"The solution to that pain is to vote them out next November" You bet. Ah, what a mess this is...I learned so much from this piece this morning. Gaetz is a scourge, a waste, and an attention whore. And Kevin is beyond inept. Further, I trust Pelosi's instincts completely... her proven track record of success has earned my trust. Gonna be another interesting day in America's dysfunctional government. 🙄
It’s possible we could trade a few “present” votes for the ending of the Biden impeachment (non-)inquiry, although giving the ‘Thugs enough rope so that they may continue to hoist themselves upon their own petard should be quite amusing.
Gaetz of Hell wants to be governor of Florida and has chosen this arrogant manner to garner attention. Maybe Floridians brought it upon themselves and do deserve Governor Gaetz--but have pity on them--haven't they suffered enough?
Man you got that right. Do Floridians love the abuse? Do they need a dictatorship in their state because they’ve been brainwashed by DeSatan? Surely they will awaken from their stupor and realize they are being manipulated. 🤦♀️
Democrats have no reason to do McCarthy any favors. He reneged on his budget agreement with Biden, buckled to launching a hollow impeachment inquiry, and is beholden to Trump. As recently as Sunday, he tried to blame Democrats for taking us to the brink of a shutdown, when it was the Democrats that bailed him out. Luckily, the journalist called him on it. He is a craven, power hungry, worm.
And as of ~4:30pm 10/3/23, McCarthy has been ousted. The House is Speakerless until the chaotic mess that comprises the many factions of the Repubbie party will mill around like a disturbed anthill (or would that be "anti-hill").
Don’t help McCarthy unless you want to be seen as complicit in his behavior. “Oh, but the concessions,”you say, “are so attractive.” They are entirely illusory and will not bring peace in our time. “Come on,” you say, “give him a hand.” Okay. I’ll give McCarthy a piece of my hand-the middle finger.
Exactly. Another thing is that GOP will point finger in f*cking up this country even though there's no direct involvement by Democrats. Because I recall our history a couple decades ago that Democrats were dragged into the Iraqi Invasion which was a WMD fabrication by W Bush Administration/ Republican Party. We better learn our lesson today not to trust Republican Party with tRump as the domestic terrorist leader and #1 Russian Asset!
The situation is fraught with peril for both sides. Here's my question: As feckless and impotent as Speaker McCarthy is, if he were removed, would the person who replaced him be even worse? I'd be willing to bet that many Democrats are pondering that very question right now.
If they do manage to elect someone even worse, we will be right back where McCarthy found himself at the end of this 45 day budget period. Extremism can’t govern.
Ah, but that's my point--the MAGA/Sedition Caucus does not want to govern. They want to destroy faith in the system and in government's ability to do anything. The greater the dysfunction, the happier they are/will be.
I don’t see how anyone could be worse. Worse in a different way, perhaps. Perhaps actively supporting MAGA rather then capitulating to them at every turn? But how is that any different on result?
Democrats have GOT to stop caving to Republicans because they worry about what Republicans will do. Its the “I can’t stand up to this bully because he might call me names.” stupidity.
News flash: Republicans will be vile no matter what Dems do so the Dems should stop providing them with cover. It only prolongs the problem and makes Dems part of it.
The HFC members want no part of the Speakership. Nor would any of them have a chance at winning it. (Gaetz certainly doesn’t want it. He just wants a stage on which to perform.)
And given how fraught the position is, with the incessant posturing and obstruction of the various members of the HFC, who else would want the position? Who’s going to step forward to attempt to rule the unruly?
I think this piece (and Nancy Pelosi’s sage advice) makes a pretty clear case.
The more likely outcome is that there will be no speaker at all for a long time. Without a speaker, the House can't operate. Among other things, that means, no re-adding of Ukraine aid. And it means a government shutdown once the short-term funding runs out.
That is why I think that supporting McCarthy would have been a better move, but extract so many concessions that he is effectively a puppet of Jeffries. Bonus points: he won't get reelected.
