6 ms·

A few weeks ago, a group of far right Republicans extracted concessions out of McCarthy. I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with

by amluto 4y ago

A few weeks ago, a group of far right Republicans extracted concessions out of McCarthy. I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with a much milder set of concessions. (Heck, a small group of Democrats could still join McCarthy to survive a re-vote and change the rules back.) My guess is that the Democrats like it when the Republicans look bad even if they eventual outcome is a loss for the country as a whole.

lostlogin 4y ago
Ah, so it’s the Democrats fault that the Republican fiasco rolls on?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
lesuorac 4y ago
I mean for the vast majority of the votes the Democrats had the lead [1]. It seems much easier for 6 Republicans to ask for some pork projects or other concessions instead of 15 Democrats. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives_election#Election_of_the_speaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Speaker_of_the_United_Sta...
- amluto 4y ago
  Huh, interesting. I stand corrected.
kaczordon 4y ago
Far right is a pretty loaded term. I’m actually really happy that they extracted terms from McCarthy. Everyone who spent time slamming these 20 Republicans should publicly apologize and write them a thank you card because they got more victories for their constituents than most politicians ever do. Here’s what they got: - Jeffersonian Motion to vacate the chair. This allows a single person to make the motion to remove the speaker if he goes back on his word or policy agenda. - A "Church" style committee: this allows us to look into the weaponization of orgs like the FBI against the American people. - Term Limit Vote - Single Subject Bills(that can't be loaded with irrelevant nonsense - Texas Border Plan - A budget that stops an increase in the debt ceiling and holds senate accountable. - Ending emergency funding and all COVID mandates and funding. - 72 Hours to read a bill. These all sound like objectively good things regardless of your political orientation.
- cactacea 4y ago
  > - A "Church" style committee: this allows us to look into the weaponization of orgs like the FBI against the American people. The purpose of that committee is to be a factory for clips to show on Fox News and Newsmax. I appreciate your optimism but it's unwarranted.
  - factsarelolz 4y ago
    > The purpose of that committee is to be a factory for clips to show on Fox News and Newsmax. I appreciate your optimism but it's unwarranted. The democrats got their clips for CNN, MSNBC, WP, etc with their sham of an investigation complete with a Hollywood director. Now that there's over 14,000 hours of footage being released we'll have even more clips.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Democrats and Republicans can both suck. Pointing to Dems when Repubs are assholes doesn’t make Repubs any better. Being partisan doesn’t always mean a good thing.
      - factsarelolz 4y ago
        I'm not arguing one is better than another. Just pointing out that there has been an ongoing investigation that was publicized and directed by a Hollywood director to drum up clips, news stories and support from their supporters and to pain their enemies in bad light. Now that the pendulum has swing the other way the other side will get their chance to blow through millions and create their own circus for their supporters. It's kinda amazing how they don't realize that the power they seize can and will be wielded by their enemy with absolutely no remorse.
    - cactacea 4y ago
      This is false equivalence and irrelevant bothsideism.
cactacea 4y ago
> I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with a much milder set of concessions. A small group of Republicans could have voted for Hakeem Jeffries and locked the crazies out completely. Did you have a cognizant point to make?
ss108 4y ago
Why should they have helped McCarthy? He's one of many Republicans who bent the knee to Trump and the scourge of the "alt-right", and he reaped what he sowed. It's not like the Republican party was trying to correct itself by going with a staunchly anti-Trump country-over-party moderate. One party is clearly taken over by lunatics, while the other maintains a much more moderate posture, yet you blame the one attempting to stay sane over the one that is making conspiracy theories part of its core platform.
- gizmo686 4y ago
  Because he was politically weak and they had an opportunity to take advantage of that. As it is the Democrats got nothing but optics out of the fiasco. Had they played their hand differently they might have gotten something more. For what it is worth, I suspect there was some backroom dealling they were trying to do, but nothing came of it.
  - ss108 4y ago
    Yeah, I can see a good argument for it, I suppose.
- amluto 4y ago
