Kevin McCarthy will not run for speaker again after the House ousted him from the top leadership post in a historic vote on Tuesday, a move that threatens to plunge House Republicans into even further chaos and turmoil.
I think my feelings about this can be summed up as “holy fuck”. I thought the Dems might try to save him to avoid another budget shit show, but after he lied about them on Sunday and didn’t make any overtures to them, they gave him the middle finger as a bloc, and he deserves it.
Right now the Crazy Caucus is effectively acting as a third party spoiler, except they are actually in office, in a position of power.
Will a coalition form, as Hakeem Jeffries put on the table? This could effectively neuter the Crazy Caucus. Will R’s actually oust Gaetz and possibly others out of the House? Something else?
Without McCarthy running again or naming a successor, this is a real push-comes-to-shove moment for the R party.
Are there enough GOP House members from competitive or bluer districts that could swing this? I know the GOP has a razor thin majority, so it shouldn’t be that many who would need to vote with Democrats.
At the same time, that kind of thing, some kind of coalition, just isn’t feasible in the US. Any Republican, no matter if the district is safe or not, who votes for Jeffries would be primaried. And the primaries show us that the extremes tend to win them. It’d be political suicide.
We literally saw this in action on Saturday. McCarthy chose to put up a clean CR that Democrats were willing to and did support. And in return he just became the first Speaker to be removed through a Motion to Vacate.
I would argue what happened saturday and today, are different than working with democrats. McCarthy has flip flopped in helping Democrats and the far right. Of course he got kicked. He helped the right by offering them things in order to first secure his Speaker role, then they shot him in the foot with the debt limit, and he had to request help from democrats. He should have tried to work something out with democrats to begin with as the far right was never going to be happy with his decisions.
He should have tried to work something out with democrats to begin with
He worked out a deal with Biden months ago! He had a deal in may that he blew up because he had to bend the knee to the traitor caucus, so his dumb ass got what he deserved. And we get yet another clown show from the Republicans while they vote 2 dozen times for speaker.
It’s his own party that ate him. Dems don’t need to anything with them. Dems are trying to keep the country running, they cannot also play mom to every single GOP whiny baby that tosses a fit. The Republicans have got to get their shit together or don’t and split into two parties. Because a schism this large that has them sabotaging their own Speaker of the House, like the unity in the party is gone at this point.
As far as Dems being on the hook about this, this is all I have to say about it:
I know. I’m not saying the Dems needed to save him, just that I thought they might given the pressure of the CR. However, I think it’s a good move on their part to let the chips fall where they might right now.
The difference is that the CR averted a government shutdown that would have hurt thousands of people (if not more). Working to get that passed was the adult governance thing to do.
With the Speakership, this is an internal GOP affair. It’s their party in chaos and it’s better for Democrats to stay out of it. Let the Republicans get hurt politically because they can’t even keep their Speaker for 10 months. Perhaps, after a while, the Democrats will step in to help some moderate Republican win the Speakership with major concessions, but for now the Republicans can eat each other alive.
What was the lie on Sunday? When I searched for “mccarthy lie sunday” I get a bunch of stuff about Gaetz but nothing about what the lie was.
My jaw hit the floor when I saw this news though. As near as I can tell McCarthy took a huge political risk in giving the finger to the hardliners and working with the Democrats to get the budget through.
As it stands I expect 3 consequences:
Republicans will double down on never working with Democrats.
The hardliners will gain significant power within the Republican party
The Republicans are going to replace him with someone much more hard line
Every Republican will look at today’s events and decide that it’s political suicide to work with the Democrats. They’ve just seen that doing so will draw the ire of hardliners and gain no benefit from Democrats and even the leader of the party can get booted for doing so. Very few people will want to risk their careers on reaching across the isle.
Gaetz challenged McCarthy. McCarthy said, “Bring it on.” Gaetz brought it and won. So now Gaetz is going to run a few victory laps and every interaction he has with his party will carry an implicit, “Don’t fsck with me unless you want to get McCarthied.”