Thanks for this very clear exposition of a murky situation. I agree with NP on the let them hang themselves approach. The one thing this situation demonstrates is how reaching across the aisle and compromise for the good of the country are pretty much dead in the water as far as the GOP is concerned. I hope we can make this very clear in Nov. 2024, with votes.
The only problem is that MAGA voters cannot be convinced to really turn away from them, even after years of pain because the narrative is one that utterly demonizes the Dems. So for another year+ we'd get absolutely nothing done in the house while the GOP attempts to replace their leadership over and over. It's a truly shitty situation.
But one more year of shit after all the years it’s been getting shittier is not a bad price to pay to help end it.
Especially if the alternative is to just prolong it.
And MAGAs are irredeemable. They will be vile no matter what because that’s what they truly want to be. So we should not stand in the way of them destroying themselves. Should not bail out Republicans and help them have some pretense of appearing to be a legitimate party.
Sorry, I disagree. "Staying out of the Republican turmoil" means not lending a hand to McCarthy OR Gaetz.
"The Republicans need to figure this out on their own. We, as Democrats, will not participate in this REPUBLICAN disaster. We will not ask favors from, nor give support to McCarthy or Gaetz."
Gaetz v McCarthy. It spells one thing for sure: Governance will be obstructed, and in the end, that is exactly the aim of the neo nazi, fascist billionaires who pull the puppet strings of Republican office-holders (they don’t qualify as “leaders”). Fascism wins big, here. THAT should be the underlying narrative to this entire fiasco. Vote Democratic if you want good government.
Tell me one thing the Republican Congress has done for us in the last year...... all they do is attack Biden and his son, and fight with each other. Gaetz is an embarrassment, a useless waste of oxygen, who should be in jail. He would be if he didn't have a rich daddy. What a sad situation.
That's familiar trick and slogan used before. The premise of the government broke so go vote for me is nothing new. Even genius tRump saying that line loudly : what do you gotta lose, vote for me. GOP is responsible f*cking up our country. Look it up. In the government shutdowns happended in the past few years, it was all because that Republicans had the political power due to lyin's tRump in Oval Office plus GOP got the majority in our Congress. Republican Party fooling people is simple by pointing finger and lying. Such 1-trick elephant!
In a normal world, this would be the rational thing to do. But I cannot see the MAGA GOP ever inflicting enough pain on their base to cause them to be voted out. Some would think we only need 5 seats to take the majority but we need a much stronger majority since Pelosi is no longer speaker. I trust Jeffries but he doesn't yet have the skill to unify like Pelosi did.
yup, those people voting for Republican Party are indeed stupid, loyal, and gullible as evidently proven in recent history. Only thing I do is not trusting any Repubicans in our government today. I also work harder as part of my civic duty voting for Democratic Party in all elections to ensure GOP be the minority party in our government.
Here’s the reason Ds should stay out of it : “It’s a bit like trying to go on a date with someone who recently got divorced and whose spouse is still issuing death threats. Terrible idea. Wouldn’t recommend.”
The term GOP Civil war is being bandied about but I maintain this is all about class struggle. Years of social immobility created a simmering class of ambitious people locked out of the process by credentialed gatekeepers. When the suits caved to Trump this cohort saw their opening. McCarthy, in this scenario, represents the last and emptiest of suits. The Freedom Caucus represents the perpetually peeved petite bourgeoisie who are determined to keep the Trumpian window of opportunity open. The chaos stems from lack of experience managing the levers of power and the lack of cohesion in a movement based on individual egos rather than a game plan. The move to authoritarianism is based on the gold rush to power by those who have long been out of the game. The great and powerless Dave has spoken.
Did you really mean to say petite bourgeoisie? That term usually stands for middle class, but the simmering class of people locked out are closer to, to use a similarly antiquated term, the proletariat (a term that later has been usurped by communism).
