Note that McCarthy spent all day Sunday on the TeeVee Shows blasting Democrats after those same Democrats saved McCarthy’s incompetence by stopping the shutdown. Also, McCarthy thought Democrats would save his speakership by offering them… Nothing. That’s not how this works.. if you want something, you’re giving something – whether you like it or not.
When I was growing up, I constantly encountered adults who, confronted with conflict among children, would trot out some variation of “I don’t care who started it or whose fault it was” before imposing a blanket collective punishment. This is obvious BS. As an adult, I have realized that the people who adhere to the philosophy of “I don’t care whose fault it was” are a large proportion of the “I expect Democrats to fix it but of course I’ll continue to vote Republican” crowd.
Trump is available…
I kid you not.
Non-members seem to be constitutionally eligible (and he might need the money).
It’s a wild day when the Republican House of Representatives is less functional than the government of Italy…
I have no idea who will be Speaker but I can tell you something about them: they will be a failed loser before they pound the gavel even once, completely nutted by the right wing.
@James Joyner: Yes, I understand that. The Freedom Caucus has power because the others in the party acquiesce, throw up their hands, and give it to them. It is the equivalent to negotiating with terrorists. Never a winning strategy.
@Not the IT Dept.:
That is not really viable, given how much the Democratic caucus is united in distrusting the GOP members. The Democrats are just going to watch the GOP caucus do whatever it will hands off, and definitely no help. The GOP has created some pretty intense Democratic antipathy.
Here is a piece on how united the Dems are to follow Jeffries’ lead:
https://newrepublic.com/article/175935/hakeem-jeffries-consolidates-power-mccarthy
@Gavin:
Exactly.
It’s not just McCarthy, the Dems are P.O’d at them all, will not get involved.
@charontwo:
This being paywalled:
https://newrepublic.com/article/175935/hakeem-jeffries-consolidates-power-mccarthy
snip
The Democrats by now are probably fed up with getting attacked after stepping in to save things. So why not just let the GOP fix this themselves?
Theoretically, the GOP could offer concessions in exchange for help. But I find it hard to see that actually happening, bipartisanship sounds nice but seems unlikely in present conditions.
Blaming any of this on Democrats, while utterly predictable, is complete bullsh!t.
What a mess. What a ridiculous, silly mess. Republicans have well and truly wrecked our global image. Comparing us to Italy isn’t fair to the Italians.
It’s irritating that rank-and-file Republicans don’t seem to understand that the path of the party over the years led to this. These clowns have been enabled and borderline nurtured by Republicans who, instead of getting these idiots in line, held their noses and allowed them to continue to fester.
So very appalling. I don’t know how the nation gets out from under this mess.
And, what a petty move regarding Pelosi’s office. These jerks. I wouldn’t trust any of them.
They will make Steve Scalise the next Speaker, who calls himself David Duke w/o the baggage, and has spoken at White-Nationalist Organizations.
In addition to being a bigot, he’s an election denier, and all-around general liar.
He’s for unlimited gun rights, anti LGBT rights, a climate change denier, and believes life begins at conception.
If you thought this episode would sober up the MAGAt’s, you were wrong.
@charontwo:
I have to disagree with this. I think a Republican could negotiate a deal with Jefferies that would give them the Speakership in exchange for essentially the same type of deal the Senate has had when they are split 50/50 (equal co-chairs of committees, agreement on rules, but still leaving the Speaker’s ability to set the agenda, etc). The problem isn’t Dem willingness to deal, it’s that any Republican who makes such a deal is instantly dead to his party.
@Not the IT Dept.:
I’m not a scholar of Congress but I don’t think the opposition party has ever voted for the Speaker of the majority party. It’s just not how it’s done.
While the Republicans did a lot to get us there over the last 30 years, party sorting has turned the House (and to a lesser extent the Senate) into a quasi-parliamentary body. That’s certainly true on organizational votes. It should still be possible to get bipartisan support for spending bills and the like—and it in fact often happens. But we’ve turned too many votes into one-party activities.
@Scott:
A would-be Speaker could certainly tell them to pound sound. But they’d never be Speaker. Again: they need just about every vote given the thin margin and Democrats aren’t going to cross over without concessions that would be untenable to even the non-Freedom Caucus GOP.
@James Joyner: It’s just not how it’s done.
They just ousted the first sitting Speaker in American history – that isn’t how it’s done either. There’s been a whole lot of things that weren’t done before the first time it was done that way. We’re breaking new ground all over the place lately.
For those inclined to pin all of this chaos on the narrowness of the majority the GOP has, a quick reminder that Pelosi had a narrow majority and managed.
The GOP just has a lot of garbage members more interested in personal advancement over the needs of the country.
For some levity:
GOP learns the hard way: Turning the base up too high blows out your Speaker
@drj:
He’d be perfect. he could leave a smoking hole where the Capitol used to stand, and still claim he’s been the bestest Speaker of the Congress the World has ever seen!
I edited that second comment I posted and the edits didn’t make it in to my post. What’s up with that?
I wanted to mention that turning out a sitting speaker hasn’t ever been done before either but somehow we managed to break new ground on that.
