Zactly. “Government shutdown” is a total misnomer.
Most of what matters, and especially what matters to right-leaning citizens continues totally unchanged during a “government shutdown”. The only thing that changes is some poor people have fewer services, and some government workers, mostly in the more left-leaning departments, do without wages for a week or a month or two.
What’s not to like about that if you’re a modern “run-of-the-mill” = hard right R or even a full bore Reactionary Wacko Traitor? “Not much wrong with that” is the answer.
Basically all the Democrats can promise them (moderate GOP members in Biden districts) is something like: “we won’t fund your opposition if you caucus with us”. Or possibly we will heavily fund you re-election if you switch parties.
I don’t know enough about these members in particular if any of them could realistically be called a “conservative Democrat” or if the parties are just so far apart at this point that even the most “moderate” Republican is too far right to fit in a “big-tent” Democratic Party.
But in an party-primary system there is absolutely nothing to be gained by working with the opposing party without actually switching to being an Independent of doing a full party switch.
Yeah, but that was a completely different world, it feels like.
These “moderate” Republicans are likely nothing like Arlen Spector policy-wise. And I have a hunch that Democratic voters would pretty quickly primary out any party-switcher even if the party leadership supported them.
That’s another facet of this whole cluster. The total break-down of the party apparatus, particularly on the GOP side. Party leadership has absolutely no control over their voters, and the elected folks know it. Any hack can run a campaign, get a Trump endorsement, and win a primary. It’s also sort of why Jordan’s threat about the party not supporting re-election doesn’t really hold much sway - those sorts of things just don’t matter as much anymore.
I think the posters up-thread are right when they describe this as three parties (at least) trying to fit into a two-party system. The traditional GOP and the MAGA GOP just don’t like or trust each other and I can’t see them getting every one of the trad-GOP members to go along with someone like Jim Jordan, particularly if he’s replying on strong-arm tactics rather than carrots.
Especially since, if you make the 45-member “Freedom Caucus” into a new third party, it’s the Democrats who have a plurality of the seats. Were this the Canadian Parliament, the Democrats would form the government as a minority government, unless the GOP and FC managed to form an agreement on a coalition government.
Which they cannot do - what we’re seeing here is what are those two parties demonstrating that they cannot come together to form a government. In a Parliamentary system, the Democrats would be given a chance to make a go of it.
I don’t really agree. There is an enormous disincentive for the mainstream GOP reps to work with Dems, but the Dems seem perfectly willing and there’s nothing actually stopping those GOPers from doing it – they’re still trying to find a way out of their predicament that doesn’t allow that. I don’t know what happens if the misfit group that wouldn’t be part of a unity caucus have to pick the minority leadership (or if that matters) but that is probably secondary.
So far we haven’t had much “revolving”, but there’s still 18 months to go. I strongly doubt that the next Speaker will be the final one of this Congress.
Unrelated to the above …
Various armchair pundits have long argued for a “none of the above” choice on ballots where if that choice wins, the post is left vacant. So the choice has real meaning, not just as a throw-away-your-vote protest choice.
We are now seeing what happens when “none of the above” is the winner and will probably remain the winner for several more rounds of balloting. It doesn’t work very well.
Yeah, there are a few. David Valadao and Dan Newhouse both voted for impeachment and were reelected. 35 GOP members voted to approve the Jan 6 commission, to give an idea of how many “Trad-GOP” there might be.
Edit: To be clear, these are still conservative folks. They are not the type that could plausibly switch parties, IMO.
There is just a fundamental problem with both of those.
For the “just vote for Jeffries” case, what’s in it for the defectors? How does a Democrat-run House help them get re-elected? Or, if you want to be more idealistic about it: how does it help them represent their constituents? I highly doubt they were elected on a “turn the House over to the Democrats” platform. You only vote for a Democratic Speaker if you are a Democrat or an Independent that caucuses with the Democrats.
For the “Democrats vote for a moderate GOP speaker”, that fails for (at least) two reasons. There is nothing in it for the Democrats, unless it comes with a power-sharing agreement on committees. And a Speaker that is elected with a minority of their own party is a Speak-in-name-only. The whole job is maintaining party discipline and moving things along.
