OK this should be the dems long range plan. Wait until Mccarthy sees he’s getting nowhere and there’s pressure on him to withdraw. Dems offer Jeffries or better Pelosi, who has a long track record of keeping her word on oral agreements, as speaker: the house then expels Gaetz and three other Never Kevin jerks, like Gosar, then Pelosi steps down. Win win
Yes, I know, and I don’t mean to be (too) flippant, but you know you’re talking about Matt Gaetz here, right?
From the mouth of Matty:
Illegal aliens have destroyed some of the most critical monarch butterfly habitats in the world. I bet you didn’t know that.
How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?
IMHO Gaetz is only lumped in with the other 19 in what he’s against. If we were to somehow wave a magic wand and make the House consist of only the 20 holdouts, Gaetz would probably be the odd man out. The other 19 are at least “honest” in the sense that they’ve publicly admitted to what I think of as “our alignment is chaotic evil and we’re not going to pretend to be lawful evil anymore.”
One of the talking heads on tv said what I thought was insightful, which I’ll paraphrase. What we have is a group holding the government hostage. What if there is nothing that you can give them to cause them to release the hostages, simply because they like holding hostages? You can’t reason with people who won’t reason.
What I’d like to see is a group of say five Democrats and five Republicans get together and say "Fuck those 20 halfwits. Rescind all of McCarthy’s concessions and we’ll make him Speaker provided the loony 20 get NO committee chairs or even be put on any committee, a clean debt ceiling raise for the rest of the Biden administration, and no kneecapping Ukraine.
There may be a slight flaw in that plan.
Yes we know. And I get where Sage_Rat is coming from: they’re “honest” in that they all have told/shown us exactly who they are, what do they want and that they want it now.
And as opposed to quite a few of the “sensible” McCarthy supporters who are being sensibe only because though they want exactly the same things for society, they’d rather have them implemented in a way that does not disrupt the market and their retirement planning, and keeps The Right People in charge of the oligarchy.
Sur, there are some outliers even there: MTG, for example, aligns with McCarthy. But IMO that’s because to her there is no point in simply burning down the building with herself inside it: she wants and likes her position of influence in the Culture War and she realizes that just collapsing the system altogther would render her irrelevant. Because she needs an establishment to fight while THEY most truly sincerely want the establishment destroyed.
Is there ANY R who could win a vote? Assuming McCarthy w/drew, is there any other R whom the 20 would vote for? I’m assuming the relatively sane Rs would never vote for a member of the 20.
I know it is folly to assume anything other than self interest from most Congresscritters, but what are McCarthy’s motivations? Anything besides personal power? And what is the motivation behind his supporters? Just an idea that he “deserves it” due to seniority? Because I’d think that the PRIMARY characteristic of a Speaker would be the ability to get things done - and he seems to be failing miserably at that.
I’m trying to figure out how, in McCarthy’s mind, the institution would be better off if he eventually becomes Speaker than if someone else became Speaker in a less divisive and embarrassing manner (if that is possible).
Whoda thunk the party of Insurrection couldn’t even manage the peaceful balance of power to itself? 
We don’t know yet, but the combination of McCarthy’s concessions + “Not McCarthy” could be enough to get both the 20 and the rest of the caucus on board behind somebody like Scalise or another mainstream Republican.
It seems to be largely that he (and his supporters) believe he has earned it. He has also probably made a lot of promises and deals with the expectation that he would be come Speaker and pay off those debts. Things like committee chairs and earmarks were undoubtedly promised, and it’s likely that’s where a lot of his support is coming from. Nobody wants to lose out on their side of a deal.
But no, I haven’t seen anybody really express the opinion that the institution would be better off with McCarthy personally as Speaker. He just doesn’t have that kind of skill or gravitas.
From what I’ve seen, he simply thinks that it’s his turn to be speaker.
A Bipartisan supported speaker would FINALLY bust the grid lock in Congress. The extremists in both parties couldn’t dictate policy.
It probably won’t happen. Party bullshit ruins bipartisanship.
Imho the Speaker of the House should lead the House and represent the interests of the people. The President is Democrat but he’s expected to lead the country. That includes people in other parties. The Speaker should have similar concerns.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/politics/mccarthy-speaker-vote-stalemate-what-matters/index.html
I’m fine with Democrats considering, with appropriate negotiations, a compromise Republican as speaker. But that should not be McCarthy. McCarthy is dishonorable and cannot be trusted.
I agree. McCarthy has already made unthinkable concessions to the radical Republicans.
He’s going to be permanently shackled to whatever the extremists demand. It’s shocking to give 20 junior members of Congress that much power.
IS there a Republican who can be trusted?
The republicans can disappear enough members to have Jeffries become speaker. If around 12 republicans don’t vote or vote present Jeffries is in. Today it is my understanding that 5 will not be there today.
So just 7 republicans can make this stop. Perhaps mr bacon could rally 6 others to this cause.
100%.
Improbable still but possible path forward:
McCarthy withdraws his name over the week end. Nominates Scalise.
Scalise is stuck too, and loses some “centrists” who refuse to let the FC have complete victory, see the circumstance as giving all control of the steering wheel to the craziest and won’t go along. (Alternatively they fall in line and let the Taliban Twenty win. Likely more probable, sadly.) Stall with their own place holder name while they seriously negotiate with Jeffries.
It takes a couple of days.
Jeffries starts from a position of trying to get six to come to him as leader with promises made (and enough going present does that too), but accepts an option such as Upton with enough in return.
Without hijacking with a deep discussion, I’m curious about which extremists on the left have been dictating policy the last few years, and what those policies have been.
AOC and other progressive members are in the news frequently. They are a small faction. But sometimes they gave Pelosi trouble.
Didn’t you know? All Democrats are extremist Marxists/Communists/socialists/Nazis/wokists, or so we are repeatedly assured by Republicans.
Progressive, yes. Extremists, no.
A very interesting article from the WaPo. Gift link. McCarthy is in danger of pissing off the 200 to suck up to the 20 and may see vote losses from the members elect who have had his back all along.
Chris Stewart (R-Utah) confirmed to MSNBC that there is a breaking point at which he and his fellow McCarthy backers could bolt, saying, “Honestly, there’s many of us who feel like we’re very, very close to that at this point.”
Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.) raised similar concerns Thursday morning. Speaking to reporters, he particularly objected to the McCarthy holdouts’ requests for subcommittee chairmanships. Among other things, McCarthy opponent Andy Harris (R-Md.) has reportedly been pushing for a health-related subcommittee chairmanship that Aderholt is in line for.