@Not the IT Dept.:
And now my edits are appearing where I meant to put them. Weird.
What a shit show.
But honestly, what sane person would want the job? I don’t like McCarthy, but I can’t blame him for saying fuck-it and not trying – basically at all – to win the vote to remove him, followed by refusing to run for the leadership again.
And the removal wasn’t entirely unjustified. McCarthy made promises he didn’t or couldn’t keep to get the position to begin with – namely, to pass individual spending bills through regular order and pass them prior to Oct. 1. The House has long not been able to do either of those things, so it’s not exactly shocking that it didn’t happen with this specific House.
@Not the IT Dept.:
I would like that very much – basically having a large supermajority block at the center of both parties running things that tell the fringes to fuck off. But the reality is that partisanship rules the day, and as James notes, we effectively have a quasi-parliamentary system in the House. IMO, it’s the worst of both worlds – the House is run like a parliamentary body with none of the other features of a parliamentary system.
@Scott:
No, the Freedom Caucus has power because they’ve won elections. They can’t simply be ignored.
@Jen:
Two points to that: The GoP has the slimmest majority in almost a century. Secondly, leadership experience matters a great deal. I think people tend to underrate how unusually skilled an operator Pelosi was. In terms of effectiveness, she’s probably the best Speaker in decades and that skill is one of the big reasons she was able to wrangle a narrow caucus.
@Jen: While I don’t disagree with your larger point, the circumstances were different. Pelosi only had a small majority in the last Congress; she had a huge one from 2019-2021. And in the last Congress, she had a Democratic President and Democratic Senate, so they had a real chance to get things done. McCarthy has a Democratic President and Democratic Senate, so obstructionism was the likely order of the day, regardless, in the current environment.
If the GOP “Red Wave” had materialized like everyone was telling them would happen in the last election, they could have run roughshod over Democrats and shut down the government indefinitely.
If they had the super-majority numbers they would have with a red wave, then they would do what they normally do, keep the government shut-down long enough that Democrats would start getting very antsy about the whole situation and then tell Democrats that the government will only re-open if they agree to a bunch of stuff that greatly reduces the funds available for Democratic/Liberal/Progressive pet causes, and of course, Democrats would cave at the last moment, claim we still got some of what we wanted out of the negotiations with the GOP, and try to put the whole sordid episode in the rear view mirror.
The Democratic party has an opportunity to force the GOP to squirm a bit and try and get their shit together, and it looks like that is exactly what they are doing, hurray to that.
The election is over a year out, so the GOP could not just run out the clock until they had enough new members elected to their party that they could once again tell Democrats to eat of bag of dicks, that they will have to accept massive cuts to social welfare programs otherwise the GOP could keep the government shut-down for 2, 3, 4, heck, 6 months or more unless the Democrats take their lumps and agreed to a deal that gives the GOP pretty much everything and our side nothing.
We would cave if they had a supermajority that never needed to even think for a nanosecond that they should consider talking to Democrats to work out a deal.
Even the MAGA nutters will eventually turn on them and apply pressure to make sure the government is running and things like social security checks continue to pay out on a regular schedule. If I were a MAGA and was told hey, no worries, if it takes 2 months, 3 months or longer, you can relax, you are not losing your SS check Mr or Mrs MAGA, it is just that with the offices closed you will basically get a bunch of checks delivered all at once when the shut-down is over, or one big check, but again, nothing until things are open again, I would be like hell to the no, y’all need to get me my money right now, lol.
There are a ton of MAGA who qualify for things like SS payouts, and will not be able hold out for potentially several months just because Lauren Boebert told them all will be well, just be patient. They will start losing their homes, cars, etc., this will force the MAGA folks to apply real pressure to get things open and running.
@Gavin:
This year alone all House Democrats experienced first hand that Speaker McCarthy’s words and promises were just so many empty calories, they meant nothing. There is nothing I can think of, of any importance to Democrats, that Kevin could have promised them that he could actually have delivered.
@James Joyner: I’m really not trying to be obstreperous, but why not join with the Democrats?
I mean… doesn’t the GOP have a choice? Turn their back on the crazy toddler caucus (and vote with the Democrats) or just watch the tantrum and shrug until MTG gets the Speakership?
@Andy: All I’m saying is that 10 Reps in the center right have just as much power as 10 of the Freedom Caucus. If they are willing to exercise it. A big if… but that is the problem.
@Andy:
Yes, partisanship rules the day, but only because of one side. There is simply no evidence that Dems have ever been unwilling to negotiate and very ample evidence that they would in fact negotiate in good faith with a willing partner.
It was the Republican Gingrich who formulated the 50% plus 1 vote strategy, wherein he loaded up every bill with things that were anathema to Dems until it would just barely pass, and it has been that way ever since. There is no such policy on the Dem side. For proof just look at how much time and effort and how many changes to accommodate Republicans that was incorporated into Obamacare – and in the end not a single Republican voted for it, and they would have filibustered it if they could.