Given that Gaetz went after him specifically for working with the Democrats I expect that the Republicans will look for someone who is far less inclined to collaborate.
They’ve just seen that doing so will draw the ire of hardliners and gain no benefit from Democrats
If the speaker lied, reneged on deals, and was a dirty snake in the grass.
McCarthy could have had a deal weeks ago if he gave the hardliners the finger and went with the deal he agreed on. I would bet that the Dems absolutely would have supported him against Pizza Gaetz and the rest of the traitor causus just to piss them off. But dude has all the spine of a tank of jellyfish and double backed.
Maybe he’ll learn that he’s worthless if no one trusts him.
Thanks. It’s an interesting article but I don’t think it addresses the core of the problem. Who eats the rats when the dirty snake is gone?
The article covers a lot of reasons for Democrats to dislike McCarthy. That’s kind of a given though since he’s the leader of the opposition party during a time of heightened partisan rivalry.
It doesn’t address the question of if it’s actually a good idea.
The hope that Democrats will be able to force Republicans to elect a more moderate speaker seems like a moon shot. Democrats don’t have a majority and McCarthy barely managed to get past the objections of the hardliners. What chance does a more moderate speaker have?
Barring that unlikely scenario, the result is going to be an even more divided house. We don’t even know when a new speaker can be elected. The hardliners have shown that they can shut down someone who shows even a hint of compromise. If their power to obstruct just grew since the Patrick McHenry doesn’t have the power to actually pass laws. Those hardliners now have a credible chance at carrying out their threat to “Shut it all down.”
This article is pretty good actually: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/03/why-democrats-might-not-want-save-mccarthy/
haven’t finished reading it all, so it may mention this, but also McCarthy literally didn’t even want a deal with Democrats. Not much of a strong reason for Democrats to help an opponent unless it helps them, and with how much of a mess the Republican party is right now, Democrats may be able to get some moderate republicans to elect a D Speaker, at least for some time.
I think my feelings about this can be summed up as “holy fuck”. I thought the Dems might try to save him to avoid another budget shit show, but after he lied about them on Sunday and didn’t make any overtures to them, they gave him the middle finger as a bloc, and he deserves it.
Right now the Crazy Caucus is effectively acting as a third party spoiler, except they are actually in office, in a position of power.
Will a coalition form, as Hakeem Jeffries put on the table? This could effectively neuter the Crazy Caucus. Will R’s actually oust Gaetz and possibly others out of the House? Something else?
Without McCarthy running again or naming a successor, this is a real push-comes-to-shove moment for the R party.
I assume that the dems felt they had more to gain than to lose.
He also failed to honor the deal that he made with them to get into the speakership to start with, so there’s really no reason to negotiate with hkm.
Especially because they might be able to persuade moderate republicans to give them the speakership.
These fucks cannot be trusted. Every promise they make is made in bad faith.
Not disagreeing, there.
They learned from the best over in Russia.
Are there enough GOP House members from competitive or bluer districts that could swing this? I know the GOP has a razor thin majority, so it shouldn’t be that many who would need to vote with Democrats.
At the same time, that kind of thing, some kind of coalition, just isn’t feasible in the US. Any Republican, no matter if the district is safe or not, who votes for Jeffries would be primaried. And the primaries show us that the extremes tend to win them. It’d be political suicide.
We literally saw this in action on Saturday. McCarthy chose to put up a clean CR that Democrats were willing to and did support. And in return he just became the first Speaker to be removed through a Motion to Vacate.
I would argue what happened saturday and today, are different than working with democrats. McCarthy has flip flopped in helping Democrats and the far right. Of course he got kicked. He helped the right by offering them things in order to first secure his Speaker role, then they shot him in the foot with the debt limit, and he had to request help from democrats. He should have tried to work something out with democrats to begin with as the far right was never going to be happy with his decisions.
He worked out a deal with Biden months ago! He had a deal in may that he blew up because he had to bend the knee to the traitor caucus, so his dumb ass got what he deserved. And we get yet another clown show from the Republicans while they vote 2 dozen times for speaker.
