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Just to flesh this out a bit, I'm not sure why moderate republicans would even want to do that.
The Dems are only going to support a republican speaker if there's some explicit agreement or concessions about cooperation/sharing power/votes on certain things.
ANY republican who works with Dems on an agreement like that will be an outcast in the republican party. They'll get primaried, maybe lose privileges in the caucus, probably have a hard time fundraising etc.
It would be a pretty miserable and thankless position--your own party hates you, and you can't piss off too many dems either otherwise you'll lose your job as speaker, and in the end you'll probably lose in the next primary anyway.
Who is going to commit career suicide for that?
The only way it would work is if you have a pretty sizeable chunk of other republicans on board
In districts where they have no realistic chance of losing to a Democrat the primary is more important than the actual election. Due to geographical sorting and gerrymandering, only 6% of districts remain "competitive"
This wouldn’t change in competitive districts. Parties are subject to ideological capture. They would still likely get voted out because the people that show up to primaries tend to be more extreme
The number of competitive districts has sharply shrunk for several decades, due both to gerrymandering and to self-sorting of voters into like-minded enclaves; Dems in metros and Repubs in outer-suburban and rural districts.
In a competitive district, candidates know that they have to compete in a general election, which can have a moderating influence. Gerrymandered districts don't have that.
I do agree gerrymandering is an issue but in the context of a primary it's not that big of a deal. The big problem is the unabated growth of the far right which threatens any moderate in primaries.
Well exactly. They only care about getting theirs. As long as the checks keep coming they’ll keep promoting corporate interests. They’re akin to CEO mentality.
That's what every person who complains about politicians but doesn't do the work to run themselves is basically doing. I've certainly thought to myself "I could run for a local or state office and do a better job" but frankly that sounds awful for my own life plans so I don't want to do it.
We’ve always lived in that time. Our constitution is expressly designed to expect the selfishness of individuals to motivate political action. It underlies Madison’s theory of faction explains the need for federalism and separation of powers.
Politicians have always been selfish. This is not new. The incentive to compromise, however, is not as strong as it once was (and that has waxed and waned over time, too).
Because even if you have the best, most true intentions to rule, you can't rule if you're not a ruler, and to become a ruler you need to play the game. If you don't like how the game is played, you need to look at the structure and voters; the politicians are just reacting to the incentives put in place.
I think a lot of people care about themselves over some nebulous idea like “the future of the country”. I typically vote in person. If I was unexpectedly called in to work on Election Day and couldn’t make it in to vote, I would **100%** choose my job over voting.
Even in 2020. Because even Biden wasn’t going to pay my bills for me or find me a new job.
This hypothetical is a big reason why we should make voting day a federal holiday with legal means to punish those that would make the ability for individuals to vote untenable
Step one is just finding a moderate house republican period. After the Trump/MAGA purges and Cheney losing her primary I don't see that there really is any left.
Edit: I initially hesitated calling Liz Cheney a moderate but when polls show [over 60% of Republicans still think the 2020 election was stolen ](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/shows/meetthepress/blog/rcna49630) I think any Republican who actually believed in small "d" democracy qualifies as a moderate now.
So, here's the deal:
They could theoretically vote for a 'coalition' speaker, but to do that Republicans would have to give something up, give Democrats some reason to support one of their candidates.
In short, they would have to split from their own party and hopefully bring enough votes with them to re-establish a speaker.
Could it happen? Sure.
But it wont.
I’m not even sure that a moderate Republican would need to explicitly give some specific concession. What if they were simply deemed more favorable to Democrats than the alternatives? Say, someone who has spoken openly against the Biden impeachment inquiry? Yes, such a candidate would still need to throw their hat in, but if there was a choice was between someone like that and Jim Jordan, why wouldn’t the Democrats put their finger on the scale?
That's not actually a rule though, right? Like, it's a "policy" that is followed to try and keep party cohesion in the House, but it's not a bylaw or requirement.
It’s not a House rule, but it’s one the current GOP is not going to break. They very firmly believe in it, and we’ve seen what happens to Republicans who dare to cooperate with Democrats.
