“Let’s nominate someone indicted for fraud. That doesn’t make me look suspicious at all.”
TL;DR: I think it’s a play to help Trump (if that’s even possible) at taxpayer expense.
Another way to look at it, is that she and the Freedom Caucus are trying to make it impossible to fill the speaker position. Last time took 15 tries over 4 days. We have a pro-tempore speaker, but legislation will take a back seat to filling the Gavelmeister (I mean speaker).
This data is from Sept. 20 https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/politics/mccarthy-house-speaker-vote-margin-numbers-dg/index.html
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31 far-right Republicans who have repeatedly voted against McCarthy
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18 moderate Republicans in districts Biden won in 2020
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172 other Republicans
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212 Democrats
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2 vacancies
That’s 435 seats (2 vacant). From 2001 to 2021, the Senate spent an average of 164 days in session each year, and the House spent an average of 149 days in session (source https://ballotpedia.org/117th_Congress_legislative_calendar). The annual salary of a rank-and-file Member of Congress is $174,000 (source: https://www.congressionalinstitute.org/2019/02/21/how-much-do-members-of-congress-get-paid-2/)
So each day of this clusterbuck, each member of congress is getting just over $1,167. Multiply that by 433 (the number of filled seats in Congress) and we spend $505,651 or half-a-million dollars each day for congress to twiddle their thumbs. It cost the US taxpayer more than 2 million dollars to elect McCarthy, and now we’re going to pay to find a replacement.
While the republicans have the majority, it is fractured by extremists and moderates. The democrats won’t vote for an extremist republican, so most likely 212 (Dem) + 18 moderates = 230 Nay, even if 172 others + 31 extremists say yea, the vote fails. But if the 31 extremists say nay to a moderate, it’s going to take democrats reaching across the aisle, and then Gaetz plays the ouster card again.
We have a continuation resolution to keep the Government going for 45 days, or until Nov. 14. If The Freedom Caucus keeps the speaker position churning, the government may shut down because they are too busy playing “who gets the gavel?”. The far right is pushing to cut funding for the F.B.I. and the Justice Department (source https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/us/politics/trump-house-budget-fbi-republicans.html) because this could help save Trump. But even if they got what they wanted now, I don’t see New York stopping their trial, and I don’t see Georgia just rolling over. Trump’s bacon is being held to the fire. All the Freedom Caucus is doing is creating Chaos. I could hope their supporters would see this as an expensive Hail Mary, but I doubt it; they will probably get re-elected and this circus will continue.
Bluntly, I don’t think he’d accept the job, because it involves a hell of a lot more actual work than the comically small amount of actual job-related stuff he did while being president, and it’s not something he can skate by on. If he is elected to the speakership and then just doesn’t show up… the House can’t do anything. Which, sure, might be the point, but it would also be extremely obvious that they’re just throwing rocks in the gears, and it’d be essentially impossible to convince anyone with more than a couple brain cells that it’s because of Democrats - and translated into the context of the American electorate, that means it’s a toss-up.
18 moderate Republicans in districts Biden won in 2020
Nah, there’s just about 18 fewer moderate Republicans in Congress than that. It’s a fascist party with a few paleoconservatives like Cheney and opportunistic corporate raiders like Romney looking moderate in comparison by virtue of not frothing at the mouth while actually still being far right.
The only moderate conservatives in Congress are Democrats.
So their two best candidates are a, multiple court case proven conman, and the man who protected a high profile pedophile for years? The US is doing really well at the moment.
The GOP is just fucking crazy and a danger to this country.
“Does her entire constituency look like the movie Deliverance?” - Keith Olbermann
The GOP is just fucking crazy and a danger to this country
They are simply a terrorist group at this point, and by extension so are the GOP voters who support all this
Is this not how extremist groups have risen to popularity in the past? Looks pretty fucking crazy until they start using their insanity to move people (primarily reactionary, fearful idiots) into action. Hmm. This all sounds a bit familiar… not sure from where/when though. It’s on the tip of my tounge 🤔
Trump can’t be Speaker for five reasons:
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Endangered Republicans from Biden districts won’t vote for him, or they’re doomed
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He has no understanding of House rules or procedures
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He’s going to be spending most days in court, losing his businesses and facing felony jail time.
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Being speaker involves forming coalitions with other people
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Too much work
House Republicans have ignored their own rules as late as like, 2 weeks ago, or some shit when they just decided to imprach without a vote.
Rules smules.
I dunno, He seems pretty incapable of doing the work. I doubt he could even understand the job, considering he ‘won against Obama in 2016’ and ‘is worried about Biden causing world war II’
trump can fill the role in their minds for all those same reasons:
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Endangered republicans would need a spine to push back. Doubtful.
