That’s why the House has a discharge petition.
https://archives-democrats-rules.house.gov/archives/discharge_pet.htm
I don’t know why you think this will be different with or without “input” from Democrats. Republicans as a caucus are singularly focused on giving Dems/Joe Biden no wins whatsoever.
Also, you should probably acquaint yourself with discharge petitions. There are ways for Dems to force votes if they have enough assistance from moderate Republicans. I refer you to an earlier post in the thread as one example.
ETA: Ninja’d by @silentus!
On average, everybody likes their own congressperson, but the rest of them suck. I don’t see that as a problem, but either way, given increasing polarization, I don’t see better collaboration increasing approval….most legislation is mostly seen as zero-sum. Occasionally you do see a bounce, like around 9/11, but it’s rare.
There was never a chance in hell that the next speaker would be chosen with any Democratic input. The current crop of Republicans are not about bipartisanship, or compromise, or leadership or governing. They are the party of “no”. The party of obstruction. Even when they hold the majority in the House, they are the Party of Obstruction. They are now obstructing themselves.
Their only plan at this point is to hold hearing after hearing after hearing about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and how those poor insurrectionists were treated so meanly by the Bad Democrats.
Eh, the majority of people in a congressional district like their congressperson, that’s how they got elected.
But somewhere between 10-49% of those in the district do not.
The news on this today has been a sheer delight! My friend captured a picture on his phone of the news on TV with Nancy Pelosi smiling (or laughing) with the headline “McCarthy appears to lose speakership vote”. Couldn’t happen to a nicer weasel. 
Why not? You said “Congress, as a whole, polls poorly despite a history of boring leadership contests.” When did that poor polling start? As Congress has gotten more polarized, has public approval gone up or down?
My impression (and I can try to find some support for this if requested) is that approval has gone down in recent decades, just as the partisanship and disfunction has increased. Correlation does not equal causation, but I think it’s a better place to start than the Freedom Caucus’s obstinate opposition.
I’m wondering whether this isn’t mostly because there is a tradition, in the U.S., of non-interference in the speakership selection process by the minority party.
In the U.K. House of Commons, despite generally greater party discipline, there is a tradition that the speaker acts in a non-partisan manner, and that’s what happens. So I’m not sure it is written in stone that the way it has always been, when it comes to speaker selection, can’t change.
Well first, I didn’t say that, some other poster did. And second, approval has increased negligibly in the era of polarization, but it’s lower than long-term.
So far they haven’t shown that they can do it. At all. Nevermind quickly.
I am not sure who nominates candidates for SotH, but I read somewhere about a month ago someone suggested, half-jokingly, that Liz Cheney would garner all the Democratic votes, and likely some from Republicans - enough to become speaker. Wouldn’t that be great?! (if true).
The speaker in the UK (and in Canada) is a completely different kind of position. Like, utterly different. You are correct - the speaker in these countries is non-partisan. They oversee the debates in the house of commons, and rule on matters of decorum and debate, based on rules of order. What they DO NOT do, is decide what bills may come to the floor, or who is appointed to cabinet posts. They have very limited power within the party. They are a debate moderator.
The Democrats are far from a lock step party. They had a similar disagreement with regard to Pelosi’s speakership in 2019. but they negotiated, and compromise and reached an effective consensus solution before the deadline. What happened to the Republicans doesn’t represent diversity of viewpoints it represents ineffective dysfunction.
That is the sad/scary/pick-your-adjective thing about this. The break isn’t between sane and loony republicans, its between, loony and batshit crazy.
Around the 14th ballot I’m expecting Greene to stand up and nominate “Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Blackpool Rock Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable Brrroooo Norman Michael (rings bell) (blows whistle) Edward (sounds car horn) (does train impersonation) (sounds buzzer) Thomas Moo… (sings) ‘We’ll keep a welcome in the…’ (fires gun) William (makes silly noise) ‘Raindrops keep falling on my’ (weird noise) ‘Don’t sleep in the subway’ (cuckoo cuckoo) Naaoooo… Smith.”
Oh, my mistake. I saw that @PhillyGuy had posted again and thought he was replying to my post as well. My apologies.
First will be Kevin Phillip BOOONGGG! (slightly silly party)
Eh, she voted 93% of the time with Trump, more than even Jordan. I really admire her actions on 1/6 and impeachment, but I don’t know that she would be all that much better.
Though I guess it would be fun to poke Kevin McCarthy in the eye.
That’s okay, everyone’s posting at once, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. 
The Republicans have been fractured for a long time. It made it almost impossible for John Boehner and later for Paul Ryan. The R Speakers job is thankless and miserable. Imagine negotiating a bill and then have your own members fail to pass it. Ryan’s tenure was hell.
Today was a shit show and embarrassing.
It’s almost like they didn’t know the vote was today.
“Holy Hell! I missed the dress rehersal!”
Yes, more correctly they are the arbiter and voice of parliamentary business.
During Charles I’s attempted arrest of the Five Members 1641.
In the UK parliament, once appointed the Speakers seat in parliament is not challenged at subsequent elections and they do not attend their party room.
In Australian parliaments the Speaker does caucus with their party, is opposed every election and is accordingly more party partisan.