This idea that the Republican Party is inevitable and therefore we have to play by their rules is ridiculous. Its base voters are marching the party off the cliff and good riddance to bad rubbish when they finally have downsized to the Deep South and a few other wretchedly ill managed states. There are plenty of sanely conservative (small “c”) Dems who people can vote for, if they can ever get over the sports team mentality.
Somewhere in this incoherent word salad is either faint praise or … something. Shades of burying Caesar.
@MarkedMan:
What is the evidence of that? Do you have specific examples? When was the last time a Democratic Speaker went to the GoP to get votes to maintain their speakership? When was the last time a Democratic Speaker sought to pass legislation that didn’t violate the Hastert rule? When was the last time major legislation went through the committee process where members had the opportunity to offer amendments that could be voted on?
The reality is that with political sorting and polarization, the two parties are very far apart in terms of desired policies and priorities. That means there is simply not much that either side can negotiate in “good faith” when it comes to making political, policy, and ideological compromises they are unwilling to make. This is especially true when normal order doesn’t exist in the House and all legislation is goes through the rules committee controlled by the Speaker. As we have just seen, the Speaker’s ability to do that and remain the Speaker depends on the Speaker’s legitimacy with their partisan allies, and a non-trivial number of those allies do not want the Speaker to give anything to the other party unless it’s absolutely necessary.
I mean, I could go on, but a lot of this is about the strange dynamics and rules of how the House operates. The Speaker nominally represents the entire House, but, in fact, is entirely partisan since a partisan majority selects them. The Speaker’s interests, therefore, are partisan not only because of the party they belong to, but also because their position and legitimacy flow from the partisan majority. IOW, Speakers know where their bread is buttered.
This has only been exacerbated by the growth in the effective power of the Speaker over time with the demise of regular order, such that the Speaker essentially controls all legislation via the rules committee and there is no way to get a floor vote without the Speaker’s permission except through a discharge petition which would require partisan defections against the speaker to make happen. Which, for reasons that should be obvious, almost never happens. As McCarthy just learned the hard way, the first and primary job of a Speaker is to keep enough co-partisans happy to keep the job.
Anyway, for another example, there were times here when I’ve suggested that it would be smart for Democrats to try to capture the center and peel off disaffected anti-Trump Republicans. But the response from the partisan Democrats in this commentariat has always been a complete unwillingness to do that because it would require compromising their principles and policy preferences. That same dynamic plays out at scale.
@Blue Galangal:
They are afraid of their primary voters and primary challenges, with Trump riling them up.
And/or they could just not be ideologically agreeable to that.
The government can’t stay shut down with no appropriations forever, so that might be an ultimate result, but not anytime soon.
@inhumans99:
I agree with you and would like to point out the very real harm to the LGBT communities that these Republican appropriations bills were trying to inflict.
https://hrc-prod-requests.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Appropriations-Report.pdf
I can’t stress enough how harmful most of these riders are to the Trans community. These are evil. This is what the Republicans wanted to force the Democrats to pass and it was only going to get worse.
@Scott:
How much you want to bet there are ten GOP reps that are either “moderates”, in “moderate” districts, or in Biden leaning districts. I’m not going digging for it now, but I’m pretty sure its around 8-10 of them. They’d get primaried, but I’d say there was a good chance to survive that and maybe there would be enough of a good faith that the Dems wouldn’t challenge them. That might be decent politics. It would at least play well to a lot of “moderate” people.
@Blue Galangal:
https://progresspond.com/2023/10/04/i-told-you-this-would-happen-so-what-happens-next/
@Blue Galangal: If this was a multiparty parliament, the Q Caucus would be it’s own party, and the coalition would have failed. There would then be a scramble to find a new new leader to hold the coalition together, a new coalition, or snap elections.
Snap elections are not a thing, and the two-party structure lines people up to rigidly for them to form a new coalition without a far more serious shock to the system than McCarthy being tossed out.
Maybe three weeks into a government shutdown, with air traffic having been massively screwed up over Thanksgiving (unpaid workers tend to not do an awesome job), and Christmas on the horizon… that might be the shock needed.
Or after they toss a second Speaker out, proving they are ungovernable. I’m hoping for Elise Stefanik, because she just annoys me (no real convictions other than ambition, much like McCarthy), and I’d like her to suffer and have “failed Speaker” on her resume hopefully ending her career.
@James Joyner:
Then the GOP is screwed and it’s their own fault, period. If not a single member of their party can tolerate concessions in order to have a functioning government theyr’e in charge of, the Dems shouldn’t be dealing with them at all. Compromise is the essence of government and it’s a two-way street; if the party barely hanging on to power because it’s made up of nuts and grifters needs the party they call groomers to work, they’re the ones that need to bend.
Also, the entire GOP just witnessed their own get shanked and humiliated- who’s gonna line up to be next to deal with the crazies? Setting up a Dem to be shanked and take the fall for GOP malfeasance is a better option for long term survival….
@Andy:
And we’ve just seen how impossible a task that is. The GOP is slowly coming to grips with the reality that you cannot please crazy, especially when crazy has true power over you. You cannot keep them happy, you cannot avoid displeasing them and you cannot control them. For so long, they’ve had the tiger by the tail and the grip is slipping rapidly. How many bites til it’s fatal? Trump will be the death of this party, inch by agonizing inch for finally giving the fringe the control they’ve craved.