There are really only three outcomes here, IMO:
The “moderates” fold and give Jordan the Speakership. Probably 60% chance at least.
The GOP moderates hold out, Jordan fails on a bunch of ballots, and they go back to caucus for somebody else. Maybe it’s just a personality issue and there is someone else they can rally behind. If this happens that person probably faces another no-confidence vote from the lunatics relatively soon. 30% chance of this, I think. It’s just the sort of kick-the-can-down-the-road solution this batch of GOP reps seems to like.
Some small number (3-5) moderate GOP members from Biden districts just pull of the Band-Aid, leave the GOP in the sake of good governance, and caucus with the Democrats. They would probably cover this with “we need to support Israel” and “we need to support Ukraine” and “we can’t let the crazies run the House”. They would probably need guarantees of good committee positions and support in their reelection (if they want to run again). Probably less than 10% chance of that happening.
Maybe there is a pie-in-the-sky version where a larger block of 40 or so GOP members broker a deal with the Democrats to share power with a moderate GOP speaker and a “unity government” type of approach. But I have no idea how that actually would work, since I think the acting speaker (McHenry) likely has ways to shut that down.
Harking back to the idea upthread of an R schism into the traditional Rs and the new-fangled "T"s …
Although what this headcount of 35 does say is that the Ts represent some 185 votes in the House. They have comprehensively taken over the R party from within. Maybe the 35 ought to form a new center-right party. Which of course is total electoral suicide.
Which of course is why the actual R party will continue to be engaged in their weird combo of a three-legged race and a Punch and Judy show as the two sides bludgeon each other even as they march together in kinda the same direction but badly.
Scaliese got a majority of the GOP reps in the straw poll. I agree it’s unlikely to be a GOP Speaker with only a minority, but I think there could be a GOP Speaker with a majority in their own party, but needing Dem support to cross the line.
Then they better offer something pretty good to make that happen. Like taking the nutjobs off the Judiciary Committee, a clean Ukraine-funding bill, and some sort of framework to avoid a shutdown. That might be enough to get the Democrats interested.
But, of course, any GOP speaker that gets elected with Democratic votes over the objection of the MAGAnauts will be anathema. Does a majority of the GOP House caucus really want to have Trump as an enemy during an election year? I mean, it sounds kind of awesome to me, but I can’t imagine Scalise and co. have any interest in blowing up their party to that extent.
There is a reason McCarthy didn’t ask for Democratic votes to get him over the line either.
It is my opinion that a breakaway T party would be more viable than they realize. There’s still a lot of working class Democrats who could probably be pulled away to a socially conservative pro-labor anti-global anti-immigration platform.
And I think the country would be better off for it, because I think you’d see cooperation on more issues- can’t have a tie with three parties.
Moderates are growing increasingly irritated with the tactics Jordan allies are using to pressure them into voting for him, with one member noting the Hannity show has gotten involved in the efforts sending potential defectors the email below. One lawmaker said the push is counterproductive to swaying Jordan skeptics.
Hello,
Stephanie from the Hannity show with Fox News. Sources tell Hannity that Rep xxxx is not supporting Rep Jim Jordan for Speaker. Can you please let me know if this is accurate? And, if true, Hannity would like to know why during a war breaking out between Israel and Hamas, with the war in Ukraine, with the wide open borders, with a budget that’s unfinished why would Rep xxxx be against Rep Jim Jordan for speaker? Please let us know when Rep xxxx plans on opening The People’s House so work can be done. Lastly, are there any conditions Rep xxxx will choose to work with Democrats on the process of electing a new speaker? The deadline for comment is 11 AM ET tomorrow 10/16. Thank you.
So many things wrong with this! The media getting intimately involved in steering politics instead of reporting or even opining on them? Threatening holdouts with hit pieces on Fox News and primary challenges?
Throughout the article the Reps who were against Jordan asked to remain anonymous because they are afraid of reprisals, which bodes extremely ill for them stranding up against him in public during a roll call vote. No one was afraid of bucking Kevin publicly, you couldn’t get then to shut up whenever a microphone and camera were present about how they’d never vote for Scalise, but they are afraid to be quoted by name that they don’t want to vote for Jordan.