Maybe theoretically, but I don’t think it’s possible practically. The system mostly works on trust. “You do this for me today and I promise to do that for you tomorrow”. The bigger the request, the more trust that needs to be in place. I don’t think McCarthy has those relationships with the Dem leadership.
… people blame Biden.
Here’s a BBC rundown of the whole mess up until the acting Speaker took the seat. I’ll admit I’m sharing it partly for the excellent picture of Mr. McCarthy at the top of the article.
I think McCarthy could have gotten one chance with a public declaration:
The Republican Party has been hijacked by a tiny minority who want government to grind to a halt. America’s business is too important to let them win. Accordingly, I am changing my political approach. While I disagree with Democrats on almost all issues, there are areas of agreement. I will no longer let Gaetz and his obstructionist allies block bills from consideration. In fact, if any 50 members of the House, including at least 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans, bring a bill forward for consideration, I will schedule a vote on the bill. I also pledge to moderate my language when speaking about Democrats, and call on Democrats to do the same: we will recognize one another as good-faith partners in negotiation, even when we disagree.
A new day is dawning, in which bipartisan leadership is the watchword. America’s business must get done, and that’s how we’ll do it. It’s what Americans want.
Something along those lines–a general call for bipartisanship, coupled with a specific proposal–could win him a single additional chance, and under those circumstances I would have supported Dems who voted “present.”
Of course, the McCarthy who would entertain such an idea isn’t the McCarthy who created this shitfest in the first place.
Knowing that additional challenges to vacate would be coming would have given chances to prove his word.
Demand one. Next action after the motion to vacate is not passed is a clean vote on Ukraine funding. Don’t do it? On your own next vote buddy.
Biden impeachment show? Don’t care. It only embarrasses the Rs. Most of R voters even recognize it as immature retaliation and it turns off the swing voters few as they may be. Go at it.
But let’s set some deadlines for serious budget discussions progress. Public pronouncements of deadlines and that they will be with intent to compromise.
The old trust but verify.
If he’d said anything like that, he wouldn’t just have been primaried – he’d have been lynched.
Hey they already tried to lynch him.
Ah, the partisan politics version of the police arresting a mid-level gangster and threatening to release him with a street rumor that he’s cooperating with the investigation.
I mean, maybe. The Republican party leadership is made up of cultists and cowards. If nobody will show courage, that won’t ever change.
In any case, he did his damnedest to get himself into that position. His failure to do the right thing is just that: a failure.
Unfortunately, so is the Republican voter base.
It’s well past time for these allegedly ‘moderate’ Republicans to shit or get off the pot.
Either take the bull by the horns and deal with this problem, knowing that this is an uphill battle that quite a few of them will lose, or admit defeat, acknowledge their own cowardice, and get the fuck out of politics.
Sometimes you have to suck it up, and stand on the bridge while your allies chop it down behind you.
Pretty much the same idea. 
While my comment was tongue-in-cheek, it is a real concern. Whoever is Speaker can’t be seen to be cooperating with the Democrats or they are a RINO, a sell-out, a turncoat. This is what got McCarthy ousted in the first place; he refused to be an obstructionist and dared to compromise just enough to give an extension to prevent a shutdown. The slightest hint that he was willing to give an inch was too much. (Well, that and his lack of leadership and inability to keep a promise or tell the truth or avoid being a weasel in general, but this was at least the final straw.)
Problem is, they’ll lose to even more deranged MAGAts.
Cool story I’d never heard. Thanks for sharing!
Yes, some of them most likely will. But some of them might not. And even more MAGAts in Congress will just make their failure to govern even more apparent.
We have to believe that, at some point, reality will get through to enough of these voters that they’ll finally see what they’ve done, and either change their votes, or just stop voting entirely. If that never happens, well, then, we were always going to be fucked, the only question was of when we’d be finally and properly fucked.
With that in mind, well, we might as well give it a shot, right? I’ve always said I’d rather be damned for what I do, instead of damned for what I didn’t do.
As you can imagine, I’m a bit of a fan.
Apparently the gop “moderates” are so furious about the dems failing to bail mccarthy out that they’re threatening to quit the problem solvers caucus en masse.
I’m really having a tough time figuring out if they’re actually dumb enough to believe what they’re saying. In any case they’re probably too deep in their bipartisan performance act to realize how ridiculous they sound.
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/03/problem-solvers-caucus-mccarthy-removal-speaker
So, I am not sure, but whomever becomes Speaker next - will Gaetz et al still have them by the short-&-curlys? I mean, if that’s the case then the wacko wing of the party basically has all the power. Are the rest of the Rs going to just let that happen? Can they prevent it?
Jordan has apparently talked to Trump about it, and he says he wouldn’t oust Gaetz if Jordan became Speaker. The one-person rule would also stay in effect. He also says he could have a working relationship with Biden “whether trust or good faith was there or not”, which I find implausible.
The crazy thing is, this is probably what they say about us!
Now I know what the Romans felt as they saw the rise of a crazy religion that had their God rape a teenaged girl so she could bear his son, a son that God would then allow to be crucified for the benefit of his crucifiers.
In modern American Protestantism, you only have to believe in Jesus, not act like him.
This separation between faith and ethics has been society-rending, no doubt about it.
So-called “moderate” Republicans have exactly as much power as Gaetz & Co and could condition their votes for Speaker on having their priorities addressed by any potential candidate. But it’s not in their nature.