A reasonably intelligent Speaker candidate will understand they cannot survive under these conditions any more then McCarthy did. Cut the damn deal in such a way that you’ll have more Dem votes gained then GOP lost and your party – more specifically their nut cases – are now powerless. They’re only gonna be in power till the next election hands the House back, after all.
@inhumans99:
It doesn’t work that way. SS and Medicare benefits are permanently appropriated, as are funds for the staff the manages benefits and tax collection. Things just flow smoothly along. “Checks” is a misnomer these days; the vast majority of SS benefits are delivered by direct deposit.
@Andy:
The facts 1) that Democratic votes bailed out McCarthy re: debt ceiling and shutdown despite not getting Ukraine aid or any offer from McCarthy and 2) that Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden passed multiple major bills that gained bipartisan votes — evidence which is inconvenient for those hellbent on reflexive bothsidesism.
Biden is president and Democrats control the Senate in part because Biden and Democrats are already capturing the Senate and already winning over centrists and former Republicans.
It’s not a hypothetical exercise, it’s already happening because contra to bothsides belief, Democrats are not the only one with agency. Centrists and disaffected Republicans have to compromise and change as well, and are doing so. It’s not just Democrats’ jobs to compromise themselves win people over, it’s our job do what’s best for the country. (Source: I entered politics as a McCain voter.)
@KM:
Yes, that’s a consequence of the slimmest majority in almost a century. That’s the main problem for the GoP House right now. The crazies, although small in number, have a veto thanks to that slim majority. A larger majority would mean the Joker Caucus wouldn’t have a veto.
It’s the same reason that Manchin and Sinema had such outsized power in the Senate when they stymied Democratic efforts to pass a much larger bill.
@Jen:
QFE.
It’s not just process and circumstances. It’s not just bad primaries and narrow majorities.
It’s that Republicans have turned away from the sensible, reasonable ideology of Eisenhower-Nixon and rolled out the welcome mat for for terrible people (racists, homophobes, proto-fascists) and terrible policies (bashing goverment, bashing expertise, bashing science, cutthroat capitalism, cutting taxes for billionaires, etc).
This former Republican can admit that. Others are having a tough time, but eventually they’re going to have to accept reality as it is, not how they want it to be. Because the old party is not coming back anytime soon.
Quelle surprise, we (current and former) Republicans spent a half century pretending the problem is spending not slashed tax revenue, denying science, claiming “government is the problem,” and catering to selfish bigots. And now our people don’t want to fund the goverment, govern, mitigate climate change, or help defeat a fascist, homophobic Russian dictator — no matter who gets hurt at home or abroad. Big shock.
@Andy: I don’t even know how to start answering this because you seem to be saying “give me examples, except don’t refer to the last 30 years of history since Gingrich”.
Never, Andy, the answer is never. Because as far as I know no party in a two party Congress has ever elected a speaker requiring votes outside their party. And if you are implying that somehow McCarthy was asking for Dems help and they refused, that’s absurd! He told them he would give them nothing for their votes. “Vote for me, but I won’t consider anything you ask and will continue to shut you out 100%”. It’s sheer nonsense to claim that there was some kind of ask or negotiation from the Republicans.
How about the example I gave, Obamacare. Obama, his cabinet, members of the House and Senate, their senior level aids, all spent months and months negotiating with any Republican that would talk to them. Major, major changes were made to the bill because Romney and others said it would get them on board. And every single one of them voted against it in the end. More than that, pretty much every one of them that negotiated were driven out of the party simply for talking to the Dems. And the Repubs have gotten only more toxic and deranged since.
Andy, this is Lucy and the football. This is Solomon cutting the baby in half. You can’t negotiate with these guys. Sure, the modern Republican Party can draw a straight line to the Republicans of fifty years ago, but they are not the same party. They are done, they are a toxic mess. When do we get a sane government back, a sane country back? When we recognize that if you want conservative policies you work for and vote for conservative Dems. But if you view politics as sport and the Republicans are your team, then you are part of the problem. (“You” in the general sense, not you, Andy, in particular. I know you are not a hardcore Republican). We would be so much better off if people viewed politicians as professionals for hire rather than “their team”. I might have sentimental attachment to my home town Chicago Bears, and even though I know they aren’t the 84/85 bears of my glorious hardcore fan days, I’m happy to still root for them. But if I had a great plumber in 1985 and it turns out that plumber is an alcoholic mess now, I’d feel bad for him, but I’d get another plumber.
@Andy:
How? What should the Democrats offer them? Bear in mind, my example above. Bear in mind that Biden, Jefferies and Schumer just negotiated a deal with McCarthy and McConnell a few months ago and they reneged on it in a matter of weeks. The Republicans would have to demonstrate somehow that negotiating with them is not just a complete waste of time.
https://twitter.com/Fritschner/status/1709559909488976279
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1709559909488976279.html
You would need to follow the link to see all the screenshots and quoted tweets that are not within the blockquote above.