I did. When I look at the make up of those who want to take the reins I'm not seeing the proletariat. I'm seeing angry shopkeepers with big chips on their shoulders and lots of ambition. I'm seeing farmers like Comer, rural folk...unworldly people. Or Crossfit Training Franchise owners...people who've clawed their way to the middle and still didn't get the respect they deserve. Greene, Jordan...they're not proles.
Yes, those people exist, but those aren't "locked out" of anything.
I'm offended by you calling rural folk unworldly people. And that attitude is seriously harmful; it's what gets Republicans elected. That's one of the big Achilles heels of the Democrats: they focused only on cities and neglected rural US citizens. There's a reason Hillary Clinton won the big cities of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago - and lost the rest of the country - by such a landslide that Los Angeles alone accounted for more than her winning the popular vote.
I am rural folk myself. And if you knew anything about rural areas, you would know that these aren't "unworldly" at all (I wouldn't read Jay Kuo otherwise! Thanks for writing all that). You would also know most of these are people whose value system is far more aligned with Democrats, although I will admit that Libertarian thinking is fairly widespread, too. You would know that people have college degrees here (I have a Master's). These are also smart people, people who travel the world just like cityfolks do, people who are interested in the goings-on in the world just like you are. My neighbors recently went to Peru for a vacation.
But these are people who are upset about routinely being ignored in politics, and that's due far more to Democrats far more than Republicans. "Nobody we care about lives there anyway" so we get all the stuff that city people are too NIMBY for - landfills, sex offenders, drug addicts, annoying industrial sites - they are all dumped here. We also have issues that you can't even fathom, things like water rights (you guys have city water and sewer for that).
When we approach a Democratic politician with grievances (whether at the local, county, state or federal level), the answer is usually going to be either "tough, deal with it" or crickets. If we approach a Republican, more often than not they will stand up for us. End result is that people here tend to vote Republican, even if it means holding your nose and vote MAGA.
Of course, there are also some MAGA true believers, but probably not more than in the city.
You're correct. I'm wrong. I know nothing of rural folk, sophisticated or otherwise. I was jumping to that conclusion based on Comer's home town of 2200. My apologies. I'm not here to argue. Not my thing.
It all makes some sense except that the "peeved petite bourgeoisie" of the Freedumb Caucus don't really want to govern. They WANT to create chaos and dysfunction in the government--the better to bring it down.
I agree. They want power above all and they've learned from Trump's example that bad behavior is no longer an obstacle to the marbled halls. As for policy goals they still come from the donor class for whom chaos is also the goal.
Which do you want in your house? The brown rat or the grey rat?
Nancy may have had her opponents in the Democratic Party, but she was a legislative maestro while in the Speaker's chair. I hope Hakeem Jeffries heeds her advice, although I'm reaching the point where I think he's pretty politically savvy, too.
Agree. The media is going to somehow blame Democrats and the President for however this plays out anyway, so best to stay out of it. If the other side wants to destroy itself with this crap, let them. No sense getting dragged into it.
"The solution to that pain is to vote them out next November" You bet. Ah, what a mess this is...I learned so much from this piece this morning. Gaetz is a scourge, a waste, and an attention whore. And Kevin is beyond inept. Further, I trust Pelosi's instincts completely... her proven track record of success has earned my trust. Gonna be another interesting day in America's dysfunctional government. 🙄
There's that quote attributed to Napoleon: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
That’s very wise.
That's good...thanks. I'll remember that. 👍
Be Like Nancy. (And Hakeem.)
It’s possible we could trade a few “present” votes for the ending of the Biden impeachment (non-)inquiry, although giving the ‘Thugs enough rope so that they may continue to hoist themselves upon their own petard should be quite amusing.
Well, it's official - My Kev is history and the House is headless.
Gaetz of Hell wants to be governor of Florida and has chosen this arrogant manner to garner attention. Maybe Floridians brought it upon themselves and do deserve Governor Gaetz--but have pity on them--haven't they suffered enough?