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Understanding of rules and procedures meant nothing when he was president. They don’t care, they want a figure head who will bend / break whatever rules (written or unwritten)to “hurt the people he should be hurting”. There will never be a day that they look at rules and think “well that’s prob too much for the wrecking ball, never mind I guess.”
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Fuck the courts in their minds. It’s all fake charges/witch hunt/circus/conspiracy babies blah blah blah. Remember, they deny/make up reality as they go along. I’m sure at one point instead of claiming “immunity” from presidential acts, trump will then shift to immunity from those cases because of speaker shit.
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When did trump or the republican party care about coalitions? Sure that’s a skill that would help make them effective, but it didnt stop trump from firing and hiring record amounts of staff, losing record amounts to indictments, and burning every bridge in town. Only to be potentially nominated for speakership by the lowest of the low. Coalitions are for people who don’t care about fucking 50% of the country via 15-20% of a party. There’s been 4 years of evidence how that played out with trump.
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When did trump ever do the work in the first place? He golfed more in 4 years than any other president did in. 8.
Let’s be clear. Trump would be considered for the speakership by the GOP purely for 2 reasons, to fuck Joe Biden every chance, and to encourage enough stochastic terrorism such that a maga loving shitbird shoots the President and Vp to open up a path for republican assholes.
What would actually happen when the house speaker doesn’t show up for work?
The first thing that will happen is that nothing will happen, the speaker controls the floor, which means without the Speaker no legislation is passed.
1 is the only reason he lilkely won’t win a nomination vote, the rest are reasons people might actually vote for him. There’s people to keep the rules and procedures straight for you, and the last 3 are great reasons that all but the most basic and necessary bills would be killed, and even some of them would be in jeopardy.
The speaker does not, actually, need to be a member of the House of Representatives.
Have you seen his cult? I’d say the guy is scary good at forming coalitions.
He is, was, and always has been a conman. He’s scary good at convincing morons to hand him money, and that’s pretty much his one and only skill. That’s very different from forming a coalition which is about getting people that barely tolerate each other to agree to work together.
On the topic of how rabid his fans are, I wonder how much sunk cost fallacy plays into the whole thing. Like once you hand a big chunk of money to the orange turd do you continue to back him no matter what because to change your mind would be to admit you wasted all that money?
I am eager to see how all of this plays out.
We effectively have three parties now. There’s the Democrats, the Republicans, and the MAGA extremists. The problem is that the MAGA extremists are simultaneously a much smaller group than either of the two major parties while also being juuuuuust large enough to make sure that neither one of the other two parties actually have a controlling majority.
Somewhat ironically, our system actually was designed to handle this. The entire system was designed so everybody involved would negotiate, compromise, and elect one speaker that everybody can at least agree with. Theoretically, we should be able to handle this without issue. The problem is that our system was barely able to handle a two-party system where both sides dig in their heels, double down, and view any concession at all as a “loss” rather than compromise and negotiate, because at least one side could use its majority to push something through one way or another.
But now we effectively have a three party system. Our system was not designed to handle a situation where three parties refuse to negotiate or compromise over virtually anything, but none have enough of a majority to push anything through. Especially when one of the three sides has openly stated their intent to just watch the whole thing burn.
One of three things is going to have to happen.
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The MAGA wing eventually backs down. IMO, doing this would effectively kill whatever influence they have even in their own party as backing down would make this entire ordeal a bigger waste of time than it already is. This would probably lead to the return of Kevin McCarthy as speaker with MTG’s hand crammed right up his ass, but only this time even more emboldened as he would no longer have to worry about the deals he made to get the speaker’s gavel in the first place.
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Moderate Republicans are going to have to work with Democrats to get Democrat support for a moderate Republican speaker. However, doing so is guaranteed to come with a whole new list of heavy concessions that would be all but politically suicidal for a Republican to accept. This would also make it nigh-impossible to govern as the Speaker would have the impossible task of balancing the wants of his own party with whatever deal he’d be forced to make with Democrats in order to get the position. (This idea would also be untenable to Democrats, as they’d have no power to enforce whatever agreement they would make once the new speaker is installed, and there would be nothing stopping a new speaker from just telling Democrats where they can shove their agreement.)