@Andy:
Yes. So the Dems negotiated amongst themselves and passed a smaller bill. But they passed a f*cking bill. They got things done.
With a rules change to make discharge petitions faster, I think we could go basically forever without a stable House Speaker. There would be a lot of chaos and it would be a churning maelstrom of dysfunction with random bits of clarity, but it could work.
And, it would have the benefit of being far closer to how uneducated people thought the Founding Fathers expected the House to operate.
Question from the UK (and please don’t take this the wrong way, it’s not a sneer):
How are your popcorn stockpiles holding up?
🙂
I’ve been seeing a bit of speculation on the interwebs that McCarthy wasn’t expecting the Democrats to vote for the CR — between giving literally zero time to read the bill, and cutting Ukraine funding, he thought it would be enough of a poison pill that it would be rejected and Republicans could go blame Democrats for the shutdown and putting Ukraine ahead of America.
Jeffries was nice enough to speak gibberish for an hour or so (leadership has few limits on how long they can speak?), while the bill was divided into chunks and read in parallel.
I’m not sure how much I believe this, as it relies upon knowing the state of mind of Republican House leadership, but it would fit the set of facts we know (other things would too, though), and possibly explain McCarthy’s statements the next day blaming Democrats for everything vaguely shutdown related.
McCarthy thought he could be like Michael Corleone and offer: nothing. It turns out he lacked the appropriate power base for that to work.
In general, trying to play cute games manipulating people and tricking people but without the necessary skills to be successful.
@Gustopher:
Apparently that was a pretty common take in the House Democratic Caucus, see my blockquote above.
As I said, McCarthy tries to be cute without a real talent for it. Asshole!
@DK:
And you elided the questions I asked:
Anyway, of course there will always be legislation that both sides support that is – as I previously noted – not controversial, and cases, like the debt ceiling or the recent CR, where circumstances force a compromise. Most of the legislation passed during McCarthy’s tenure in the House that became law was bipartisan.
And your examples work both ways. You can’t claim that only Democrats are willing to compromise when you’ve cited cases where Republicans voted for Democratic legislation, and Democrats have voted for Republican legislation. Your examples show it is not “one-sided” at all.
But there is also legislation that the parties do in-house that they won’t compromise on and deliberately seek to pass on a party-line basis without input from the minority. Hence why the AJP was spun-off as the bipartisan infrastructure bill (which would not have passed without GoP votes) while the bigger portion would be a Democratic-only bill. And Democrats spent the next several months arguing amongst themselves to eventually pass a pared-down version without GoP support. Democrats were never seriously willing to compromise with the GoP on this legislation.
And to be perfectly clear, this isn’t because the Democrats were obstinate – it’s the simple fact I described earlier about polarization and the vast difference in the policies and political preferences between the two parties. It’s understandable Democrats would have no desire to water down the bill when they could get an all-Democratic bill instead thanks to a narrow trifecta.
The point here is that politics has certain incentives and systematic features that promote certain political behaviors and strategies – and that both parties play by the same rules and use the same tools to achieve their desired ends. The notion that all political problems conveniently rest with the party you despise is not a defensible proposition on the merits.
The fact of the matter is that Democrats are playing the same game and operating under the same rules, the same incentives, and the same goal of advancing what they see as their partisan interests. They compromise not out of some special sense of duty that only Democrats have, but they compromise (or seek compromise) when it furthers their ends and when they think it is in their interests. If Democrats could run the table without having to work with the GoP at all, they would gladly do so. And so would the GoP – assuming the GoP ever figures out what it stands for beyond tax cuts.
@MarkedMan:
If your argument is that the Democrats are a much more effective and cohesive caucus, then you’ll get zero argument from me.
If it hasn’t been clear before, then let me state categorically that the GoP is currently dysfunctional – as recent events demonstrate. They are unable to act cohesively, which has certain effects that are bad for our governing institutions and the country as a whole. It’s a substantial enough problem that it’s not even clear what the GoP stands for in terms of policy except for tax cuts.
In my view, this is because there is currently a civil war in the party, and for certain players, like the Joker Caucus with Gaetz as the poster boy, that civil war is more important than anything else.
@Michael Cain:
If so, the Q+s are correct–government can be shut down completely, in fact. The pop at large–particularly the RWNJ cohort–have virtually no other connections to government. Sucks if you need safety net (but only maybe) or other protections, but since “I don’t,” laissez les bon temps roullez.
@JohnSF: I’d say that I need to restock except that this hasn’t been entertaining enough for me to just sit and munch popcorn.
(And I hold the record for sitting on my hands at a labor negotiation I was involved in a couple of decades ago.)
@Andy:
That civil war is over and everyone decent lost. It’s anarchy now. It’s Mogadishu. It’s Black Hawk Down. They f*cking tried to OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT! You are absolutely kidding yourself if you think anything meaningful will come from the Republicans. They are not your charity case, you don’t have some bizarre obligation to stick with them through thick and thin.