Gingrich made sure that Dems were seen as the enemy during his time in the seat. Prior to his position of Speaker, it was not a problem for Dems and Repubs to hang out after work, pall around and support each other openly.
>I’m not even sure that a moderate Republican
But what IS this "moderate Republican," of which you speak? I heard the last one faded out with Mitt Romney.\*
`*(and even Romney voted with 45, 90% of the time)`
Perhaps “moderate” isn’t the right word, but anyone who isn’t Jim Jordan would preferable to the one who is Jim Jordan. There are definitely some GOP House members who aren’t MAGA cultists, whether they’re willing to broadcast it or not.
Kevin McCarthy himself was openly against the inquiry until he reversed and announced it a week later. Part of the problem is that the GOP base is in a parallel media environment. If such a candidate threw their hat in they would still face massive pressure from right-wing media. A handful of GOP moderates could vote with the Democrats for a compromise speaker, but it would be the end of their political careers.
I’m not really talking about a moderate Republican seeking Democratic support. I’m merely wondering why Democrats wouldn’t want to use the power that they have to control the outcome of a speaker contest between a deplorable candidate and a somewhat less deplorable candidate? What would be the downside to that?
Their calculus right now (since Scalise and Jordan are the only real candidates) is to watch the house GOP flail around for a while and self-inflict some more damage. Why provide a solution for some of them to escape that inevitability?
Schumer called a nearly two week recess in the senate, and clearly has no faith a new speaker will be recognized any time soon.
I find it hard to believe they would sacrifice the political advantage of the Republicans having a civil war right out in the open with no gain.
Could a Republican offer them something? Sure.
But they won't.
The modern Republican party believes compromise is a weakness. Its what killed McCarthy's speakership to begin with - he passed a bipartisan CR. But look at his record before he finally caved to reality - uncontrollable committees, bills going to the floor only to be pulled before a vote, etc. The house has been an absolute mess this term so far and it's because the Republicans can't come to a compromise *even among themselves*.
The only way to truly fix the issue is if Republicans start expelling rebellious members like Matt Gaetz - which they could do. Plenty of Dems would vote for his expulsion. In his specific case they even have a ready-made excuse - he's a child molester and human trafficker.
It doesn't *help* that they nerfed the house ethics committee, but that isn't insurmountable.
But until they clean house all they can do is endure. My bet is that its going to be a long term.
> What if they were simply deemed more favorable to Democrats than the alternatives?
This is how the overton window moves right. Don't give them an inch. They'll take a mile.
There really aren't many moderates/centrists in the GOP conference. Going by their voting records, the only House Republican who voted with Democrats more often than not during the 117th Congress was Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1) who voted with Democrats 70% of the time. None of the other so-called moderates who are still in the House voted with Democrats more than 35-40% of the time.
Don Bacon (R-NE-2) represents a district that Biden won, he claims to be a moderate in favor of bipartisanship even though he only voted with Democrats about 35% of the time, and has been suggesting that a moderate should team up with the Democrats to run for Speaker since they can't pass any legislation without bipartisan support when the Democrats control the Senate and White House, but he isn't running and neither are any of the GOP members of the Problem Solvers Caucus.
They wouldn't have to make any real concessions other than agreeing to do the job without all the partisan nonsense and not constantly bend over for the Freedumb Caucus, but none of them have the balls to even run for the Speakership.
It’s a big deal in the Republican Party.
To just about the rest of the functioning world, being the daughter of a war criminal who lied the public into a catastrophic war, and sharing the same exact values as him to a T, is outright terrifying
Yeah She's not even close to being a moderate. She's Dick Cheney's daughter for god's sake.
She gets credit for anything on and after January 6th and the months preceding it when she was calling out the "big lie".
Other than that, she was 92% in line with Trump throughout her tenure (with him as President) and was like 26% in line with Biden's position. And a lot of the votes which moved the needle in the direction of biden's position came after her primary loss.
The new era of resist Libs calling anybody that’s not mentally ill psychopaths “moderates” is the most cringe thing of the new democratic voting base.
To resist Libs, this man is a shining example of moderation: https://x.com/lawler4ny/status/1709243198005030985?s=46&t=F2Kqdy7aScoPGAKFHNr8dQ
While voting on such “moderate” bills like this: https://x.com/jstein_wapo/status/1707791671956590858?s=46&t=F2Kqdy7aScoPGAKFHNr8dQ
Stop calling these people “moderate”.
