MTG doesn’t have the votes. I weep for her, of course.
An interesting quote from the article: “Sometimes by faintly praising somebody, you can kind of doom them. And I haven’t seen a full-throated defense of Mike Johnson because, ultimately, Trump doesn’t like a loser. And he’s, I think he’s worried about Mike Johnson and tying his future to that. And it would be a bad move to even campaign with him,” the Kentucky Republican said.
“Mike Johnson is only going to drag Trump down.”
They just scored political points with me.
Lol. Hakeem Jeffries just sent a sly reminder that he controls the single biggest block of votes, effectively making him Speaker in all but name, and he just used it to kneecap MtG and her bullshit while making MJ his beyatch.
Good governance and an effective power play.
Possibly. Or they may have just thrown down the gauntlet. Empty G might just be stupid enough to think she can still win, leading her to an embarrassing face-plant that everyone else saw coming a mile away.
Well, we don’t know what sort of understanding may or may not have been reached between Johnson and Jeffries. The House still has to pass the FY25 budget before October 1, maybe Johnson agreed to move a clean continuing resolution until after the elections. I think it’s also important politically for Democrats that they’re saying they’ll support the motion to table the motion to vacate the chair – i.e. to set aside consideration of the motion to vacate. Almost all Democrats likely agree that Johnson is a bad choice for Speaker, but by supporting the motion to table they’re not directly making a judgment on whether he should be removed.
I’m not sure if they can reintroduce a motion if there’s already a tabled motion. Time to break out my copy of Oleszek’s Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process.
Brilliantly summarized in Yes, Minister: “You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back.”
I fondly hope that after the upcoming election, the R’s lose bigly, and then they have the guts to throw the small minority of “Freedom Caucus” people out of the party. Just tell them to piss off and form their own whack-a-doodle party.
I know it’s a fond hope rather than an expectation, but even if the Republican/MAGA party end up in a minority, they learned previously that their best way (well, other than flat out cheating) to maintain power was as a unanimous block of “NO” to anything.
Given that, I doubt they’d dump their “teammates” no matter how much they may want to.
And given the winners in the recent RNC leadership in AZ, figure the local powers are ever more moving to the radical and reactionary right. The crazies are the ones winning the hearts and minds of their base, not the ones that want to do business in the usual manner. So far, it hasn’t helped the MAGA team (more likely has HURT) on the national level, but if the energetic portion of the party keeps moving in that direction…
A tipping point has got to be reached sometime…
They cannot. It kills it for the session. I was thinking more of the vote going to the floor and the motion to vacate fails.
This, and others, are excellent points–thanks, y’all, for helping me think this through!
ISTM that the tipping point is headed in the opposite direction if anything. MAGA will replace the classic Republicans, riding a platform of non-stop blame and grievance without even the trappings of actual governance. It’s just easier than having to give results to either the voters or to business interests. The only hope is that it results in the group being semi-useless on the national stage, but it spells nasty times for the state/local levels where the fix is in sufficiently to make them unremovable (see Texas).
I think someone on this board referred to MAGAs as RINOs*, and I hope that usage catches on.
*Republicans In Name Only, for the acronymphobes out there
Aren’t demographics fighting the long-term MAGA prospects? I’ve read several articles that focus on or at least mention that dwindling rural populations (relatively speaking) and an aging base make this currently a last hurrah, if a decade or three more can be described as such.
Not that they can’t do a lot of damage in the interim.
nitpick: acronymophobes
cite: https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiology.186.2.8421770
I believe “acronymphobes” is fear of beautiful women standing over you.
I think that was more applicable to the old school GOP of George Bush than to the current MAGA party. As things stand, I wouldn’t make the claim that MAGA has a demographic problem.
I disagree with whomever that was. MAGA is the inevitable manifestation of what the GOP has been since Nixon’s Southern Strategy. They’re the reddest of Republicans.
I suspect that it has pretty much run its course. A short deal where everyone involved is better off. Johnson agrees to send a clean Ukraine, Israel, Gaza aid bill to the house floor and in return Jefferies agrees to provide political cover from the inevitable revolt. Otherwise Johnson wouldn’t have brought the bill forward we still have the same status quo with Johnson in power but the bill that both Johnson and Jefferies wanted doesn’t get passed.
Unfortunately, the party seems to have reached the point where it is the anti-MAGAs that are now considered the RINOs.