It would be a purely symbolic job, I’m sure. Part of the deal would be him getting someone else–Gaetz, MTG, some asslicker–to do whatever work (or even “showing up”) is involved with the Speakership, and he would show up (or tweet) on ceremonial occasions, or just to rap the gavel and scowl a few times per month.
If Trump was elected Speaker, he would use it as another venue for his rallies. The business of the country is now promoting Trump.
I don’t know if it can be verified, but an author who has a book coming out soon who is pretty dialed in to egregious Trump behavior shared an amusing tidbit in an interview yesterday on MSNBC:
We all remember McCarthy’s excruciating multi-vote rounds in his efforts to become Speaker. In one of those rounds, in response to how he would vote, Matt Gaetz shouted, “Trump!”
Apparently, Trump thought this was delightful. He called Gaetz and asked him to nominate him (Trump) as an option in the next round of voting. Gaetz did as he was told.
In the next round, there was only 1 vote for Trump as an official nominee. It was Gaetz.
I’m pretty sure we’re safe from a Trump Speakership. Cold consolation, I’ll admit.
I saw a clip of that on TV yesterday, they told that story on the ABC Evening News. The clip was of the parliamentarian announcing the vote totals… “Mr. Trump - one vote”.
It was pretty funny.
It was. The bit I didn’t know about was that Trump was nominated because he asked to be.
I guess not all of Trump’s wishes come true.
Yeah, I didn’t think he had the class to quietly bow out:
McCarthy denies reports he’s leaving Congress
“We are going to keep the majority. I am going to help the people I got here, and we are going to expand it further.”
The R’s majority is pretty thin, but I’m not buying his Thinking of The Team spiel when the team just reamed him.
Huh. It’s apparently dawned on some of the GOP members of the House that this isn’t just reindeer games about who should be pulling Santa’s sleigh.
When there’s an international crisis involving one of the US’s closest allies, it turns out that having a sorta kinda temp Speaker of uncertain powers hampers the US’s ability to respond to the crisis, with money or whatever other aid is considered necessary.
So now it’s “Let’s bring Kevin back!”
This is Kevin’s chance to neuter those FC assholes once and for all. Hope he takes it.
House Republican: “We need a strong leader, behind whom we can unify. And get things done! Who have we got?”
Another House Republican: “Um… Kevin? McCarthy??”
Can the name McCarthy shine any brighter in political history?
Question: do the effects of the US being Speaker-less belong here or in the threads about those events such as the situation in Israel?
Out of curiosity: is a leader what’s needed, or just a follower?
Depends on who’s judging. e.g. Gaetz wants a follower. Someone who takes his orders alone and somehow magically makes them all happen.
I bet the other 200+ R House members each have their own ideas on whose orders the new Speaker should follow. Including maybe even some of their own ideas.
Well, sure. But like someone just said, “The R’s majority is pretty thin” — and I wondered, what if the Rs simply got together and said, look, for the time being we’ll hash out issue after issue in the modern equivalent of a smoke-filled back-room vote amongst Republicans Only, and then we’ll go out and vote As One on this issue, and on that issue, utterly sidelining the Democrats. And maybe you win out on one issue, and I go along to get along. And maybe I win out on the next one, and you go along to get along. But the point is, (a) we, as a party, sideline the Dems; and (b) if you or I break off on this, everyone who honored the deal will accurately brand the deal-breaker as someone who didn’t sideline the Democrats, and how will that play with the deal-breaker’s base come primary time?
And if they get on board with that, including the idea that the Republican in the ‘Speaker’ post will rubber-stamp this issue and that issue and so on, said Speaker is — well, following one, and then following the other, but the following is what’s doing the heavy lifting, right?
Yes. If the Rs could act with that level of collective discipline, it doesn’t really matter who the Speaker is; he’d be part of the same hive-mind. Historically the Speaker was more the leader of the imperfect hive mind than simply one of the drones. He (always “he” for the Rs) wasn’t an absolute dictator, but he did do a lot to set both the agenda and the tone. And had the brains to put the brakes on embarrassingly no-hope legislation coming from his side.
The problem of course is that historically American pols are OK, not great, on party discipline. And in the current era (last 10-20 years), they seem to be far more individualistic and self-serving celebrity oriented. Being ostracized by their peers isn’t a threat to the folks who think their own ability to push their personal version of events exceeds that of their fellows.
I guess I wasn’t so much thinking in terms of Hive Mind as I was of the cliché where, like, you’ve got a guy for whom tax cuts for the rich is a big deal, and he doesn’t really give a crap about abortion — and someone else is a true believer on abortion, and will go along with a shrug on tax cuts if Guy #1 will go along with a shrug on abortion — and so long as two people are simpatico on affirmative action or gun control or whatever, then it’s easier for them to modus vivendi on other stuff.
The only consensus among Republicans anymore is “no compromise”…even with each other.
Right, due to how the way American political parties function they can’t “withdraw the whip” and essentially prevent you from running again under their banner, we have seen a rising group of pols who do not really care if the party program fails, as long as they are on the TV screen and the front pages and all the Talk Radio hosts put them on when they call. Right now Gaetz’s predominantly FloridaMan base is just fine with their guy wrecking the joint because he has ruined the “fine gentlemen’s” day, and it meshes just fine with their mentality that they’re fighting a “tyranny of the majority who looks down on us”.
I have seen institutions with close to that model of parliamentary discipline and it works reasonably adequately when part of that discipline is being able to say: OK, on THIS upcoming issue the consensus in the conference is we need to compromise TODAY, so we ALL WILL vote for the compromise, and that’s what happens, knowing that you will get your fair chance to fight another day – and that’s key, you have to be able to trust in that last bit.
Yeah the problem is that the Gaetz types do not want “go along with a shrug”. As someone on a different online site said on a different subject, the problem with “fundamentalists” is that eventually they get to the point where they insist that their position on EVERYTHING is a “fundamental” that cannot be agreed to disagree.
Speaker pro tem Patrick McHenry opened the door to the House possibly acting on an Israeli assistance bill BEFORE selecting a new Speaker. As we discussed above, there’s a lot of debate about what authority McHenry as acting Speaker has besides organizing the election of the next Speaker. If McHenry can pass an aid bill for Israel, there’s no logical limitation on what else he could do.