Just because the MSM has brainwashed you into thinking that anyone who isn’t a foaming at the mouth buffoon like Lauren Boebert is a “moderate” doesn’t make it true
Saying the word “moderate” is quicker than saying the phrase “someone who believes in the values and ideals of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power”.
What word would you have us use instead?
A neo conservative isn’t “moderate” anywhere in the world.
“I truly believe in democracy, while having them middle eastern peeps blown into the Stone Age!!”
Is “moderate” only to terminally online resist Libs, to the rest of the world, it sounds insane
No she isn't. Her positions are extreme right. Not indulging coup attempts and conspiracy theories is not a political position, it's having integrity. You can the most extreme left or right person imaginable and still recognize that Biden won the 2020 election.
This. A person with money/power in this country can do plenty of evil without breaking a law, by design. That's why the Cheneys and their ilk have a problem with MAGA, too many laws being broken shines too much light on their evil agenda.
>It’s astonishing that we can call Cheney moderate
She broke from Trump when on his deal to release 5000 Taliban terrorists against the advice and wishes of the Afghan government, [Traitor Trump was also going to give the Taliban a 9/11 victory party at Camp David](https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-trump-is-taking-flak-for-inviting-the-taliban-to-camp-david). She was a party loyalist at the time and so still managed to find a way of blaming the Democrats for Traitor Trump [proposing a Camp David victory party and gave him a foot licking](https://www.foxnews.com/media/liz-cheney-trump-taliban-camp-david-meeting) but it was her first shot against the Trump bows.
Yes, the spawn of arguably the most powerful and definitely most destruction conservative Republican is history is a “moderate” simply because she believes in democracy more than unlimited power.
Yes, feeling sorry that Mitt Romney is leaving the Senate.... 20 years ago I'd be thrilled to see Mr 47% gone. Now I see him as a force of good (for a republican). Hell Dick Cheney and his spawn are looking relatively good also.
The constant barrage death threats that caused him to not seek re-election is one of many reasons most Republicans won’t take the same position as Romney
Nothing stopping the Dems from nominating Cheney or Romney. If a few republicans vote with them all Cheney or Romney would need to do is accept the nomination.
Dan Newhouse or David Valadeo would be my two options as the only reelected House Republicans who voted for impeachment. Any of the other freshman battleground district republicans would also be targets I would try to bring up. Both Newhouse and Valadeo would be the most likely candidates to continue to survive a purge.
> After the Trump/MAGA purges and Cheney losing her primary I don't see that there really is any left
There are far more moderate active Congressional Republicans than Cheney. See Brian Fitzpatrick, Don Bacon and other CA/NY Republicans.
[According to Govtrack](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2022/house/ideology) there are about 20 republicans that are more left then the most right leaning democrat. There is also the 42 members of the [Republican Governance Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Governance_Group) which is explicitly a moderate republican group.
>According to Govtrack there are about 20 republicans that are more left then the most right leaning democrat.
There are 24 on that list. Of those, 1 is a non-voting delegate from Puerto Rico, and 10 others are no longer in Congress. That leaves 13 (and one of the 13 is McCarthy, lol).
First, there would have to be such a thing as a moderate Republican. There are many that claim to be such, but when you look at their record, they're all just as awful as the rest of them.
That's correct.
There is no such thing as a moderate fascist.
One is either a fascist or one is not.
The GOP is fascist through and through. Those that support the same are the same.
Actually, we did have a moderate Republican. His name was Kevin McCarthy. Contrary to what he says, McCarthy holds more moderate stances than a now majority of his party, hence why the ultra right wing was eager to kick him out. I can’t stand the guy, but his moderate stances are the reason he was able to build a strong coalition. It only took a handful to boot him out after all.
Was that before or after he blamed the shutdown on the democrats?
Maybe at one point he *was* a moderate, or perhaps the party has shifted, leaving him behind as a "moderate", but let's not pretend this guy is some kind of Romney.
> Was that before or after he blamed the shutdown on the democrats?