Yeah, it has seemed to me for at least the last 10 years that the Republicans don’t really agree on much other than that they hate Democrats. This is what makes them a party that isn’t really capable of governing. They have no consensus on what they want, nor do they have a process that is likely to build that consensus, or to make it palatable to people when they don’t get their way. Everything is just a zero-sum, you win or you lose.
In a parliamentary system, the R’s would likely be 2 or 3 minority parties that can sometimes create a governing coalition government – maybe the ChristianDemocrats, the Tories, and the Libertarians.
But that doesn’t work here, so they are all Republicans because they think Democrats are terrible.
@Andy:
That civil war is over and everyone decent lost. It’s anarchy now. It’s Mogadishu. It’s Black Hawk Down. They f*cking tried to OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT! You are absolutely kidding yourself if you think anything meaningful will come from the Republicans. They are not your charity case, you don’t have some bizarre obligation to stick with them through thick and thin. You made no promise to stick with this hopeless alcoholic, you merely hired him to do a job, which he can’t do. It’s time to stop trying to enable him.
@Andy:
The questions you asked were a red herring response to this statement:
The circumstances dictated by the questions you asked are not the only circumstances that require negotiation.
You asked for evidence of Democratic negotiation with Republicans and you got plenty, both in my response and in others. Your intimation that no such evidence existed was and is false.
The suggestion that McCarthy passed important bipartisan legislation is also laughable on its face.
There is also no evidence for your claim that Democrats don’t act out of a sense of duty. You’re fond of asking for evidence and telling others to show their work, where’s the evidence that Democrats don’t have a strong sense of duty? The evidence is to the contrary.
Your claim that Democrats use the same tactics as Republicans is also laughable, and obviously false. When Pelosi controlled the House under Trump, Democrats did not refuse to raise the debt ceiling to force Trump to raise taxes on the rich, or shut down the goverment. Every government shutdown for the past 30 years has occurred with a Republicans House, holding the economy hostage to try to achieve their policy goals. Democrats will not use that tactic because actually, yes, Democrats do know they have a duty to keep the government running. It’s not just magical circumstance, it’s Democrats not being extremist lunatics.
Your proposition that the parties are much the same is not defensible on the merits of reality-based events, hence why you often end up having to posit fantasy and hypotheticals to try to make that case. “If there were a Trump-like Democrat,” “If Democrats could run the table without Republicans,” if if if if if.
Yes, if Democrats were not Democrats and if Republicans were not Republicans then things would be different. But we don’t need to “if”: we can simply observe what Democrats and Republicans are doing over here in reality.
Your actions demonstrate who you are. Democrats and Republicans are not the same in character, temperament, sense of duty, or propensity to extremism — no matter how much reflexive bothsidesers despise that reality. If Republicans were better people with better policy, they would behave as such. They would not be in the throes of clowns like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Lauren Boebert, George Santos, Matt Gaetz, and Donald Trump. It’s not complicated, and it’s why they’ve hemorraghed would-be Republicans. Like me.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I have to wonder about how you and my late father would have got on; or not.
He was a production manager at BL/Austin/Rover car plants, and known as “old stone face” in negotiations.
He actually liked (privately) the old-school union negotiators, on the basis that a deal could be done, because it was about money and conditions. (And many of our families had been Labour activists.) But really disliked the Communist Party guys.
Once got in the local papers for telling Derek Robinson to piss off. (Not reported in exactly those words. LOL)
@charontwo:
A more readable version of that blockquote with the screencaps and tweet quotes included and easily visible
https://digbysblog.net/2023/10/04/should-the-democrats-have-saved-mccarthy/
@Gustopher:
Because McCarthy is yet another person who fails to recognize the Democratic Party for what it is: a sensible coalition of moderates and mainstream liberals. Of course they did the responsible thing. He expected Democrats to act like Republicans do. But Democrats are not Republicans.
Like the notion our legacy media is “liberal,” the idea the Democratic establishment isn’t already centrist shows how far right the Overton window of American politics really is.
@MarkedMan:
Dude, seriously, how am I making them my charity case? You do not seem to be able to tell the difference between analysis and advocacy.
I’m no friend of the GoP, have never been a member or associated with the party, agree with you that they are a shit case, have not voted for a Republican for a major office in a long time, etc. I live in Doug Lamborn’s district and vote against him in every primary and the general.
In the current environment, I’m strongly directionally aligned with the Democrats on many things but not everything. That obviously rubs many of you the wrong way – well, sorry, I’m not going to be bullied to join your team. So don’t expect me to drink the kool-aid, or carry water, or participate in the circle-jerk or keep silent when there is something I disagree with. And I would just ask that you (and others) not jump to the conclusion that my disagreement is evidence that I’m some kind of closet Republican.
And I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t do anything about Matt Gaetz or any of the others. My mode is not to get emotional about these things. But there is more going on here than the simplistic Manichean frame that you and so many others in this comment section want to boil everything down to, which frankly gets tiresome. It’s often like a contest about who can say the worst things or least charitable description of Republicans or the GoP. And that’s fine, you do you. And I’ll continue to do me.
@Andy: And after he answers that one is the next challenge that he didn’t say which specific date it happened?