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Moderate Republicans double-down on their refusal to work with Democrats and instead begrudgingly accept a MAGA-endorsed candidate on MAGA terms just so someone gets the gavel. This would effectively put us right back where we started, with either Kevin McCarthy as speaker or someone worse than Kevin McCarthy, and just like he was, they’d have the Sword of MAGA swinging over their heads forcing him to do their bidding whether he wants to or not. This would significantly embolden the MAGA party, as they would be able to say “You will do what we say or we will oust you just like we did McCarthy”. People like MTG would become exponentially more insufferable than they already are with that kind of power in their hands.
Get the popcorn ready. This is gonna be one hell of a ride.
Both sides didn’t dig their heels in and refuse to compromise. One side compromised plenty to the annoyance of their voters (dems giving concessions to republicans)
The other side never compromised, then said “fuck you”, claimed dems are at fault, stormed the capitol and acted like those “maga extremists” were the normal ones.
This isn’t a both sides thing when one side is fucking committing insurrection while shutting down the gov, that’s not on democrats.
I didn’t say Democrats were wrong for refusing to compromise in this situation. If I were a member of the House, I’d sit back and watch them eat themselves too.
Both sides are refusing to compromise. Just for completely different reasons. Democrats are refusing to compromise because the GOP policies are untenable, they repeatedly go back on their word, and it’s not their responsibility to save the GOP from themselves (again). Republicans are refusing to compromise because they have the collective mentality of a 7 year old, their own (now former) speaker just went on record yesterday saying that they know they’re supposed to compromise but just don’t want to because they’re the majority party and fuck you that’s why.
My statement about neither side being willing to compromise wasn’t a “both sides” attack. It was merely an acknowledgement of the current situation. The reasons why they refuse to compromise are what separates the two sides.
Thank you. It’s critically important to recognize that each party does do similar things sometimes, but it’s also crucial to recognize the difference in motivation behind those similar actions, and to acknowledge that the motivation is sometimes just as important as the action that results from the motivation.
It’s just a fundamentally flawed system since it’s always easier to campaign AGAINST something instead of FOR something since the moment you make a constructive offer you’re making yourself attachable while being destructive works without being open for attacks of any kind
Normally this can be resolved by there being too many parties and too many different viewpoints to oppose all of them without being crazy - but with just two parties it gets too easy to see every of those two as a single entity as and just oppose whatever they are doing
Theoretically, six moderate republicans could vote for a Democratic speaker.
If they can secure their families in undisclosed locations and get extra security detail.
I would be nominated for speaker before a Republican votes for any Democrat speaker. Never mind the almost guaranteed threats of violence you mentioned, doing so would have been political suicide even in saner times. No congressman from that side who wants to remain in Congress and continue breathing is ever going to do that in today’s political environment.
I’d love to see it, but it’s never, ever, ever going to happen.
it’s never, ever, ever going to happen
That’s been said about a lot of things that have happened in the last 7 years.
Theoretically, six moderate republicans could vote for a Democratic speaker.
I keep reading that Democrats aren’t obligated to help Republicans fix their Speaker issue, which is undeniably true, so why do so many people think that Republicans are going to hand the Speakership to their political rivals?
I mean in theory 8 moderate Democrats could vote for a Republican Speaker. Why do we think one of those is going to happen before another?
In the end all Gaetz & Co did here was make sure any legislation that comes out of the House until the next election cycle is FAR more liberal and bi-partisan than anything that would have happened under McCarthy.
The thought is you’re more likely to find 8 republicans willing to stay sane, instead of 8 democrats to sell their soul to this political death cult theater.
I mean right now no one in their right mind would want to saddle up with the magats shutting down the gov. That’s not why they were elected and it’s a good way to not get re-elected.
Sooo… 8 dems go maga? Or 8 republicans plead for normalcy… I agree both seem unlikely but you’d have to be a fool to take this as standard “both sides” gridlock.
We need something akin to a “vote of no confidence” when Congress refuses to work.
You didn’t pass a budget? Great, we get to elect new people who will.
There needs to be some sort of consequences for not governing.
The problem is that we have career politicians in the first place. Power needs to change hands much more frequently. The way things are now, if snap elections were called when congress failed to pass the budget, nearly every district would go “it’s not MY rep that’s the problem” and send the same people back again.
I mean, there sort of are consequences. It’s just that it takes two years.
Except in practice no one ever seems to vote out congress(wo) men for being inneffective. They just keep voting in the incumbent as long as they’re in the right party
Our system was designed to handle this situation. The remedy is in the press, outside the offices of intransigent members of Congress, in campaigns for Democratic Congresspeople, and at the ballot box.
Free speech is protected in the US specifically to air grievances with the government. You have to get off your ass to exercise it though. It’s not going to happen without you engaging in the electoral process.
Yours is one of those comments where I wish we were still on Reddit so I could give you Gold or Platinum.