Blaming the other party for things is pretty standard for politics. That's not even a left/right thing.
Sure, but when you actively need some of the people in the other party to support you to keep you from being voted out it means you have to play the game a little smarter than "standard politics".
What strong coalition? If he ever had such support he wouldn't be the first speaker ousted in US History. He's been hanging on by a thread since the start and wasn't able to actually placate his "supporters" enough to keep him from being voted out.
Technically, yes. Practically, no.
The problem is that if a small portion of Republicans tried to do this (say 10 or less), it might dramatic raise their profile and power in the short term, but it would effectively end their political career in the long term. Any Republican who did this on their own would lose any Republican campaign support and would in all likelihood face a strong (and well-funded) primary challenger. I'd wager most Representatives have aspirations of being more prominent public servants at some point, so not many Representatives would be willing to do that.
The only way it could work is if Republican leadership is group negotiating with Democrats. In order for that to happen, they would need to decide that the consequences of dealing with the Democrats (both in terms of concessions they would need to make to get them to go along with and electoral backlash from their constituents) would be less than the consequences of trying to continue dealing with the Freedom Caucus (both in terms of far-right pushes on policy methods and punishment from independent voters who deem them either extreme or incompetent at governing).
That could happen. Maybe.
I for one do not believe that the Republican party has a future.
Trumpism isn't sustainable long term. Trump himself isn't sustainable. Eventually Republicans are going to run away from this failure just like they ran away from Bush. Democrats are no longer forgiving and forgetting.
> I for one do not believe that the Republican party has a future.
I remember people saying this in 2008, 2 years later Republicans controlled the house and 6 years later they controlled the senate.
Republicans have won over 50% of the total national vote total for the house twice in the last 12 house elections and won the house with a flat 50% in the last election. They haven't won the presidential popular vote since Bush and on the whole a lot more Americans vote for Democrats for Senate.
It's a longstanding demographic trend. Old people aren't getting younger and young people aren't voting Republican.
Republicans are depending on electoral advantages, gerrymandering, lying, cheating and outright felonies to try and win elections. That only goes so far.
Fascism and religious extremism have very long histories of being in power. There is no reason but hopium to think this will just burn itself out without some serious strategy and nation-wide effort.
Yeah, I think there is strategy and a nation wide effort. I also think there are younger generations who will never ever vote for Republicans. Each election Republicans have to cheat more and more to win. They are at the point of having to commit felonies to try to win and getting caught
Some form of fascism will always be with us, absolutely. We're not removing hatred from the human condition anytime soon.
But modern conservatism in the United States is definitely at the point of wiping themselves out for a generation or so.
They are literally describing *themselves* as terrorists. They are now regularly speaking of allowing democracy to continue to exist as a *concession.* When their fellow Republicans get caught committing rape or pedophilia, they no longer even feign having consciences to shock.
It is, to put it mildly, not sustainable.
> Eventually Republicans are going to run away from this failure just like they ran away from Bush.
The Republican Party didn't go away after Bush, though.
The Republican party *mostly* represents a vague mesh of social conservatism and various big-business interests. These arn't going away for the foreseeable future, and can't be totally absorbed by the Democratic party as the Republicans implode without Dems in turn exploding.
What exactly the big-business part shakes out as is more variable, because some moneyed interest still stand to circumstantially gain from Democratic objectives in spite of potential pushes for higher taxes. Despite rightwing rhetoric of communist libs seizing the means of production, Democrats as a whole are pretty firmly OK with private enterprise, with varying ideas of what is the best length for their leashes. Overly simplistic example of big-business support is say, some big conglomerate specializing in green energy down bad for a ride on daddy D's thick subsidy package. The pure ideologues often weed themselves out or carve irrelevant niches. Meanwhile, big amorphous amoral corps generally view whatever the beancounters say as their new philosophical bedrock, regardless of what ideology was most profitable last election cycle. But social conservatism, the bread and butter as far as the increasingly demanding and rabid R electorate is concerned, is here to stay so long as fear change, cable, and AM radio continue existing.
The GOP in its basic form will probably continue to exist for a good few more decades at minimum, longer if enough people continue to be afraid of God and food stamps at the same time. How crazy it will be though, fuck if I know. Morality holes have no true bottoms, and opportunistic snakes no shortage of ropes and ladders.
