2022 Midterm Election MEGATHREAD

[Valmy]

Meanwhile it seems like Democratic discipline is firm. Nobody breaking to bail McCarthy out.

I wonder if there is a candidate who would be agreeable to both the anti-Trump wing of the GOP and the Democrats.

There might be. Not McCarthy though.

[Admiral Yi]

There might be. Not McCarthy though.

I agree.  Dicked around too much about Jan 6.

Which makes me wonder what beef Teh Tea Party has with him.

[The Minsky Moment]

Any GOP speaker who had to rely on Democratic votes to get in would be completely compromised.  That would ensure the undying emnity of the trumpenproletariat wing and the need to rely on backing from the Democrats to stay in the position.  It just seems untenable.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, that's the same problem with some of the wonk-takes about scenarios where Jeffries could win. Sure, there are such scenarios. But it wouldn't matter. Winning a Speaker election isn't like winning the Presidency--you need your majority for basically almost all major decisions you undertake--in the normal order of business this is not true because the caucus doesn't constantly file motions to rebel against you, but in a weird Jeffries as Speaker scenario that wouldn't be the case because he would have no real majority caucus.

Even more unrealistic than the marginal cases where Jeffries could somehow get in, is a scenario where he could actually meaningfully run such a disordered House and keep the position.

That is also the problem if McCarthy got in with the help of the Democrats--which he could do without Democratic votes, he just needs enough of them to vote Present instead of for another candidate to change his math. But the problem is, what does that get McCarthy? He will be Speaker in a +5 R House in which 20 or so House members are actively angling to embarrass and sabotage him at all times--including some who may just randomly demand votes on the Speakership to be held at any given time. Under current rules they cannot easily do that--the rules were changed in 2019 so that a motion to vacate the chair cannot be brought by individual members, but only by caucuses (essentially meaning a majority of the majority party.) But there is not any real scenario where I see McCarthy winning the Speakership with that rule intact, which means he would get Boehnered, i.e. one day one of his drooling imbeciles like Gaetz or Gosar would wake up and convulse until they decided it was time to randomly get attention on DailyCaller.com and try to undermine McCarthy's leadership.

The real issue McCarthy has isn't just this election process, it is how does he actually run the House with a +5 majority when 20 of his own members don't seem willing to even go along with him on basic process stuff that is almost mandatory to make the House work? A McCarthy Speakership will need Democrats for all substantive procedural motions and votes, which is a really bad place to be. It massively undermined Boehner that he had to rely on Democrats repeatedly to get the most contentious legislation passed (like the debt ceiling agreement with Obama), McCarthy would face trouble like that on basically a monthly basis.

[Sheilbh]

The party seems dysfunctional. If they cannot even agree on a speaker, how much common legislative ground do they actually have?

They're agreed that an attempted coup isn't that serious. Aside from that all I've got in terms of common GOP agenda are judges and tax cuts - and obviously the House don't vote on judges.

[Zanza]

You have to wonder if the sane Republicans will eventually want a party without the crazy saboteurs again and either purge them from the party or split somehow.

[Valmy]

You have to wonder if the sane Republicans will eventually want a party without the crazy saboteurs again and either purge them from the party or split somehow.

They can't win without them. Hard to win with them as well.

Everything was set up for a big Republican victory in 2024 but with their poor showing in 2022, I am starting to hope that maybe things might be alright. The Republicans flailing about might mean that perhaps them winning the House in 2022 might be a saving grace. I won't get my hopes up though. The Democrats somehow have to win Senate Seats in Ohio and Montana to keep control. Then we have the fucked up situation in Arizona. And I am just sort of assuming Manchin goes down in West Virginia. And a Republican Senate would be a national disaster. But who knows how things might look in 2024? Maybe the Republicans might self-destruct? Things never work out that well though and the Republicans are a powerful and formidable political juggernaut despite their disfunction.

[Solmyr]

There might be. Not McCarthy though.

I agree.  Dicked around too much about Jan 6.

Which makes me wonder what beef Teh Tea Party has with him.

Not dicking around enough about Jan 6.

[The Brain]

You have to wonder if the sane Republicans will eventually want a party without the crazy saboteurs again and either purge them from the party or split somehow.

Any sane person left the GOP years ago.

[Tamas]

I am not sure if this is the right thread for this. I am also not sure if AOC should need a lame excuse for talking to people who want to see her dead, but as far as lame excuses go this seems pretty lame. "Factchecking?"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/04/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-reveals-why-she-was-talking-to-far-right-republicans

During a succession of votes for House speaker on Tuesday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was seen talking on the House floor with the far-right Republicans Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar, the latter who once tweeted video depicting him slashing her in the neck with a sword.

U.S. Representatives gather for the vote for new House Speaker on the first day of the new Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington<br>U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks with reporters in the Will Rogers corridor just off the floor of the House of Representatives as he arrives for the vote for the new Speaker of the House on the first day of the 118th Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
McCarthy faces long battle for House speaker after he falls short on third vote
Read more
The New York Democrat, a progressive star, told MSNBC: "In chaos, anything is possible, especially in this era."

The chaos in Congress on Tuesday concerned the California representative Kevin McCarthy's attempt to become House speaker, against opposition from the right of his party.

