I think this gets things backwards. MAGA is the party as far as I can see. Trump has dominant support in the primaries. So who is kicking out whom? Even the non-freedom caucus members have to be MAGA-lite.
MAGA is the greatest base of voters. The neocons have been defeated so what do you want to do about it? And the religious right have gone full MAGA as well. Libertarians are also Maga-like (anti-Ukraine at least) so I’m not entirely sure who these Republicans are supposed to be impressing in their party by working with a Democrat.
But losing the MAGA vote means losing the election to a Democrat.
Like seriously, if a Republican reaches across the aisle, do you really think that would impress Democrats and increase the congressperson’s vote count? Lets say someone won their district like 55%. Losing 10% of the MAGA Republican vote is more deadly than the… I dunno… 3% at best that you’d gain from independents who are happy you’re not an asshole. And the Democrats weren’t voting for you anyway so its all irrelevant.
It is pretty cool though to see more Republicans stand up to Jim Jordan though, especially when that news came out about the threatening text messages some Republican Rep’s wives got about their spouses vote. I would love to see more Republicans break off and pick somebody else other than Jordan. He is the absolute fucking worst and he’s a maga Republican 100%. I mean if you’re looking for somebody who looks strong to Republicans, Jim Jordan is not the choice. He looks like a whiny, sniveling bitch.
But sadly, I absolutely expect them all to fall in line behind Jordan after several pointless rounds of votes. Because they’re all cowards.
That’s analogous to a conservative commentor saying, “an easy solution would be a few Democrats voting for Jordan.” You and I know that’s about as likely as Hillary stumping for Trump though.
That’s analogous to a conservative commentor saying, “an easy solution would be a few Democrats voting for Jordan.”
I'm pretty sure that was exactly the point. There have been endless articles asking if Democrats will step in to help Republicans out of the mess they created by voting for a marginally less extreme Republican. This person was flipping that nonsense around and asking why a handful of Republicans can't just vote for someone who actually wants to govern.
(1) Republicans are knee deep in infighting right now. Working with Democrats is bad enough but voting for one would definitely bring a primary challenger.
(2) Republicans have the majority in the house. Fair or not, it’s theirs and in my opinion it just isn’t realistic to expect them to give the gavel and the speakers bully pulpit (to borrow the expression) to a Democrat especially at the beginning of a presidential election cycle.
I haven’t looked at these 20 Biden district Republicans in a lot of depth, only superficially, but I don’t see them switching party alliances and in my opinion that’s the only way they’d vote for Jefferies.
Purple? Definitely but feeling Blue? I don’t think so. I think it’s increasingly likely that we could see a republican & Blue dog supported speaker but in my opinion it’ll be a republican with some minority party rights. I can’t see Jefferies getting the gavel this time around. Hopefully 2024 gives it to him.
There's no chance of them crossing the aisle to elect a Democrat, yes.
But there's also no chance of them siphoning off Democratic votes if they're unwilling to give anything up, and can't be trusted even if they offer something juicy.
So there's about as much chance that they'll elect Jeffries as there is that they'll elect one of their own.
Honestly, it could be a real power move for some blue state republicans to flip parties. If they could pull a Reagan and say that the Republican Party has changed but they haven’t, they could take both the democratic voters and centrist republicans while losing the MAGAs, and still carry their district.
They don’t even have to flip outright to Democrats, they could simply announce they are now Independent. They are probably getting a Primary challenger regardless, and maybe Democrats pay back the favor by forgetting to run a candidate in that district.
What share of Republican voters are flexible enough to decide to vote for the Democrats just so they don’t support the Trump/MAGA movement? Because these people would need need to decide to vote Republican come next election and US electors seem to be very entrenched in their support for one party or the other, no matter what…
There’s always more people to peel off, but I think a lot of the centrist republicans have already switched. Anecdotally, my dad, a lifelong republican, chose not to vote in 2016, and voted for Biden in 2020. I don’t see a lot of Trump voters switching over after voting for him twice, but maybe some of the moderates who held their votes will decide to vote for democrats in the future
It could, but brass tacks: Who are these people? I mean which Reps could survive jumping ship here with their political careers intact? I’m genuinely curious because I love the idea. I just don’t see it for the same reason I don’t see a single Dem flipping to get a more center Republican speaker.
If you defect, you basically have to swap parties entirely, because you’re not just signing up for the Speaker. You also have to expect to protect him or her from the next motion to vacate. And the next. So in for a penny, in for a pound.
This is the same reason it takes a majority to elect the Speaker in the first place: Otherwise you have a House with a Speaker that still can’t actually govern.
Even tactically it would be the smart move for the Republicans.
If nothing gets done, they can blame the Democratic speaker, if things get passed the wingnuts don't like, they can blame it on the Democratic speaker, meanwhile, the republicans from the slightly more swingy states get creds with more moderate voters, when they vote sensibly.