@JohnSF: Hard to predict, but I will say that I was not invited back to the next negotiation after I publicly acknowledged that the committee had no places from which to extract additional benefits/pay for the adjunct instructors which meant that adjuncts might need to voice their frustrations by “voting with their feet.”
@DK: I’m not sure GQPs acknowledge the existence of “moderates.” Rush Limbaugh used to say that a moderate was simply a liberal (socialist in modern parlance) who was unwilling to acknowledge what he was.
@DK:
Well, they are the relevant circumstances that I brought up in response to MM’s claim. That you would like to dodge them and redirect to other things speaks volumes.
And likewise, the intimation that Republicans don’t negotiate is false. I was specifically disputing the claim that one side negotiates and the other doesn’t. The reality is as I described – whether to negotiate or not depends on the circumstances previously described.
Where did I say it was important? And didn’t you mention the debt ceiling – was that not important? Here’s another case where you attempt to put words in my mouth and contradict yourself at the same time.
When looking at a whole cohort, then no, I don’t think large cohorts can deliberately act out of a sense of duty. One of the themes I keep returning to is how the parties, including the Democrats, lack the kind of centralized organization found in parties in most of the rest of the world. What “Democrats” do is emergent based on the sum of actions by individuals and factions in the party. Many of those individuals and factions can and do act out of a sense of duty – usually when it aligns with what they already want to do.
It’s very rare to act out of a sense of duty in a politically damaging way. Liz Cheney is the most obvious recent example off the top of my head – sacrificing her political career for that sense of duty. I have not researched this, but I’m sure there are Democrats who have taken similar sacrificing actions. But it’s not something that’s common or typical for politicians, which includes Democrats.
Edited to add: If you want to argue that the median Democrat currently has a greater sense of duty than the median Republican, I would agree with that completely.
and
Except I’m not saying the parties are the same – that is what you think I’m saying, and it gets tiresome to correct you. Similarities and congruences in some dimensions at a high level are not the “same.” At this point it seems dishonestly intentional ath you keep erecting this strawman. Seemingly, anytime there is any comparison made between the two parties, you are the first to yell “bothsides” and claim I’m saying the parties are the same. A very tiresome strawman.
Yep, and my actions take place in the real world and not in blog comment sections. I would urge you not to confuse your arguments or mine here, such as they are, for anything resembling action.
Ok, I think I’m done with this thread and commenting for a while – I have work IRL to do. Doubtful I get back for any further responses.
@just nutha:
Thing was, Dad (like other UK managers of my acquaintance) always said he liked doing constructive deals with union negotiators, because they were just looking, usually, for the best practicable terms for the workforce, and would stick to a done deal. What he really hated were the upstairs management trying to override plant agreements on “political” grounds, and CP union types likewise.
But that dates me: it relates to UK industry in the late 70’s/mid 80’s.
Unions are actually often a vital part of ensuring a properly functional workplace and company, IMO.
It’s where the business is degraded by vampire capitalism (not just recently, see UK coal mines in 19th century), &/or on the labour side by politicized “the worse the better” types that things really go down hill.
Why a lot of UK progressives thought nationalised industry might work out better; unfortunately, the reality often cheated the ideal.
@Andy: I’m not not trying to get you to join anything. I’m probably closer to you politically than many others here, and I’m only registered as a Democrat because I live in a totally blue city so the primary IS the election. The reason I’m giving you grief is that I think trying to work with this degenerate Republican Party has become actually harmful because it is delaying the changes that need to be made. We need to get real and start working around them. Earlier I said it’s like Lucy and the football, but it’s actually way beyond that. These Republicans aren’t even pretending to hold a football anymore. Anyone in their party that even talks nice to a Dem is primaried into oblivion. The longer there is talk of trying to work with these wrecks, the more time wasted before we can right ourselves as a nation.
@Andy:
Republicans are calling for General Mark Milley to be killed. We’re calling for student debt to be cancelled. In that Venn diagram exactly where do you see overlap?
Negotiating with Republicans is like negotiating with North Korea. I mean, go for it if that floats your boat, but you’re wasting your time and you’ll accomplish nothing. We are in the brute force phase, a direct and inevitable result of one party ceasing to be a political party and either joining a cult or kowtowing to it. We win and save American democracy. Or they win, and we will no longer be a democracy.
Negotiating with those people is a fantasy. Like negotiating with Japan after Pearl harbor. It’s a fantasy, a destructive fantasy because it weakens us and strengthens them. You’re being naive.
Andy is a cynic with priors, the priors won’t change.
@Michael Reynolds:
Surely we can meet in the middle, and have Miley paralyzed from the center of the back down, and reduce the interest rate on student loans. There is a deal to be had here!
One side negotiates to entrap/mislead. The other negotiates in good faith to accomplish things.
So sure, they both negotiate, but the sane among us will only assign credit to the good faith crew.
McCarthy’s actions on the shutdown–if we are to believe the Tweet thread Charon posted/linked to above–are a pitch-perfect example of this. He “negotiated” with Democrats specifically in an effort to hang the shutdown on them. When they figured a way to work within his unreasonable demands and subsequently agreed to the deal, he realized he’d miscalculated.