Gosar, from Arizona, was censured in November 2021 for tweeting an anime-style video of violence done to Ocasio-Cortez and Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, he was among 20 Republicans opposing McCarthy by the third ballot. So was Gaetz of Florida, a ringleader who nominated Jim Jordan of Ohio, a rightwinger loyal to McCarthy, to give the rebels someone to vote for.

Ocasio-Cortez, popularly known as AOC, was seen talking to Gosar and Gaetz. She told the Intercept her conversation with Gaetz was a "factcheck".

"McCarthy was suggesting he could get Dems to walk away to lower his threshold," Ocasio-Cortez said. "And I factchecked and said absolutely not."

To be speaker, any candidate must reach a majority of representatives present. At one point on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez was absent when her name was called. She voted, for Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, when those absent were called on again.

Votes for speaker go on until they are resolved. The last multi-ballot process, in 1923, lasted three days. In 1855-56, it took months to resolve the issue.

Ocasio-Cortez said she discussed adjournment strategy with Gosar.

"Some of us in the House of Representatives are independent in certain ways from our party," she told MSNBC. "And ... these machinations are happening on the floor.

"And sometimes the leadership of your party, in this case, the Republican party, will be making claims in order to try to twist arms and get people in line. And a lot of times, information and truth is currency.

"So sometimes to be able to factcheck some of the claims that McCarthy is making, whether Democrats are going to defect or not, etc, is important in order to keep him honest and to keep people honest in general."

[The Brain]

Wouldn't the other part be the one factchecking?

[OttoVonBismarck]

You have to wonder if the sane Republicans will eventually want a party without the crazy saboteurs again and either purge them from the party or split somehow.

They can't win without them. Hard to win with them as well.

Everything was set up for a big Republican victory in 2024 but with their poor showing in 2022, I am starting to hope that maybe things might be alright. The Republicans flailing about might mean that perhaps them winning the House in 2022 might be a saving grace. I won't get my hopes up though. The Democrats somehow have to win Senate Seats in Ohio and Montana to keep control. Then we have the fucked up situation in Arizona. And I am just sort of assuming Manchin goes down in West Virginia. And a Republican Senate would be a national disaster. But who knows how things might look in 2024? Maybe the Republicans might self-destruct? Things never work out that well though and the Republicans are a powerful and formidable political juggernaut despite their disfunction.

If you follow closely and look around the edges, there is at least some sign that the GOP is making marginal improvements in terms of being non-crazy. It isn't much to hold out hope for, and as you say by 2024 it will still be a terrible enough party that it's a disaster when they take the Senate--and they have to be favored to do so unless we have a really good Democratic cycle that year.

But when I say "non-crazy", I don't necessarily mean "a force for good." To me the real crazies are the Republicans who are going into elected government to basically see the government collapse. A lot of the worst Freedom Caucus ilk meet that definition. They are the ones who tried to implode our government over the debt ceiling and have caused a number of problems over the years.

What I see emerging is a Fidesz like GOP, that actually does care about passing legislation, but is still fairly antidemocratic. If you look at some of the things Josh Hawley and the people around him have been pushing, it is very much a move towards a "socially conservative, economically liberal" party. It will be ironic when/if this occurs (and I think that is the direction it is going), because much of our current trouble can be traced to the astroturfing by libertarian billionaires who helped build the early Tea Party. But I can't think of anything more on life support in the GOP than libertarian principles. It used to be you could just argue the GOP often gave their views short shrift, but a significant number of modern Republicans are actively antithetical to libertarian principles.

There's a reason you have a wing of the GOP that just wants to go full scorched earth towards corporate executives and many of their former wealthy masters. And unfortunately for us, there are more votes that way, right? Hawley said as much over the railroad strike. He basically asked, "Why are we supporting these companies instead of the blue collar workers that now vote for us?" Because the company CEOs give them donations? Because of vague pro-corporate principles? Hawley clearly does not care about either of those things, and he correctly realizes that even just in the railroad industry alone there are more Republican voters than the entire sum total of all corporate executives in America, corp executives are great for fundraising--they represent essentially no votes in society at large because they are such a small "ruling class."

But one thing about this new ethos is it isn't about obstructionism, it will actually want to pass legislation--including beefing up social welfare systems. But they're also going to continue to try to entrench antidemocratic systems in our government and push an aggressively social conservative agenda through legislation wherever they can.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I am not sure if this is the right thread for this. I am also not sure if AOC should need a lame excuse for talking to people who want to see her dead, but as far as lame excuses go this seems pretty lame. "Factchecking?"

Not sure why she needs an excuse to talk to a fellow member of Congress, that is part of the ordinary way the House operates.

[Tamas]

I am not sure if this is the right thread for this. I am also not sure if AOC should need a lame excuse for talking to people who want to see her dead, but as far as lame excuses go this seems pretty lame. "Factchecking?"

Not sure why she needs an excuse to talk to a fellow member of Congress, that is part of the ordinary way the House operates.

Yeah I'd think the same but the ultra-lame excuse raised my suspicion that she was up to some trickery she wanted to keep hush-hush.

[garbon]

I am not sure if this is the right thread for this. I am also not sure if AOC should need a lame excuse for talking to people who want to see her dead, but as far as lame excuses go this seems pretty lame. "Factchecking?"

Not sure why she needs an excuse to talk to a fellow member of Congress, that is part of the ordinary way the House operates.

Yeah I'd think the same but the ultra-lame excuse raised my suspicion that she was up to some trickery she wanted to keep hush-hush.

I'm not AOC fan but highlighting this is risible.