Man you got that right. Do Floridians love the abuse? Do they need a dictatorship in their state because they’ve been brainwashed by DeSatan? Surely they will awaken from their stupor and realize they are being manipulated. 🤦♀️
Democrats have no reason to do McCarthy any favors. He reneged on his budget agreement with Biden, buckled to launching a hollow impeachment inquiry, and is beholden to Trump. As recently as Sunday, he tried to blame Democrats for taking us to the brink of a shutdown, when it was the Democrats that bailed him out. Luckily, the journalist called him on it. He is a craven, power hungry, worm.
And as of ~4:30pm 10/3/23, McCarthy has been ousted. The House is Speakerless until the chaotic mess that comprises the many factions of the Repubbie party will mill around like a disturbed anthill (or would that be "anti-hill").
Don’t help McCarthy unless you want to be seen as complicit in his behavior. “Oh, but the concessions,”you say, “are so attractive.” They are entirely illusory and will not bring peace in our time. “Come on,” you say, “give him a hand.” Okay. I’ll give McCarthy a piece of my hand-the middle finger.
Agreed. The Dems have GOT to stop enabling the Republicans. It only prolongs the problem and makes Dems accomplices.
Exactly. Another thing is that GOP will point finger in f*cking up this country even though there's no direct involvement by Democrats. Because I recall our history a couple decades ago that Democrats were dragged into the Iraqi Invasion which was a WMD fabrication by W Bush Administration/ Republican Party. We better learn our lesson today not to trust Republican Party with tRump as the domestic terrorist leader and #1 Russian Asset!
The situation is fraught with peril for both sides. Here's my question: As feckless and impotent as Speaker McCarthy is, if he were removed, would the person who replaced him be even worse? I'd be willing to bet that many Democrats are pondering that very question right now.
If they do manage to elect someone even worse, we will be right back where McCarthy found himself at the end of this 45 day budget period. Extremism can’t govern.
Ah, but that's my point--the MAGA/Sedition Caucus does not want to govern. They want to destroy faith in the system and in government's ability to do anything. The greater the dysfunction, the happier they are/will be.
I don’t see how anyone could be worse. Worse in a different way, perhaps. Perhaps actively supporting MAGA rather then capitulating to them at every turn? But how is that any different on result?
Democrats have GOT to stop caving to Republicans because they worry about what Republicans will do. Its the “I can’t stand up to this bully because he might call me names.” stupidity.
News flash: Republicans will be vile no matter what Dems do so the Dems should stop providing them with cover. It only prolongs the problem and makes Dems part of it.
Democrats should no longer be wondering after considering this piece. (And if still in doubt, read this piece about Matt Gaetz: https://open.substack.com/pub/thinkbigpicture/p/biden-trump-uaw-strike-workers?r=p7mzh&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
The HFC members want no part of the Speakership. Nor would any of them have a chance at winning it. (Gaetz certainly doesn’t want it. He just wants a stage on which to perform.)
And given how fraught the position is, with the incessant posturing and obstruction of the various members of the HFC, who else would want the position? Who’s going to step forward to attempt to rule the unruly?
I think this piece (and Nancy Pelosi’s sage advice) makes a pretty clear case.
Looks like they're going to sit back and let the Republican clown car careen off the cliff.........
It seems that a lot of GOP House members are pretty put out with Gaetz and his pack. Would they really let them put forward a replacement? 🤔
The more likely outcome is that there will be no speaker at all for a long time. Without a speaker, the House can't operate. Among other things, that means, no re-adding of Ukraine aid. And it means a government shutdown once the short-term funding runs out.
That is why I think that supporting McCarthy would have been a better move, but extract so many concessions that he is effectively a puppet of Jeffries. Bonus points: he won't get reelected.
Thanks for this very clear exposition of a murky situation. I agree with NP on the let them hang themselves approach. The one thing this situation demonstrates is how reaching across the aisle and compromise for the good of the country are pretty much dead in the water as far as the GOP is concerned. I hope we can make this very clear in Nov. 2024, with votes.
It’s not murky at all.
The Republicans have (again) shit their bed. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by Dems cleaning up the mess for them.
Dems have been doing that, and all it does is empowers Republicans to shit the bed again.