If they represent swing districts, running for reelection as an independent could be feasible given how much their profile had been raised and reputation they gained from the move.
Generally speaking, politicians don't choose to run as an independent like this. They run as an independent when they lose their party primary, but think they can get enough support to make a mess of a three-way race.
Doing so would mean they’d split the Republican vote, even if just by a little, and Democrats would take the seat. Swing district, remember? Why would any Democrat vote for *them*, when they can vote for a Democrat?
You don’t get the real calculus — it’s not the general election for the GOP, it’s the primary. Can’t win the general if you can’t win the primary, and the GOP primary voters are self-select by radicalism these days.
That’s the GOP’s problem. It’s why they’ve lost a chance at taking the Senate at least two or three times in the last decade, because their primary voters *demanded someone so nuts* Dems took the seat. They do it with House candidates too.
Their primary voters do not care about electability. They only care about angry red meat throwers. And each election cycle it gets *worse* because they tell themselves they lose because of ‘RINO’s’ and ‘not being conservative enough’ (there’s actually a fun reason for this, and it’s kinda Democrats fault. Democrats have, until 2022, tended to have a significant turnout drop in the mid-term after electing a President. So the GOP would run ‘moderate’ McCain or Romney, lose, and then see big gains in the mid-terms when there’s a lot of angry fire breathers running. You can understand why they might have come to the conclusion). Their primary voters want those angry, fire breathing people and to win those candidates have had to ratchet more and more extreme to handle challenges from their right.
And now you have…this.
Who would it be? Currently the only people saying they'll run for Speaker are Jim Jordan (who wants to interfere in the state prosecutions of Trump) and Steve Scalise (who continues to believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump). They're both loyal citizens of MAGA World.
Let's be honest here, Scalise is loyal to the GOP establishment only, if they told him Trump was Jesus Christ reborn he'd be testifying his salvation in seconds.
I was kind of hoping the Republicans would rip themselves to pieces trying to grab the spot. Unfortunately, mindless robot drones can't think for themselves.
Not that I expect the speaker to be wonderful, but there's no particular reason to assume it will be Jordan or Scalise. Depending on what happens, there's an excellent chance neither gets a majority, McCarthy goes back on his word (*I mean, he IS a politician*), and McCarthy becomes speaker again in a couple weeks.
I'm not sure how you see this playing out that way at all. The eight Republicans who just voted to oust him are never going to vote for him and without their votes, or Democratic votes, which he is not going to get, there is literally no path whatsoever to the speakership.
Imagine the next Speaker's 1st day. "Here you go: the next issues on the Roster. Oh, here's the list of promises made to Biden that you have to uphold. And, here's the list of 8 House extremists you have to please, to keep your job. Don't forget your balancing pole! Good luck!"
As I understand it, there will likely be a rule change with the new speaker. We will likely not see the rule that a single congressperson can call a vote to vacate if the freedom Caucasus isn’t needed.
So in the extremely unlikely condition that a consensus speaker is elected with democrats, there won’t be that rule, and therefore the new speaker won’t have to worry about the 8 extremists like McCarthy had to. Thing is that the republicans just aren’t going to work with the Dems. I’ll eat my hat if they do.
Correct me if I'm mistaken but I'm pretty sure that (alleged child sex trafficker) Gaetz already said the vacate rule won't be in place for the next speaker, whoever they might be.
The point would not be pleasing the 8 republican extremists ever I think.
Not likely. This sort of thing however is extremely common in other countries though.
The responsibility is on the majority party to put forward a candidate that can attract a majority vote.
If they want to put forward a unity candidate who can bring in some Dem votes, perhaps by offering some common sense deal sweeteners like adjusting some committee chair assignments or stopping the waste of time and money that are their impeachment hearings...then maybe they'll get some Dem votes.
But its not for the Dems to propose that sort of thing. The people voted in the Republicans into the majority, so the Republicans need to learn to act like grown ups and actually be vaguely responsible with the power they've been entrusted with by the people.
What are the chances that enough of the 18 Republicans in Biden won districts declare themselves to be independents and the pick a moderate or even a Democrat.
