House Republicans in Disarray

[Gunnar]

I think there's an important asymmetry between the extreme factions in the two parties. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's squad wants to use government to improve the lives of the American people. They can't get what they want by shutting down the government or making it dysfunctional. The Freedom Caucus is anti-federal government. They don't want to make the federal government work. They want to make it powerless. Dysfunction simply reinforces their argument that the federal government is bad.

I agree that those are valid and important distinctions. Thanks for pointing them out.

[Gunnar]

Politico published a piece by several authors on the topic of whether democracy is broken: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... p-00120170

The New Republic published a piece by Norman Ornstein that discussed how McCarthy -- the last of the GOP "Young Guns" -- created the conditions that toppled him as speaker. https://newrepublic.com/article/176035/ ... ker-demise

Thanks for those informative links. They greatly enhanced my understanding of the situation. One comment in particular from those articles that really stood out for me was this one:

Why is this key to deciphering Congress? One fact that has dominated Republican thinking for eight years now defines the behavior of the party: There is virtually no behavior, however repellent, however malicious, that will trigger a political cost, because the beating heart of the Republican base will not care.

I haven't seen a better summation of what the Republican party has become in recent years than that one. In several interviews I have seen of Trumpist, MAGA Republican attendees at Trump rallies, who openly and unabashedly admitted that there is nothing Trump could do, however immoral or unlawful, that would change their minds about voting for Trump -- not even if he randomly shot and killed someone in broad daylight on a public street, according to at least a couple of interviewees I heard!

[Res Ipsa]

the Relief Society held their private Speaker vote yesterday, with Scalise winning over Jordan. But they can't bring the vote to the floor because there are at least five Relief Society who say they will not vote for Scalise. The House went into session this morning, and immediately went into recess. No word on when a vote for a new Speaker might happen.

[Gunnar]

I can't help feeling that even in the current complement of House Republicans there must at least a few who would be more respectable candidates for Speaker than either Jordan or Scalise. I'm not sure which of those two is worst, but I consider both of them to be scoundrels.

[Res Ipsa]

Well, you don’t have to worry about Scalise. Despite the fact that he got more votes than Jordan in the private caucus on Wednesday, he announced tonight that he’s dropped out of the Speaker race.

I’m sure the NYT will explain to me why that’s bad for Biden.

[honorentheos]

Last week I saw an interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez where she discussed questions such as why Democrats didn't vote against Gaetz in favor of McCarthy and related topics. It reminded me of a report I'd read after the Space Shuttle Columbia burned up on reentry in 2003 that compared the, "we need to do the impossible" mindset of NASA engineers bringing the crew of Apollo 13 home and the mindset in NASA in 2003 that decides to not have the astronauts examine the damage to the shuttle because they decided there was nothing that could be done if it was damaged badly enough to penetrate the heat shielding...an assumption rejected in the subsequent investigation.

Her comments included there being no precedent for a party voting for a speaker from another party, that they didn't see McCarthy's problems as their problem, and confirmed the general lack of good faith between the two sides. What it didn't convey was a sense of strategic thinking, or any thinking related to the effects on democracy this episode may cause. It is all partisan brinkmanship.

I'd be blown away by it, but it seems like a middle coalition willing to ignore party lines and claim a positive place in history. But partisanship is too entrenched for me to believe to would happen.

[Physics Guy]

A while back I asked where JFK was, meaning that I didn't understand why there weren't any charismatic younger Democratic candidates for President. Now that I think about it, US federal politicians in general seem to be a weirdly mediocre lot. The USA is an industrialised nation of nearly 340 million. How the heck is this bunch of characters the best it can do for national leaders and legislators?

[Res Ipsa]

A while back I asked where JFK was, meaning that I didn't understand why there weren't any charismatic younger Democratic candidates for President. Now that I think about it, US federal politicians in general seem to be a weirdly mediocre lot. The USA is an industrialised nation of nearly 340 million. How the heck is this bunch of characters the best it can do for national leaders and legislators?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

For a Representative, election season never ends. A shocking amount of their time is spent simply raising funds for the next election. Jim Jordan, for example, has mastered the art of conducting "investigations" for the sole purpose of fund raising. Every time you read about something he says, you can bet what he said is the basis of yet another fund raising letter.

[Manetho]

A while back I asked where JFK was, meaning that I didn't understand why there weren't any charismatic younger Democratic candidates for President. Now that I think about it, US federal politicians in general seem to be a weirdly mediocre lot. The USA is an industrialised nation of nearly 340 million. How the heck is this bunch of characters the best it can do for national leaders and legislators?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

For a Representative, election season never ends. A shocking amount of their time is spent simply raising funds for the next election. Jim Jordan, for example, has mastered the art of conducting "investigations" for the sole purpose of fund raising. Every time you read about something he says, you can bet what he said is the basis of yet another fund raising letter.

The insane fundraising system is the source of an awful lot of the dysfunctions in our politics. A few weeks ago, I saw an analysis of our growing gerontocracy problem that traces it back in large part to fundraising. Incumbents can raise more money than challengers, especially primary challengers. With our current levels of polarization and gerrymandering, general elections aren't much of a threat in many districts, so incumbents who don't face viable primary challengers can stay in office until they die.

[Res Ipsa]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

For a Representative, election season never ends. A shocking amount of their time is spent simply raising funds for the next election. Jim Jordan, for example, has mastered the art of conducting "investigations" for the sole purpose of fund raising. Every time you read about something he says, you can bet what he said is the basis of yet another fund raising letter.

The insane fundraising system is the source of an awful lot of the dysfunctions in our politics. A few weeks ago, I saw an analysis of our growing gerontocracy problem that traces it back in large part to fundraising. Incumbents can raise more money than challengers, especially primary challengers. With our current levels of polarization and gerrymandering, general elections aren't much of a threat in many districts, so incumbents who don't face viable primary challengers can stay in office until they die.

Good point. I don't think it would be too hard to identify lots of ways our election funding system works against effective government.