Republican ‘Hardliners’ Are Idiots
Castrating their party's Speaker is not smart politics.
CNN (“McCarthy commits to key concession in call with frustrated lawmakers but it’s no guarantee he’ll win speakership“):
House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy outlined some of the concessions that he has agreed to in his campaign for speaker on a Sunday evening conference call – including making it easier to topple the speaker, according to multiple GOP sources on the call. But McCarthy could not say whether he would have the votes for the speakership, even after giving in to some of the right’s most hardline demands.
Later Sunday evening, House Republicans unveiled their rules package for the 118th Congress, which formalizes some of the concessions that McCarthy has agreed to. The House adopts its rules package only after it selects a speaker, which McCarthy has not locked down, so there could be additional compromises made in the coming days.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter from the California Republican, he made his case for the speakership and offered additional promises, including ensuring that the ideological groups are better represented on committees.
Not long after Sunday’s call, a group of nine hardliners – who had outlined their demands to McCarthy last month – put out a new letter saying some of the concessions he announced are insufficient and making clear they’re still not sold on him, though they did say progress is being made.
“Thus far, there continue to be missing specific commitments with respect to virtually every component of our entreaties, and thus, no means to measure whether promises are kept or broken,” the members wrote in the letter obtained by CNN.
This group is still pushing to give a single lawmaker the power to call for a vote toppling the speaker, and they also want a commitment that leadership won’t play in primaries, among other things. Since McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes on the House floor, it means he still has a lot of work to do before Tuesday.
The California Republican had told his members in Sunday’s call that after weeks of negotiations, he has agreed to a threshold as low as five people to trigger a vote on ousting the speaker at any given time, known as the “motion to vacate” the speaker’s chair, and pitched it as a “compromise.” CNN first reported last week that he was supportive of that threshold.
Some moderates – who fear the motion to vacate will be used as constant cudgel over McCarthy’s head – pushed back and expressed their frustration during the call, sources said.
McCarthy is a cowardly weasel whose only seeming fealty is to his own ambition. By trying to have it both ways on insurrection, he has pleased nobody. But his party is going to have a razor-thin majority of on House of Congress with a Democratic Senate and White House. The Speaker has to be powerful for the party to have any influence at all.
If McCarthy had any intestinal fortitude—alas, see above—he would tell these idiots to pound sand. If they had an alternative that could get the support of a majority of the caucus, they’d put him up. So, they either give McCarthy the power due a Speaker or he and three others hand the job to Hakeem Jeffries.
This brings to mind the Napoleonic expression, “never interrupt the enemy while he is committing a blunder.”
Does any one know what time the vote is tomorrow? Will it be on C-span?
If it goes 133 ballots like 100 years ago* maybe CNN can show the vote split screen with the Titanic!
*Apparently that took 3 months but I’d watch the boat sink and then Apocalypse Now, The Godfather movies and just for shitz and grins Mr. Smith Goes to Washington while the circus plays on.
Yeah, this is impressive. It used to be “on brand” for the Democrats to come out of an election with a slim majority and then want to legislate as if they had a mandate.
I get that the MAGA Republicans aren’t the brightest ones in the boat, but somebody has to realize that this is never going to work (and some are more bandwagon MAGA rather than true believers). I mean there are a lot of moderate Republicans who just beat out Democrats by extremely slim margins. They are not going to want to be within spitting distance of any of the wackos who are going to spend two years proving that Republicans can’t govern.
I guess I’m biased, but it seems to me that people are just sick and tired of all of this contentious nonsense. I find it hard to believe that any group can sustain a constant drumbeat of negativity, fear, and alarm without people just tuning out. At least that’s what I’d like to think.
I would have told the insurgent wannabes to pound sand well before now. McCarthy will find out this compromise (if it gets him elected) won’t hold together longer than about three months.
