There’s no sign of Kevin McCarthy’s very bad week getting any better Thursday when the House reconvenes at noon to continue voting for speaker candidates. It’s worth pointing out here that this is a situation plenty of us saw coming down the road weeks ago, since immediately after the election. It’s a reflection of just how dead the Republican Party is that they knew putting McCarthy up for speaker was going to fail, and did absolutely nothing to stop it from happening.
They chose to put themselves through this humiliation, broadcast on live television for the whole world to see. They are choosing to continue it, not looking at the only viable, responsible option for creating a House of Representatives that could function: working with Democrats. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), who is not a maniac, told NBC News, “That’s really off the table. I don’t think anybody voted to do that. I don’t think that works very well in any time. I think it’s particularly unsuited to these times. The polarization is too great.”
That’s going to come back to bite Cole in the ass. He’s the top Republican on the House Rules Committee, arguably the most powerful of all the committees because just about everything that reaches the floor flows through it, and the members there determine which bills get to the floor, which bills are prioritized and when they’re scheduled. McCarthy just bargained Cole’s committee away in his concessions to the maniacs, handing some of its coveted seats to the Freedom Caucus. Have fun with that, Mr. Cole. If there’s ever a Speaker elected so that you can have a committee, that is.
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Speaking of McCarthy giving the shop away, he’s erased his red line, and has agreed to lower the threshold needed to force a vote to oust him from five members to just one. That’s the “motion to vacate,” the means by which the House can hold a vote of no confidence in their leader. It doesn’t matter, the McCarthy team says of surrendering this one thing he absolutely was not going to give on. It doesn’t make a difference whether it’s one member or five triggering the vote, they say. It perhaps hasn’t occurred to them that those five could take turns, calling the motion up over and over again.
Won’t happen, says Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Neverneverland). The maniacs would never “misuse” the weapon, he told reporters Thursday. And the capitulation on these things shouldn’t be seen as “concessions” to the maniacs, but “clarifications.” We’re on day three of this shit show, with no end in sight, because of the maniacs, and Fitzpatrick is convinced that they won’t abuse the power McCarthy is handing them.
Which is precisely why we’re on day three of this shitshow.
Get used to that, because it will be every day the House is in session for the next two years, whether it’s under McCarthy’s leadership or any other Republicans. The Freedom Caucus runs the show now, and no one who manages to cobble together 218 Republican votes is going to be able to wriggle out from under its thumb.
Now, if the regular Republicans—like Tom Cole or, say, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), who had fun trashing the 19 spoilers on CNN last night—were to say enough, they could potentially make an agreement with Democrats. That would require a commitment to governing, though, and that just doesn’t exist among these guys.
McCarthy has guaranteed two years of total chaos and palace intrigue, no matter who gets the gavel. And it’s probably not going to be McCarthy because a core group of the maniacs—at least five and possibly as many as ten—aren’t backing down.
The maniacs are going to be in control of the House for the next two years because no one in the House GOP is going to stop them. Period.
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