Let the Republicans continue to show Americans how terrible they are. Stop helping them hide that.
The only problem is that MAGA voters cannot be convinced to really turn away from them, even after years of pain because the narrative is one that utterly demonizes the Dems. So for another year+ we'd get absolutely nothing done in the house while the GOP attempts to replace their leadership over and over. It's a truly shitty situation.
Agreed. Truly shitty.
But one more year of shit after all the years it’s been getting shittier is not a bad price to pay to help end it.
Especially if the alternative is to just prolong it.
And MAGAs are irredeemable. They will be vile no matter what because that’s what they truly want to be. So we should not stand in the way of them destroying themselves. Should not bail out Republicans and help them have some pretense of appearing to be a legitimate party.
Sorry, I disagree. "Staying out of the Republican turmoil" means not lending a hand to McCarthy OR Gaetz.
"The Republicans need to figure this out on their own. We, as Democrats, will not participate in this REPUBLICAN disaster. We will not ask favors from, nor give support to McCarthy or Gaetz."
Anything else puts Democrats into the fray.
There's another remote possibility.
Non-MAGA Republican members get fed up and vote for Jeffries as Speaker.
It's beyond remote, its a fantasy. That will mean upending 30 years of GOP tradition and their core ethos, which is party before country.
What an amazing thought!
Gaetz v McCarthy. It spells one thing for sure: Governance will be obstructed, and in the end, that is exactly the aim of the neo nazi, fascist billionaires who pull the puppet strings of Republican office-holders (they don’t qualify as “leaders”). Fascism wins big, here. THAT should be the underlying narrative to this entire fiasco. Vote Democratic if you want good government.
Tell me one thing the Republican Congress has done for us in the last year...... all they do is attack Biden and his son, and fight with each other. Gaetz is an embarrassment, a useless waste of oxygen, who should be in jail. He would be if he didn't have a rich daddy. What a sad situation.
"Government is broken! Vote for us, and we'll make sure of it!"
That's familiar trick and slogan used before. The premise of the government broke so go vote for me is nothing new. Even genius tRump saying that line loudly : what do you gotta lose, vote for me. GOP is responsible f*cking up our country. Look it up. In the government shutdowns happended in the past few years, it was all because that Republicans had the political power due to lyin's tRump in Oval Office plus GOP got the majority in our Congress. Republican Party fooling people is simple by pointing finger and lying. Such 1-trick elephant!
Gaetz is an repulsive little insect and will, inevitably, one way or another get squashed.
That he is, and he's eying the Florida governor's office.
I'm in the hold-the-line, stay resolute in ideology, sip the clean water camp.
Let the House extremists continue to declare themselves and fall about one another in petulant disarray.
And let their disarray, and it’s potentially devastating results be clearly communicated to the whole country. People need to know who to blame.
In a normal world, this would be the rational thing to do. But I cannot see the MAGA GOP ever inflicting enough pain on their base to cause them to be voted out. Some would think we only need 5 seats to take the majority but we need a much stronger majority since Pelosi is no longer speaker. I trust Jeffries but he doesn't yet have the skill to unify like Pelosi did.
Too bad they never decided to get rid of the sex pervert in their midst....
Truth! There was some buzz yesterday about some Rs considering his expulsion via an Ethics Committee investigation.
Haven’t read anything about that today though.
They've done f*ck all about Santos and they've known about Gaetz for far longer. Two types of chances on this: fat and slim!
Agree.
Perhaps, but people are stupid. If the economy crashes due to Republican dysfunction, they will still blame Biden. 😢
yup, those people voting for Republican Party are indeed stupid, loyal, and gullible as evidently proven in recent history. Only thing I do is not trusting any Repubicans in our government today. I also work harder as part of my civic duty voting for Democratic Party in all elections to ensure GOP be the minority party in our government.
Here’s the reason Ds should stay out of it : “It’s a bit like trying to go on a date with someone who recently got divorced and whose spouse is still issuing death threats. Terrible idea. Wouldn’t recommend.”