  I hate to say it, but I see this attitude as a big part of the overall problem. Both parties have representatives who focus on policies that sound good with no useful thought or understanding of their actual effects. Both parties represent their opposites as lunatics, horrible people, other otherwise as people to be detested, with little allowance for the fact that the actual function of Congress is to pass hopefully beneficial bills — the mindsets or moral qualities of those who vote for the bills is ultimately not as important. Left-leaning people do plenty of things that are easy for right-leaning people to point at as examples of lunacy. For example, look at almost any article about “DEI” or inclusive terminology or anything involving words like “Latinx”. Regardless of the actual merits of these things or the intentions of those who encourage them, they sound bad to many people with right-leaning hats on, and they’re very, very easy to make fun of.
  - 4y ago
gizmo686 4y ago
In a reasonable political system, that us what would have happened. Not necessarily with McCarthy, but some type of coalition government with bipartisan support. Frankly, if they wanted to and could get near unanimous agreement internally, the Democrats probably could have had their pick of Republican as speaker. Several aspects made this difficult to do though: 1) Given our political climate, no one wants to vote for the other party to be speaker. It would be political suicide in a primary 2) For as long as it felt like the vote took, the Democrats did not have enough time to whip support for anyone other than McCarthy. 3) McCarthy would be taking a very big risk in forming an agreement with Democrats here 4) An individual politician crossing party lines without support of their party leadership would be political suicide. Not just due to voter perception, but because of how important institutional support is. 5) As you say, the appearance of Republican dusruption is goid for the Democrats. With all of that, I'm not convinced that the concessions are that big of a deal. The core dynamic is that bipartisan agreement on high profile issues is a non starter, and the Republicans have a razor thin majority and several members willing to play hardball.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > In a reasonable political system, that us what would have happened. Not necessarily with McCarthy, but some type of coalition government with bipartisan support. In a reasonable political system, the various factions would be separate parties, and coalition building would be between whole parties, not between factions within a party. The US has an electoral system which does not produce a reasonable political system. (“Bipartisanship” was a side effect of partisan incoherence during the long 1930s-1990s realignment, but it's not really something one would expect except on tangential issues with parties that are strongly aligned along the main salient ideological divide.)
- lesuorac 4y ago
  > 1) Given our political climate, no one wants to vote for the other party to be speaker. It would be political suicide in a primary Well, I'm not positive of that since the primary would be a long ways away. Remember how bad of a look for Biden leaving Afghanistan was and how little anybody talks about it now? And also sometimes politicians switch parties [1] so voting for the party you switched to sounds like a great way to drum up support. > With all of that, I'm not convinced that the concessions are that big of a deal. Afaik, the concessions are mostly just setting up ground-work so that the recipients can further their political career faster. Which technically is also good for the constituents as they should get more pork. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Van_Drew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Van_Drew
thomascgalvin 4y ago
> I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with a much milder set of concessions. The problem with that is, there would be no way to hold McCarthy accountable to those promises. Republicans do not negotiate in good faith, and any promises about the debt ceiling, committee assignments, and the like wouldn't be worth the air they were spoken with.
skinnymuch 4y ago
Why didn’t a smaller group of Republicans vote for a Dem?
fallingfrog 4y ago
No, I think it's more like- you have to treat Republicans as true, pure psychopaths. They will promise anything that gets them what they want but when it comes time they will do whatever is in their best interests regardless of previous statements. And their base will reward them for doing it. You can't really make a deal with someone like that.
CoolestBeans 4y ago
McCarthy never came to the Dems to strike a deal (publicly) and its clear to me why that would have been a very last resort. Being seen negotiating with the enemy probably would have lost him votes in his own party as one of the big reasons to get the House majority is to obtain committee seats and whatnot. Furthermore, you’re attempting to break the other party’s unity while your own party is the more tenuously held together one. For the Democrats, they’re the minority in the House. Even if the loss wasn’t as big as many expected, they still lost. They don’t have much political capital to expend to try to create a compromise, especially with a more polarized voting population.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with a much milder set of concessions. Not enough to offset the support he would lose in his own party for making any concessions to Democrats. The Republican factions are Trump-backed ultra-MAGA extremists and the-Trump-backed-group-is-too-moderate ultra-extremists; neither is open to concessions to the “woke mob” of Democrats.