He’s an @sshole and completely emblematic of the majority of the Republican members of Congress.
@Gustopher:
I am sure that will peal off a few reasonable centrists from the GOP-leaning electorate!
Why can’t the Democrats be reasonable and move a bit more toward the center?
@Michael Reynolds:
McCarthy could have negotiated to get Democrats to save his speakership, he’s just an untrustworthy extremist who’s not smart enough or serious enough to pull it off.
He could have gone to Hakeem Jeffries and promised 1) no shutdown, and a guarantee to follow through on the budget deal he’d already made this Spring, 2) a clean defense authorization bill with Ukraine aid and without the dumb anti-woke nonsense, and 3) a serious border bill without the extremist cruelty. McCarthy could have therfore made a play for pro-Ukraine Democrats and/or Democrats concerned about the border, with guarantees that he would finally keep his word.
Instead, McCarthy said he didn’t want or need Democrats’ help, despite Democrats indicating they were willing to listen. So the idea Democrats won’t negotiate or should negotiate with nothing is just a stupid and blatant lie, no matter how much the stubborn and arrogant bothsides toddlers stamp their feet, pound their fists and insist otherwise. It’s just not true, and existing events prove it isn’t true.
@DK:
Promised?!? You so funny. McCarthy has way too extensive a history of reneging on agreements for that to work, the Democrats have no trust in him at all. (Plus, they understand Trump, who wants chaos and shutdown, will be pandered to).
Most likely short term, when a speaker manages to get elected, we get another failed speaker worse than McCarthy elected on a partisan basis.
The only possible stable solution, which might or maybe not happen before the next election, is a bipartisan speaker. The only way that happens is with genuine power sharing which is a really heavy lift given the current mutual distrust between D and R.
@charontwo:
You’re right to laugh. Everyone knows McCarthy’s word is useless, that’s one reason why he lost the Speakership. But he still could have made an offer, since his back was against the wall, since Democrats publicly floated the idea, and since Democrats had bailed him out before on the debt and the CR.
Despite McCarthy’s demonstrated mendacity, some Democrats were still in the background indicating they’d consider saving him, just not for free. In response, McCarthy told them to pound sand. This episode is yet another rejoinder to falsehoods implying Democrats are as intransigent and opposed to compromise and negotiation as Republicans.
That some remain stubbornly wedded to bothsides inaccuracies is an issue for their therapists. No use engaging with folks who refuse to acknowledge reality.
I have to be honest here. Andy’s posts are floating off into the same world of lournsbury’s. Andy clearly hates the democratic party and reality doesn’t really matter because he’ll just make up or find his own “reality”. It’s blatantly apparent in his posts here that he holds the GOP to a different standard than the Democratic party. It’s always the Democratic party that has the agency to fix everything and not the GOP. If only the democratic weren’t such radical American haters things would be great!! Just look at his demands for examples. There’s plenty of examples out there which answer his demands yet for some reason Andy insists on believing said examples don’t exist. Then there’s the demands involving hypotheticals that are nowhere near reality or even relevant. Like the whole left wing Trump thing. Andy is trying so hard to convince others that both sides are the same that I wonder if he’s having a battle internally as parts of him are starting to acknowledge reality.
I’ve ran into people like him before in the service. They are decent people but they have to go through some crazy mental gymnastics to support a party that is hostile to their own existence/desires. Just because your family and friends have voted GOP for 50 years doesn’t mean you have to too…
I don’t know how to bridge the gap here because I imagine I have a LOT more to get along with Andy than I do lounswhatever. I just am getting tired of retreading the same Democrats and their voters are always the problem crap over and over…
@Matt:
He is a supporter of both current Democratic president Joe Biden, and of Jared Polis — a likely future Dem nominee for president or vice-president. FYI.
Contrarians just enjoy healthy debate and value argumentation.
As I said, below is the only stable answer, but far in the future if ever, time is just not ripe for it yet:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/05/mccarthy-speaker-coalition-government/
@DK: Yet over and over again in multiple threads for months Andy has made outright false claims about the democratic party. Hell just the last few days he’s been making crazy hypotheticals to try to prove how the Democratic party is really just as bad as the GOP. To me he seems like someone who is desperate to hate on the Democratic party but is forced to support them because even he realizes how nuts the GOP has gotten. I can relate as I was in a similar position post 9/11 and the freakout that happened. I didn’t want to support the Demonrats but the GOP’s actions to restrict freedom and spread fear/hatred forced me to switch.
I’m still the gun owning pro freedom small town red person I was back in the 90s but the parties have changed so much I’m no longer a GOP voter. People talk about how there’s a tendency to get more conservative as you age but I’ve been going the other way in politics. Mostly because I started actually educating myself on history and the actions of the parties (god bless the internet allowing me to get out of the local bubble). It cracks me up when locals are like “the GOP is PRO GUN AND THE DEMONCRATS WANT TO TAKE YOUR GUNS” despite the GOP being the ones who passed the most restrictive and comprehensive gun bans in this country’s history..