Whoever said that is absolutely right! Lol
The term GOP Civil war is being bandied about but I maintain this is all about class struggle. Years of social immobility created a simmering class of ambitious people locked out of the process by credentialed gatekeepers. When the suits caved to Trump this cohort saw their opening. McCarthy, in this scenario, represents the last and emptiest of suits. The Freedom Caucus represents the perpetually peeved petite bourgeoisie who are determined to keep the Trumpian window of opportunity open. The chaos stems from lack of experience managing the levers of power and the lack of cohesion in a movement based on individual egos rather than a game plan. The move to authoritarianism is based on the gold rush to power by those who have long been out of the game. The great and powerless Dave has spoken.
Did you really mean to say petite bourgeoisie? That term usually stands for middle class, but the simmering class of people locked out are closer to, to use a similarly antiquated term, the proletariat (a term that later has been usurped by communism).
I did. When I look at the make up of those who want to take the reins I'm not seeing the proletariat. I'm seeing angry shopkeepers with big chips on their shoulders and lots of ambition. I'm seeing farmers like Comer, rural folk...unworldly people. Or Crossfit Training Franchise owners...people who've clawed their way to the middle and still didn't get the respect they deserve. Greene, Jordan...they're not proles.
Yes, those people exist, but those aren't "locked out" of anything.
I'm offended by you calling rural folk unworldly people. And that attitude is seriously harmful; it's what gets Republicans elected. That's one of the big Achilles heels of the Democrats: they focused only on cities and neglected rural US citizens. There's a reason Hillary Clinton won the big cities of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago - and lost the rest of the country - by such a landslide that Los Angeles alone accounted for more than her winning the popular vote.
I am rural folk myself. And if you knew anything about rural areas, you would know that these aren't "unworldly" at all (I wouldn't read Jay Kuo otherwise! Thanks for writing all that). You would also know most of these are people whose value system is far more aligned with Democrats, although I will admit that Libertarian thinking is fairly widespread, too. You would know that people have college degrees here (I have a Master's). These are also smart people, people who travel the world just like cityfolks do, people who are interested in the goings-on in the world just like you are. My neighbors recently went to Peru for a vacation.
But these are people who are upset about routinely being ignored in politics, and that's due far more to Democrats far more than Republicans. "Nobody we care about lives there anyway" so we get all the stuff that city people are too NIMBY for - landfills, sex offenders, drug addicts, annoying industrial sites - they are all dumped here. We also have issues that you can't even fathom, things like water rights (you guys have city water and sewer for that).
When we approach a Democratic politician with grievances (whether at the local, county, state or federal level), the answer is usually going to be either "tough, deal with it" or crickets. If we approach a Republican, more often than not they will stand up for us. End result is that people here tend to vote Republican, even if it means holding your nose and vote MAGA.
Of course, there are also some MAGA true believers, but probably not more than in the city.
You're correct. I'm wrong. I know nothing of rural folk, sophisticated or otherwise. I was jumping to that conclusion based on Comer's home town of 2200. My apologies. I'm not here to argue. Not my thing.
It all makes some sense except that the "peeved petite bourgeoisie" of the Freedumb Caucus don't really want to govern. They WANT to create chaos and dysfunction in the government--the better to bring it down.
I agree. They want power above all and they've learned from Trump's example that bad behavior is no longer an obstacle to the marbled halls. As for policy goals they still come from the donor class for whom chaos is also the goal.
Nailed it!
This makes total sense!
Which do you want in your house? The brown rat or the grey rat?
Nancy may have had her opponents in the Democratic Party, but she was a legislative maestro while in the Speaker's chair. I hope Hakeem Jeffries heeds her advice, although I'm reaching the point where I think he's pretty politically savvy, too.
Agree. The media is going to somehow blame Democrats and the President for however this plays out anyway, so best to stay out of it. If the other side wants to destroy itself with this crap, let them. No sense getting dragged into it.
We need to push back against this in every way.