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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, 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

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