But nooo, Republicans can only stand either having it all or blocking it all.
Good points, but any Republican who votes for a Democrat would see the entirety of the MAGA base vote against them. Hell, McCarthy got ousted for just negotiating with Democrats to avoid a shutdown. None of them are going to vote for Jeffries.
Yep, that was a “we have you by the balls” requirement to ensure that there could easily get rid of McCarthy if he did anything that the fringe right didn’t like. It’s not a rule that is helpful for getting work done, but those clowns don’t care about that. The next speaker should get rid of it, it’s dumb.
Even tactically it would be the smart move for the Republicans.
Republicans have painted themselves into a corner on this issue by refusing to reject the fascism that has taken over the GOP. Fascism requires “others” to blame. You see it over and over. “This is all the fault of foreigners from X.” “This is because of Y minority group.” And of course, one of the “others” is always whatever the rival political party is. In this case, the Democrats.
For a fascist, it’s unthinkable to work with one of the “others”. It would be like Hitler partnering with Jewish people.
Republicans are already blaming Democrats bizarrely for not voting for McCarthy, at a time when McCarthy and all of the Republicans were blaming Democrats for everything, and vowing never to work with them again.
What we really need is a small group of Republicans to say the situation plainly. “The GOP is letting fascists take over and is becoming unamerican. I will not be able to support GOP leadership until they publicly reject fascism and eject extremists like Trump, Gaetz, and Greene from the party. I will still vote for my constituency’s conservative values, but I cannot let fascists control American politics, and so for House leadership, I am forced to vote for my conscience and support Hakeem Jeffries.”
There’s a whole thing about one of the fundamentals of fascism is that there must be outgroups that the law binds but does not protect, and ingroups that the law protects, but does not bind. That’s basically the operating principle of the modern Republican party.
If I were a House Republican, I might say that in my speech. “I am a patriot who would give my life for my country. And as a patriot, I would obviously rather risk losing my seat than risk losing my entire country to fascism. I only pray that some of my colleagues also demonstrate that bravery.”
Of course, this isn’t going to happen. Patriotic Republicans had the opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism when Liz Cheney did, and we’ve already seen how many of the GOP had even the smallest amount of patriotism.
Some Republican House member requested two things from Jim Jordan:
Ukrainian Aid
A public statement saying that Trump lost the 2020 election.
Jim Jordan responded by doxing him and letting the far-right MAGA Twitter hatemob harass him over this weekend. And Jim Jordan still wonders why this guy hasn’t flipped over to support him… Mind you: the other Republicans are more than happy to chastise the “defectors” and try to apply more pressure on them.
I don’t know what needs to happen for people to realize that this won’t work. But the political winds are very far against what you think they are right now. A giant speaker battle and public embarrassment over the new state of the Republican Party might be one of the better things to happen for this to blow over.
The actual play, if Democrats wish to engage, is to provide more power to acting speaker Patrick McHenry in exchange for various concessions.
The current plan being discussed is a Ukrainian/Israeli/Tawain aid bill, and probably another “kick the continuing resolution forward” another month or two.
No Republican Speaker wants to be seen as beholden to the Democrats, not with the politics as they are right now. But the acting-speaker has no such qualms, as its “temporary”.
IIRC it’s a bit less than that, something like 3b of 36b.
To allow the US easy access to intelligence, operational bases and feeding the military industrial complex, that’s really not a ton of cash for the US…
It’s absurd that we require a majority vote for house speaker. It should be as simple as whoever gets the most votes. Or you have to vote for A or B for your vote to even be counted. None of this “present” nonsense.
The speaker isn’t a job laid out in law other than being listed as 3rd in succession. It exists at the acceptance of some rules adopted by a majority of the house. Those rules could just as well not include any speaker, it could call for everyone to dress as a banana on Tuesday.
I had guessed that he’d get fewer votes partially as a meme but it actually happened!
At this point I think the Israel conflict is going to force enough House Republicans to elect Jeffries so they can react to the situation and potentially give aid.
“Republican infighting causing dysfunctional House prevents aid to Israel after Hamas attack” is not a headline that I think even their voters want to see.
I am hopeful that this will hasten the breakaway of the far right from the republican party into a completely new 3rd party. It seems like this would only help dems.
It would only help dems, which is why it’s unlikely. Best thing we can hope for is the republican party is pushed further right, which leads to the democrats absorbing even more center-right politicians, and then we have a few decades of milquetoast Democratic dominance until something big changes the dynamic.
Another fun record, tallying up all the votes he’s received during McCarthy‘s 15 rounds and the most recent votes, Hakeem Jeffries now has accumulated the most lifetime votes for speaker in history.
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