And if by some miracle they survive re-election, the rest of the Republican party will never speak to them again.
Sounds like a major benefit, to me at this point.
If I were a Democratic House member, the only way I’d even consider bailing the Republicans’ sorry assess out of this mess is with these stipulations
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A compromise speaker with absolutely no higher political aspirations than to take care of House business competently for the next two years.
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An iron-clad assurance that all motions to impeach Biden, subpoena Hunter’s laptop, reopen the Benghazi investigation, etc. disappear down a rabbit hole never to be talked about again.
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The Republicans police their own idiots by denying them committee assignments, or better yet, giving them the worst committee assignments possible. And no help from Republican PACs until they’ve shown they can play nice - let them go out and raise their own contributions.
You’d still need GOP votes to expel them; and quite a lot of those votes. Making Jeffries the speaker wouldn’t somehow make the Democrats the majority party - let alone the two-thirds majority party.
The problem is, is there anyone left in there who they can trust?
They’re supposed to be more concerned about the welfare of the country than about their chances of being re-elected.
Yes, I know. Bwah-hah-hah-hah. There were Republicans of that sort; but the few that were still in Congress are pretty much gone now.
But, you know, re-election worries are a reason. They’re not an excuse.
Maybe another 50 or 100 useless votes will do it?
I think the first thing that happens (besides a lot of laughter echoing in their ears) is that they and their staffers start missing their expected paychecks. A lot of the representatives can afford it for a while; some of their staff, probably not so much.
For some it might be getting what they had been promised taken away … like that subcommittee chair. For others the informed self-interest that the most extreme few having control of virtually everything will make them unelectable as Republicans in their purple districts next cycle. But boy, if they aren’t at that breaking point NOW where is it?
IMHO it’ll be when we get to the far far right holdouts. Right now McCarthy is focused on Chip Roy and the 10 or so he claimed he could bring along. The 200 are ok with that. Once that part is over and McCarthy starts having to win over a Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, or Bob Good, however, the concessions he has to give them might be a bridge too far. Or maybe not.
Jeffries starts the negotiation with it being HIM and giving them things in return. He settles for that as the least acceptable offer.
Or when it is all these concessions and the most crazy have won on McCarthy too? Or not even then, they are that weak and spineless?
No of course not. Making Jeffries (or Pelosi) Speaker is a temporary measure–the Dems would LOVE to expel Gaetz and Gosar etc as seditionists. McCarthy would LOVE to expel them as assholes, disloyal members of his caucus, pains in his Irish ass etc. Once the House is down to 430 members with them expelled, the temporary Dem speaker resigns (as promised), and McCarthy wins 218-212 over Jeffries and everyone gets what he wants.
Maybe the Dems wait for Scalise or some more reasonable GOP figure to run for Speaker first, but expelling a few recalcitrant GOP hardliners would allow for a Speaker to be chosen–and everyone hates the 4 or 5 Never Kevins for different reasons.
This is really the key to it all. Some of the GOP members will have to do some real soul-searching. It should be clear by now that McCarthy is not going to win just on the basis of GOP votes alone. The Crazy Wing simply won’t allow that.
So to break the log jam, the GOP is going to have to go one way or the other. Capitulate to the Crazy Wing, and vote for whatever candidate they demand, and whatever rules they demand, or work with the Democrats, to find a bipartisan candidate. I can’t see it working any other way.
I believe the Czech word for yes is “ano”.
I know Ken Buck (R-CO) is not in the chambers because he has a prescheduled medical procedure today and I saw someone say there are 7 out today. How many of those are Dems?
I’m highly dubious that a large number of the current GOP House want to do something as drastic as expel a significant number of their members.
Especially considering how thin their majority is already. To make it work, they might have to expel enough to lose that majority entirely. There are currently 19 or 20 votes blocking McCarthy, not 5. Some of them would cave; but others might join in, out of indignation at the deal and/or at the expulsions – if there’d be enough votes for the expulsions in the first place.
Reporting is that 5 republicans will not be in attendance today. They have other commitments. They have all been voting for McCarthy.
If 7-8 more republicans don’t attend or vote present Jeffries wins.
Expel the worst 5, and then see what happens. “Pour encourager les autres.”
Agreed. Of all the unlikely things to happen, I’d put “Republicans expel the nutjobs” somewhere below “Sentient dolphins rise from the depths of the ocean and enact martial law on the surface world.”
So much of this thread is predicated on the question, “But what if a majority of Republican representatives suddenly decide to act like decent, reasonable human beings?” As I keep saying, if they were going to do that, they would already have done that.
It’s possible–barely possible–that a half-dozen Republican representatives will finally declare themselves for team Fuck it, let’s act like humans for once. But even that seems really unlikely at this stage.
Everyone keeps talking about Scalise as a possible fallback. Why is it that none of the 20 never-Kevins (nevers-Kevin?) has tried nominating Scalise to try to crack the McCarthy block?
I, for one, welcome our new delphine overlords.
That said, I think you still overestimate the chances they expel anybody. Warlike, sentient dolphins are considerably more likely.
That runs counter to electoral strategy, which is and has been the primary consideration. There’s still the dream/hope/fever dream that they can somehow cater to the voters who want the crazy wing while maintaining some semblance of effective governance, even if ‘effective’ in their minds is endless Hunter Biden investigations, impeachment threats, and so forth.
At long last, after years and years of this nonsesnse, they’ve hit the point where they can no longer needle that thread.
They don’t want him, either.
It’s a bit of a Hail Mary sort of idea.
He’d be somebody the establishment Republicans could still support but maybe with less baggage for the 20.
Can’t call them ‘never Kevins’ because of Hern, har, har, har 
I said it’s less likely than tyrant porpoises, and you still think I’m overestimating the chances? Either I’m misunderstanding you, or else you have interesting ideas about marine evolution and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
They’re the “Never KevinS”. They can still have one Kevin, and that’s Hern.
It says ‘No Kevins.’ We’re allowed to have one.
Dang it. Ninjad.