I'm sorry, but the idea that Dems had a role in saving McCarthy's ass is idiotic. The majority party has the responsibility for picking a speaker.
Sorry, but that's just wrong. The entire House votes on the Speaker, not just the majority caucus. That makes it the responsibility of the entire House. That it is not this in practice is a sign of dysfunction, not how things should be.
Technically, that might have been the original idea, because the 18th century framers did not understand the role that political parties would play in politics and made no allowances for partisanship. Over the history of the country, most House speakers have been elected by political caucuses. The whole House votes, but the party with the most votes controls the agenda. That makes sense, because the party that wins the most seats controls the legislative agenda, and our two parties have very different political agendas.
I wish we had some a decent number of representatives from other parties in Congress (although we would need either a regional party or proportional representation for that) so that no single party has an outright majority hardly ever and Speaker is more than just a glorified party caucus leader.
As Rhea pointed out, political caucuses within Congress already play bipartisan roles. However, there can only be one Speaker, and
Duverger's Law applies to the formation of parties in the US. We aren't going to have more than two major parties in the US until we change the way in which people vote for political candidates. First past the post voting is what rules our politics now.
McCarthy did nothing that the worst MAGA Republican would not have done.
That is demonstrably untrue, as otherwise he would not have advanced the motion to vacate.
Again, you pick a nit that doesn't really contradict my claim. The only thing McCarthy did to displease the MAGA masters holding his dog leash was to allow Democratic votes to keep the government open. And that is what lost him his speakership. He completely reneged on his original compromise plan to keep the government open, which included aid for Ukraine. So Democrats had no reason to trust him at all. The next speaker will have to do their bidding, whether it is McCarthy or someone else. It was up to McCarthy to buck the MAGA wing and stick to his original commitment, and he refused to do that. Good riddance. Now Republicans will have to find a replacement that they can all get behind despite the refusal of Democrats to help. Alternatively, some Republican moderates could come forward and work with Democrats to put a bipartisan leadership in place. McCarthy himself could get his speakership back, if he was willing to do that.
Let the Republicans find their own speaker or seek a deal with Democrats to put some kind of bipartisan speaker in place.
I am for that second option. But I doubt Dems these days are very conciliatory.
Now that is demonstrably wrong. Being conciliatory is different from capitulation. Democrats have shown a willingness to strike deals, but it is the Republican side that controls the House and the unconciliatory MAGA wing that controls the Republicans. McCarthy offered Democrats nothing more to support his speakership than the prospect that the next speaker could actually be more willing to toss bombs than he was. But he still tossed those bombs, even if he would have preferred not to. He did what he was told until he allowed Democrats to help him keep the government open.
Right now, the MAGA idiots who engineered McCarthy's demise are considering Donald Trump for the position, and Trump has said he was open to it (although that doesn't mean that he was really open to it). I think that it might be useful to have Trump in that role to remind the public of how bad things can be with such an incompetent in public office.
That would put Trump two heartbeats away from the presidency. Is that something you would want to risk?
Wake up, Derec! Who is the front runner to be the Republican nominee to the presidency? He is closer than two heartbeats now, and I prefer the current lineup to the succession than what we had when McCarthy was in that lineup.
www.foxnews.com