One of those nine “hardliners” is my Neo-Confederate Congressman, Chip Roy. The key to Chip Roy is that he loves to put on the act of a tough guy, but he’s not. He rails against the Swamp but would desperately like to be part of it. He already is part of the Texas Swamp subdivision. He lives to be on the talk shows, but cannot manage to have any public townhalls. Last Texas legislature rearranged our district boundaries to make it safer for him and had the additional benefit of moving his house (a million dollar estate somehow acquired by being on a government salary his whole career) into the district boundaries.
Yeah, he’s not my favorite.
Yesterday NYT ran a story on Elise Stefanik asking why she changed from a moderate to now a total MAGAt. Most commentary observes that nothing changed. She was a careerist asshat with no actual beliefs when she arrived in Congress and she still is. McCarthy is no different. And the same could probably be said for a large, bipartisan, list of pols.
I sometimes note “drift” as a point of asymmetry between the parties. Republicans are able to play to their local constituent base without regard to the effect on Party effectiveness because there isn’t anything they, or their funders, really want to do. Beyond endless investigations they have no agenda, no program, and since 2020 not even a BS platform. Even with a weak speaker they can still come together to block whatever the Dems are trying to do today, updated daily.
He’d retire and give the GOP caucus the finger as he was going out the door.
@Rick DeMent:
I think people are. But just as GOPs have managed to run against “the establishment” while largely being the establishment, the dividers have managed to convince the rubes that the other side are the dividers. Once you’ve basically invented CRT out of whole cloth, you’re not the divider, it’s all the imaginary proponents of CRT in grade school who are the real dividers. Reading comments at conservative sites is an education in mass delusion. Biden is referred to as The Great Divider. Obama is often described as the individual who most drove division. It’s not the fault of FOX/GOP exploiting Obama’s race, it’s Obama for having the effrontery to be Black.
Does the one person/5 person only apply to Republicans? Not sure if the Dems would use it, but if reversed, I guarantee Reps would every week.
@Rick DeMent: I suppose that in aggregate we’re sick and tired of all the contentious nonsense, but by individual legislative district we probably tend to believe that our Congressperson is the only one standing against complete chaos and anarchy. Why we believe this is beyond me. though, given that we vote for chaos and anarchy every two years.
Not me, I know Luetkemeyer is a contributor to the chaos. He’s a Repub, how could he be anything else?
The fact that people voted for Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bobert, Matt Gaetz, etc, etc, shows that some Americans LOVE the chaos. These are known nutjobs, and their constituents still voted for them.
I have very little faith in the GOP being able to reign in their crazies. Ever.
If the man had a sterner backbone, I would think this concession would be a deliberate FU to the Q Caucus. They can remove him, but they have no one to replace him with, so they have to accept him anyway.
It forces acquiescence the same way Trump hinting at a third party run, or Sinema’s independent gambit hopes to.
But it requires being willing to walk away to work.
Of course, the job is going to be shit, so the only way one should accept it is if they literally don’t care.
Where do the thumbs up votes go?
I just gave EddieInCa an up vote. Left the thread, returned to find no up votes where I had just left one. Now it won’t record anything.
This happens all the time.
I think maybe Rudy should look intio this.
Now I’ve got the EDIT key and EddieInCa has two votes. I wonder if one of them is mine? I’m calling for a canvass.
@OzarkHillbilly: Sure, but you’re an outlier to begin with.
The word “hardliner” in the headline was unnecessary.
While it’s quite a spectacle, and popcorn worthy for sure, I demur at labeling the refuseniks as “idiots”. I think they are probably getting exactly what they want out of this course of events, which is headlines and their names in media that their constituents and more importantly, donors, consume.
It’s all a drama about who has the most sincere pumpkin patch. Recall that this was what was appealing about Trump to many Republicans – he said things that he couldn’t easily walk back, and this meant they trusted him more.
I’m not saying this is working for me, but I’d be cautious about assuming that those not voting for McCarthy (yet) aren’t getting what they want.