Indeed. Had he honored the deal, perhaps the Democrats would have saved him. Instead, he made enemies of everyone and got himself removed.
It’s his own party that ate him. Dems don’t need to anything with them. Dems are trying to keep the country running, they cannot also play mom to every single GOP whiny baby that tosses a fit. The Republicans have got to get their shit together or don’t and split into two parties. Because a schism this large that has them sabotaging their own Speaker of the House, like the unity in the party is gone at this point.
As far as Dems being on the hook about this, this is all I have to say about it:
I know. I’m not saying the Dems needed to save him, just that I thought they might given the pressure of the CR. However, I think it’s a good move on their part to let the chips fall where they might right now.
The difference is that the CR averted a government shutdown that would have hurt thousands of people (if not more). Working to get that passed was the adult governance thing to do.
With the Speakership, this is an internal GOP affair. It’s their party in chaos and it’s better for Democrats to stay out of it. Let the Republicans get hurt politically because they can’t even keep their Speaker for 10 months. Perhaps, after a while, the Democrats will step in to help some moderate Republican win the Speakership with major concessions, but for now the Republicans can eat each other alive.
What was the lie on Sunday? When I searched for “mccarthy lie sunday” I get a bunch of stuff about Gaetz but nothing about what the lie was.
My jaw hit the floor when I saw this news though. As near as I can tell McCarthy took a huge political risk in giving the finger to the hardliners and working with the Democrats to get the budget through.
As it stands I expect 3 consequences:
Every Republican will look at today’s events and decide that it’s political suicide to work with the Democrats. They’ve just seen that doing so will draw the ire of hardliners and gain no benefit from Democrats and even the leader of the party can get booted for doing so. Very few people will want to risk their careers on reaching across the isle.
Gaetz challenged McCarthy. McCarthy said, “Bring it on.” Gaetz brought it and won. So now Gaetz is going to run a few victory laps and every interaction he has with his party will carry an implicit, “Don’t fsck with me unless you want to get McCarthied.”
Given that Gaetz went after him specifically for working with the Democrats I expect that the Republicans will look for someone who is far less inclined to collaborate.
The lie is likely a reference to McCarthy going on air trying to pin the potential shutdown on the Dems
https://nitter.catsarch.com/atrupar/status/1708492417001759040#m
That’s correct.
If the speaker lied, reneged on deals, and was a dirty snake in the grass.
McCarthy could have had a deal weeks ago if he gave the hardliners the finger and went with the deal he agreed on. I would bet that the Dems absolutely would have supported him against Pizza Gaetz and the rest of the traitor causus just to piss them off. But dude has all the spine of a tank of jellyfish and double backed.
Maybe he’ll learn that he’s worthless if no one trusts him.
Thanks. It’s an interesting article but I don’t think it addresses the core of the problem. Who eats the rats when the dirty snake is gone?
The article covers a lot of reasons for Democrats to dislike McCarthy. That’s kind of a given though since he’s the leader of the opposition party during a time of heightened partisan rivalry. It doesn’t address the question of if it’s actually a good idea.
The hope that Democrats will be able to force Republicans to elect a more moderate speaker seems like a moon shot. Democrats don’t have a majority and McCarthy barely managed to get past the objections of the hardliners. What chance does a more moderate speaker have?
Barring that unlikely scenario, the result is going to be an even more divided house. We don’t even know when a new speaker can be elected. The hardliners have shown that they can shut down someone who shows even a hint of compromise. If their power to obstruct just grew since the Patrick McHenry doesn’t have the power to actually pass laws. Those hardliners now have a credible chance at carrying out their threat to “Shut it all down.”
This article is pretty good actually: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/03/why-democrats-might-not-want-save-mccarthy/ haven’t finished reading it all, so it may mention this, but also McCarthy literally didn’t even want a deal with Democrats. Not much of a strong reason for Democrats to help an opponent unless it helps them, and with how much of a mess the Republican party is right now, Democrats may be able to get some moderate republicans to elect a D Speaker, at least for some time.