by amluto 4y ago

lostlogin 4y ago

Ah, so it’s the Democrats fault that the Republican fiasco rolls on?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

lesuorac 4y ago

I mean for the vast majority of the votes the Democrats had the lead [1]. It seems much easier for 6 Republicans to ask for some pork projects or other concessions instead of 15 Democrats. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives_election#Election_of_the_speaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Speaker_of_the_United_Sta...

amluto 4y ago
Huh, interesting. I stand corrected.

kaczordon 4y ago

Far right is a pretty loaded term. I’m actually really happy that they extracted terms from McCarthy. Everyone who spent time slamming these 20 Republicans should publicly apologize and write them a thank you card because they got more victories for their constituents than most politicians ever do. Here’s what they got: - Jeffersonian Motion to vacate the chair. This allows a single person to make the motion to remove the speaker if he goes back on his word or policy agenda. - A "Church" style committee: this allows us to look into the weaponization of orgs like the FBI against the American people. - Term Limit Vote - Single Subject Bills(that can't be loaded with irrelevant nonsense - Texas Border Plan - A budget that stops an increase in the debt ceiling and holds senate accountable. - Ending emergency funding and all COVID mandates and funding. - 72 Hours to read a bill. These all sound like objectively good things regardless of your political orientation.

cactacea 4y ago
> - A "Church" style committee: this allows us to look into the weaponization of orgs like the FBI against the American people. The purpose of that committee is to be a factory for clips to show on Fox News and Newsmax. I appreciate your optimism but it's unwarranted.
- factsarelolz 4y ago
  > The purpose of that committee is to be a factory for clips to show on Fox News and Newsmax. I appreciate your optimism but it's unwarranted. The democrats got their clips for CNN, MSNBC, WP, etc with their sham of an investigation complete with a Hollywood director. Now that there's over 14,000 hours of footage being released we'll have even more clips.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Democrats and Republicans can both suck. Pointing to Dems when Repubs are assholes doesn’t make Repubs any better. Being partisan doesn’t always mean a good thing.
    - factsarelolz 4y ago
      I'm not arguing one is better than another. Just pointing out that there has been an ongoing investigation that was publicized and directed by a Hollywood director to drum up clips, news stories and support from their supporters and to pain their enemies in bad light. Now that the pendulum has swing the other way the other side will get their chance to blow through millions and create their own circus for their supporters. It's kinda amazing how they don't realize that the power they seize can and will be wielded by their enemy with absolutely no remorse.
  - cactacea 4y ago
    This is false equivalence and irrelevant bothsideism.

cactacea 4y ago

> I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with a much milder set of concessions. A small group of Republicans could have voted for Hakeem Jeffries and locked the crazies out completely. Did you have a cognizant point to make?

ss108 4y ago

Why should they have helped McCarthy? He's one of many Republicans who bent the knee to Trump and the scourge of the "alt-right", and he reaped what he sowed. It's not like the Republican party was trying to correct itself by going with a staunchly anti-Trump country-over-party moderate. One party is clearly taken over by lunatics, while the other maintains a much more moderate posture, yet you blame the one attempting to stay sane over the one that is making conspiracy theories part of its core platform.

gizmo686 4y ago
Because he was politically weak and they had an opportunity to take advantage of that. As it is the Democrats got nothing but optics out of the fiasco. Had they played their hand differently they might have gotten something more. For what it is worth, I suspect there was some backroom dealling they were trying to do, but nothing came of it.
- ss108 4y ago
  Yeah, I can see a good argument for it, I suppose.
amluto 4y ago
I hate to say it, but I see this attitude as a big part of the overall problem. Both parties have representatives who focus on policies that sound good with no useful thought or understanding of their actual effects. Both parties represent their opposites as lunatics, horrible people, other otherwise as people to be detested, with little allowance for the fact that the actual function of Congress is to pass hopefully beneficial bills — the mindsets or moral qualities of those who vote for the bills is ultimately not as important. Left-leaning people do plenty of things that are easy for right-leaning people to point at as examples of lunacy. For example, look at almost any article about “DEI” or inclusive terminology or anything involving words like “Latinx”. Regardless of the actual merits of these things or the intentions of those who encourage them, they sound bad to many people with right-leaning hats on, and they’re very, very easy to make fun of.
- 4y ago