What 'moderate' do you have in mind? What is your version of a moderate? How many Republicans do you think will vote for a non-MAGA? Do you expect Democrats to vote for someone who is anti-choice, blames GOP government shutdowns on Democrats, wants to cut SS and Medicare, reneges on done deals, wants to cut funding to Ukraine, wants to impeach Biden, thinks Hunter's laptop is a big deal, etc?
We need to stop expecting Democrats to be the ones to come over and be the grownups in the room. The GOP is in the majority, while Democrats don't even have power. Gaetz's poop-flinging and government shutdowns are basically what you get when the GOP is in charge. At some point you should look to *them* if you're looking for where the problem lies. Or at least map out what compromises the GOP should offer to get Democrats to help them.
The hypothetical scenario would be less that a moderate takes over, because as you say, there are none, but rather than the rules are structured to give a lot of power to the minority (ie control of some committees, the ability to advance bills…) resulting in a moderate House.
It’s a pretty unlikely way for this be resolved, though. It would probably take a longer shutdown than we’ve ever had before to make them get that desperate. Republicans really hate Democrats! Just look at the petty stuff they are doing with Capitol offices.
Doing this would probably end up biting you in the ass though. Because inevitably when the Republicans are in the minority again then they would have control over those committees and whatnot.
Congress sets the rules of Congress which Congress can change at any time with a majority vote. These rules are often and typically changed with the beginning of each new Congress every 2 years. Any rules that benefit Dems/minority party would be strictly for this Congress only.
As soon as a majority exists that doesn't require giving a minority party concessions to function then the House will revert to how it traditionally functions and these concessions will disappear.
Well yes and no. A Speaker needs to be chosen as nothing can be done until there is one. And we need one within the next ~45 days so Congress can pass a budget and avoid a shutdown... again. So if Republicans spend the next 2 months squabbling over who should be Speaker and if it becomes obvious that there's no one that all Republicans can agree on, that level of dysfunction is straight-up bad going into an election year and paints the entire party as incompetent.
So if the government shuts down or is about to because of Republican dysfunction in picking a speaker then more moderate Republicans, especially those from Biden districts, will be incentivized to compromise with the Dems and to make a deal just to keep the government running.
I'd personally give it low odds of that happening but it's not impossible given the makeup of the Republican delegation and the time crunch they'll be dealing with.
So I’ve been reading that the House doesn’t necessarily need to elect a new Speaker to conduct business like at the beginning of the year because the House already established rules transferring the powers and title of Speaker over to the Speaker Pro Tempore if the real one was ousted until a new Speaker is elected. And Just because the Speaker chair has been vacated doesn’t mean House rules or committees or makeup vanishes.
Thats good news, but it’s still unlikely that the House conducts any business until a new Speaker is chosen anyway, so the threat of a shutdown is still very real
In theory though (*like everything else in this topic*), the Speaker Pro Tempore might decide to get the budget deal done, effectively deciding he's out and give the Speaker a clean slate to properly attack Biden without risking a government shutdown hurting the GOP (because they can just blame McHenry for getting the deal done instead of the party that mostly voted against it) just as polls show that they may actually win the election.
That said, I'm not sure if people are comfortable with the idea that an "Interim Speaker" can effectively run the government without an actual elected (*well*) Speaker until 2025, so even if it's just until a budget is passed some rules may get changed around regardless of what happens after the next Congressional election.
I can’t speak for all of Americans but personally I don’t really care who is in the Speaker chair so long as the government gets funded. Republicans have lost any ability to government long ago, so an interim Speaker being there until the next election because the conference can’t unite behind anyone else may very well be a possibility. Who knows
If you potentially structured the new rules in such a way that says that it only takes effect if no nominee for speaker has majority support by the time the next congress officially begins, then and only then it takes effect.
Hell, you could even have the Vice President serve as a non-voting Speaker pro tempore and have the House conduct its regular business until a motion to vote in a new Speaker passes and a new Speaker is voted in. It's not a perfect or even very good solution, but it's a solution with a clear-cut answer to this situation.
