[EDIT: People seem to be reading this as a suggestion to vote for McCarthy which was not my intent. I’m expressing concern at Democratic Representatives literally bringing popcorn to the House, and DKos posters literally laughing at the dysfunction. Democrats should be trying to find a way to make the house work, not laughing at Republicans and promoting partisanship]
I’ve been a member at DKos for roughly two decades and remember well the early days when Nate Silver was Pablano, online rumours in advance of the 2004 election, and the pie fights during the 2008 nomination. I still read DKos daily, and it’s one of my primary news sources, but over the years I’ve largely stopped posting — I graduated from law school, have my own family and am rather busy … but also as a Canadian watching US politics has just become horrifying over the years (that’s not to say Canadian politics and discourse is perfect, but we’re doing far better than the clown show south of us).
American politics is beset by two problems which have largely crippled your democracy over the last decade: First, a greater focus on “winning” than governing — hyper-partisanship of the kind that concerned George Washington and led to his ‘Farewell Address’ (something that should be required reading for every single American citizen); and Secondly, American politics has become largely performative art full of vapid egomaniacs more interested in getting famous than in making the country better.
Until this week I was convinced that these were primarily Republican problems (I’m naturally pre-disposed to hate and fear Republicans, I support Canada’s NDP and to me the Democrats are very right wing), but the conduct of the Democrats during the speaker debacle has shown they are just as much a part of the problem.
The role of politicians is to govern, and to address the problems of the country. Democrats right now are making zero effort to do so, instead they are relishing in the failures of the Republicans and enjoying the humiliation of Kevin McCarthy. Granted the Republicans (and McCarthy) are horrible, but it does not improve the country to do this.
There is currently a diary on the recommended list with the inflammatory title “Democrats shouldn’t be on the hook to bring an extinguisher to the Republican dumpster fire”. This kind of thinking is exactly what is wrong with American Democracy — it’s not a “Republican dumpster fire”, it’s an American dumpster fire. If you think this debacle is helping America as a country you need to give your head a shake. All it is doing is promoting partisanship, and it will ultimately result further concessions to the lunatic fringe. Sadly, Democrats seem to be ok with that because they think it will help them in the 2024 election.
The job of politicians is not to win elections, it is to govern.
One of the major problems in democracy worldwide is that fundamental idea has been lost. “Politician” has become a career, rather than a role of public service. The United States (as well as Canada and almost all other democracies) is now dominated by elected officials who have “served” for decades, and for whom winning elections seems to be the most important thing. That stops anyone from doing something that is unpopular but necessary because it might cost them their next election.
That applies as well to being in the opposition. In the UK, the opposition used to be called “the loyal opposition” to make clear that they still supported the country and government. In the modern era, the opposition party just seems to oppose absolutely everything the government does. Even worse, they seem to hope the government fails / does a bad job so that the opposition can win the next election. That’s exactly what the Democrats are doing here, and what the aforementioned diary is about — “Republicans failing will help us in 2024”. Politics should never come before the good of the country, and we should always hope the government does well, even if it’s led by a different party.
Historically there have been three similar disputes over who would be speaker: 1923, 1855 and 1859. There were other earlier disputes, but those were based on weird problems (like the 1839 disagreement about the New Jersey delegation), situations where no party had a majority (like in 1849) or the lack of modern political parties or leadership structures.
In 1923 the Republicans were still dealing with the Roosevelt Progressive schism, and the progressive wing of the party refused to support leadership without concessions. The dispute was resolved after nine ballots when procedural concessions were made. Let’s hope that years from now we see that as the best analogy, because the other two were directly related to slavery and were precursors to the Civil War.
Democrats owe it to the country to try to make the House of Representatives work. Their job isn’t to win elections, or put themselves in the best position for 2024. It’s to govern today for the terms they were elected for. Seeing that the members of DKos have lost sight of that and are now actively engaged in the same kind of lunacy as Republicans is extremely disconcerting.
Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of the Democratic leadership should be engaged in discussions with Republicans about how to end this debacle and move forward to govern in a sensible fashion. If the Republicans reject them and are unwilling to try to govern that’s one thing, but refusing to have those conversations at all and instead relishing in the “Republican dumpster fire” is unacceptable and makes Democrats no better than Republicans. Shame on anyone who is willing to harm democracy and the country in the hopes that it makes them more likely to win the next election.