gizmo686 4y ago

In a reasonable political system, that us what would have happened. Not necessarily with McCarthy, but some type of coalition government with bipartisan support. Frankly, if they wanted to and could get near unanimous agreement internally, the Democrats probably could have had their pick of Republican as speaker. Several aspects made this difficult to do though: 1) Given our political climate, no one wants to vote for the other party to be speaker. It would be political suicide in a primary 2) For as long as it felt like the vote took, the Democrats did not have enough time to whip support for anyone other than McCarthy. 3) McCarthy would be taking a very big risk in forming an agreement with Democrats here 4) An individual politician crossing party lines without support of their party leadership would be political suicide. Not just due to voter perception, but because of how important institutional support is. 5) As you say, the appearance of Republican dusruption is goid for the Democrats. With all of that, I'm not convinced that the concessions are that big of a deal. The core dynamic is that bipartisan agreement on high profile issues is a non starter, and the Republicans have a razor thin majority and several members willing to play hardball.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> In a reasonable political system, that us what would have happened. Not necessarily with McCarthy, but some type of coalition government with bipartisan support. In a reasonable political system, the various factions would be separate parties, and coalition building would be between whole parties, not between factions within a party. The US has an electoral system which does not produce a reasonable political system. (“Bipartisanship” was a side effect of partisan incoherence during the long 1930s-1990s realignment, but it's not really something one would expect except on tangential issues with parties that are strongly aligned along the main salient ideological divide.)
lesuorac 4y ago
> 1) Given our political climate, no one wants to vote for the other party to be speaker. It would be political suicide in a primary Well, I'm not positive of that since the primary would be a long ways away. Remember how bad of a look for Biden leaving Afghanistan was and how little anybody talks about it now? And also sometimes politicians switch parties [1] so voting for the party you switched to sounds like a great way to drum up support. > With all of that, I'm not convinced that the concessions are that big of a deal. Afaik, the concessions are mostly just setting up ground-work so that the recipients can further their political career faster. Which technically is also good for the constituents as they should get more pork. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Van_Drew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Van_Drew

thomascgalvin 4y ago

> I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with a much milder set of concessions. The problem with that is, there would be no way to hold McCarthy accountable to those promises. Republicans do not negotiate in good faith, and any promises about the debt ceiling, committee assignments, and the like wouldn't be worth the air they were spoken with.

skinnymuch 4y ago

Why didn’t a smaller group of Republicans vote for a Dem?

fallingfrog 4y ago

No, I think it's more like- you have to treat Republicans as true, pure psychopaths. They will promise anything that gets them what they want but when it comes time they will do whatever is in their best interests regardless of previous statements. And their base will reward them for doing it. You can't really make a deal with someone like that.

CoolestBeans 4y ago

McCarthy never came to the Dems to strike a deal (publicly) and its clear to me why that would have been a very last resort. Being seen negotiating with the enemy probably would have lost him votes in his own party as one of the big reasons to get the House majority is to obtain committee seats and whatnot. Furthermore, you’re attempting to break the other party’s unity while your own party is the more tenuously held together one. For the Democrats, they’re the minority in the House. Even if the loss wasn’t as big as many expected, they still lost. They don’t have much political capital to expend to try to create a compromise, especially with a more polarized voting population.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> I imagine a group of Democrats could have helped vote McCarthy in with a much milder set of concessions. Not enough to offset the support he would lose in his own party for making any concessions to Democrats. The Republican factions are Trump-backed ultra-MAGA extremists and the-Trump-backed-group-is-too-moderate ultra-extremists; neither is open to concessions to the “woke mob” of Democrats.