I take issue with the phrasing, he didn’t assemble 216 votes, he managed 8 and Dems provided the rest.
I'm honestly confused about the democratic strategy here. We need a speaker in 42 days to prevent a government shutdown. Wouldn't it have been better to wring concessions out of this dude to shut down the MAGA idiots?
Democrats had wrestled in recent days with whether to help Mr. McCarthy survive, or at least to stay out of the effort to oust him. But in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, instructed fellow Democrats not to do so, citing Republicans’ “unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism.” Democrats did not participate in the floor debate.
There's a backup Speaker, Patrick McHenry, who will probably keep the seat warm until the next election.
Democrats have a lot of options here, and they all have some upside. Keep McCarthy on, and they might still be able to work out deals with him (devil-you-know strategy). Let him go, and there's a few other options. Work with a handful of the slightly more sensible Republicans to put someone they can all agree with up there. Or let the GOP fight amongst themselves and take all the blame in the lead up to the next election.
They all have merit. One way it could somewhat backfire is if the GOP tries that insane plan to put in Trump as Speaker. The next steps are to impeach and remove both the President and Vice President, thus putting Trump back into the White House, since the Speaker is next in line. This plan has too many failure modes to actually work, but they might try step one, anyway.
Jeffries says he’s reneged and can’t be trusted to keep his word. I guess the play is to see who most Republicans will vote for that will also make some concessions, but they would have the same problem that they did with McCarthy; there’s no promise that any Speaker could make that couldn’t be reneged on. So, they need a Republican they can trust, which doesn’t leave many options.
Wouldn’t it have been better to wring concessions out of this dude to shut down the MAGA idiots?
That was discussed in this thread. tl;dr: he did a public interview where he was still calling Democrats out for some kind of stupid shit. That basically killed any chance of a deal.
Well Kevin McCarthy is a terrible person; his cozying up to Trump and rhetoric about the election makes him responsible along with Trump for January 6th, he's proven himself a lecherous, power-hungry politician whose life's ambition was to become Speaker (supposedly), and he was totally ineffective at reining in Gaetz and the rest, and he was actively trying to stall out talks to cause a government shutdown. For all those reasons, House Democrats would have no incentive to cross the aisle for him here. McCarthy should be thrown out of Congress and prosecuted for Jan 6th; having his life's goal immediately ripped away from him will have to do for now.
The Dems biggest enemy have always been themselves. If they will find a way to fuck themselves, you better believe they'll do it.
You mean Matt Geatz, the guy that was stealing licences of underage girls for sex trafficking and obstruction of justice by calling his 3 girlfriends.
Did Gaetz just fuck Ukraine?
Not a chance; Ukraine declared independence on Aug 24 1991, making it 23 years old.
Nah this doesn't affect any of the ongoing aid packages, just means nothing new announced until a new budget is passed.
No, I don't think so. The house will be busy for a few days, but nothing the house does had immediate effect. Ukraine will get funding within a week of the new speaker being chosen.
Actually, he's one of the young guns.
Interesting. The other two left politics, and the third just got sacked by his own party.
instead we have crazy town
Sorry I'm about to judge appearances, but they look so shleppy.
You're on a book cover, maybe don't Trump your tie Ryan. McCarthy should use his newfound time practicing smiling. Idk the 3rd guy.
This is a book those 3 wrote after the 2010 "Republican revolution" and, presumably they chose the cover for it too.
Ouch.
At least some bloods have the courage to fight for what ever crazy shite they want.
Unlike the crips that were cowards with no backbone when Nancy Pelosi was in the same position.
Force the vote and Medicare for All was a possible vote.
Matt Gaetz also stirred shit up when the speaker was being elected, by the way. You did not just make the "both sides bad, Republicans better?" Argument. For fucks sake.
