House Speaker Ongoing Melodrama

[Belsnickel]

(10-20-2023, 07:05 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Or maybe - and I know this sounds crazy - put up a moderate a handful of Dems can vote for.

It's not like the Dems don't have some accountability in this mess.  The only reason we are where we are is because Dems wouldn't give a single vote to McCarthy the first time, either, and so he had to make that ridiculous agreement with Gaetz for the motion to be brought by a single rep.

Supposedly Pelosi said she would back McCarthy.  I don't know if that was true, or if he went back on some promise/agreement with her. But this is a bipartisan mess.  It almost happened to the Dems when they also had a slim majority, but I think it was like 15-20 seats instead of 8 or we might very well have seen a similar situation. Dems didn't even need to vote FOR McCarthy....all it would have taken was for a handful to vote "present" or just skip the vote.

Whether they blindly vote with their party, or commit "domestic terrorism" by daring to represent their district (as they're supposed to), people keep re-electing them so I guess we all deserve this.  When you have a comfortable majority, people like Gaetz are little more than fodder for cable news.  But with a slim majority, they suddenly gain power and influence through none of their own doing.

All I know is 20 years ago the minority party (either one) didn't uniformly oppose the majority on any issue of consequence.  People like Gaetz can't take hostages unless the minority party is willing to go along.

But 20 years ago the minority party still didn't vote for the majority party's candidate for Speaker. That has always been party line.

This is a mess of the GOP and McCarthy's own making. The Democrats didn't favor the rules package that got him ousted and they voted against it en masse. McCarthy made a deal with the devil to get his office and that devil was his own party. He then blamed Democrats for his inability to get a compromise deal when it was his own party's hardliners that were the issue and then he reneged on the spending deal he made during the credit limit negotiations, once again blaming Democrats for his own decision to do that in an attempt to save his own job that ultimately failed.

**** McCarthy and the horse he rode in on. The Democratic caucus has shown time and again that they are willing to negotiate and compromise while the GOP doesn't want to meet them halfway. They want to force votes on legislation that doesn't have a chance in the Senate because even their own party members in that chamber are too sensible for the bullshit they are trying to pull.