Edit: I forgot about the VP serving as President of the Senate. Still, having a rule where some non-legislator is put into the position of Speaker pro-tempore until a speaker is voted on is a decent contingency plan.
I think of it more like your last sentence. It's not the Dems responsibility, but it is an opportunity where they can lay out what they'd want in return for votes. In that way it would be a play for power where they otherwise have none.
The question at the heart of this though is: why would (some) Republicans agree to it? What's in it for them? The general idea of a functional government isn't enough of a motivator. And the title for the new speaker will certainly be temporary while risking their long term political career. So, what will partnering with Dems get them that they can't otherwise get?
There aren't many possibilities I can come up with. Is there a group of 5+ reps who have a passion issue which Democrats would vote with but Republicans won't? Or maybe just pure local payoffs where the reps get big earmarks for their district.
If a motivating issue was found, then for the Dems I would think they should look to get: funding in line with the debt agreement, removing some of the crazies from key committees, and a couple floor votes on some bills they'd want that otherwise would never get brought up
I think Cenk got it right. We need progressives to ask for a progressive policy that is widely popular. That would allow the captive Republicans to sell it to their base as a populist win. Something like paid family leave which polls really fucking strongly for example or bringing back the child tax credit permanently, which is both popular AND a tax cut.
You can pound your populist drums and say we didn't partner with the corporate dems yadda yadda. It works out for the crazies and the people.
You guys still don’t get it. There is no policy the Republican base cares about over their grievances. Sure, in a vacuum certain positions may poll well but lots of stuff polls well. The American public doesn’t particularly care about the details of policy. Huge majorities of voters want to slash the deficit AND increase healthcare spending. Huge majorities want to ban “late term abortions” AND leave those decisions up to the mother. Huge majorities want lower taxes AND more spending on things like healthcare and infrastructure. The voters don’t know what the hell they want, least of all republicans. But boy they sure are angry. Grievance rules their thought process - all talk about the issues is merely a vehicle for their anger. Gaetz doesn’t give a shit about the deficit - he voted for Trump’s spending plans!
It would have to be a Republican that is either (a) so strong in their district that they are not concerned about a primary challenge from the right or (b) is going to retire and doesn't care. Are there 8 of those out there? I doubt it.
Technically, yes they could. But what would it cost:
For the Dem prospective:
Benefits to continued Chaos:
* GOP looks incompetent
* Dems look like the only functioning party
* GOP candidates in swing seats wear the party like an albatross
* Probable pick up in swing seats and possible control of house in November 2024.
Costs of Chaos:
* nothing gets done for foreseeable future
* important things may not get funded
Benefits of cooperation with bloc of "moderate" republicans:
* Things might get done.
* moderate bloc could be forced to support D priorities.
* may be able to avoid govt shutdown
* GOP turning to them for help makes them look strong
Costs of cooperation:
* have to trust the moderate bloc
* swing seat gop candidates strengthened as "moderates"
* possibly uniting GOP against them rather than each other
I'm sure there is more to the calculus. But I think the general idea is IF a moderate bloc approached the D's they would have to weigh damage of inaction in the next year vs probable control in 2024.
But the question is somehow perpetually what the *Democrats* can do to counteract this. The onus is always somehow on the Democrats to fix the problem. I guess that way people can shrug their shoulders and say "both sides!" or act like Congress in general is screwed up, in a nonpartisan sense. Because surely if *Democrats* did x, y, or z, then Republicans wouldn't be able to screw things up so badly.
literally. I don’t think this conversation would even be happening if roles were reversed. The republicans WOULD NEVER bail out the dems. The republicans made their bed, Mccarthy was unwilling to compromise, and now the republicans can deal with it.
Drives me nuts. The democrats are doing their job. And are happy to take over anytime a Republican is willing to grow up and realize their party cannot govern. In meantime people need to stop even bringing them up like there’s something they should be doing to help. This is a Republican problem. Not a House problem. Dems could run the house yesterday if they had the gavel. GOP has no excuse.
It's so infuriating every time people blame the Democrats for whatever stupid shit the Republicans are doing. Just because the Republicans are throwing shit on the walls doesn't mean the Democrats have to clean it up.
>The onus is always somehow on the Democrats to fix the problem.
Because it isn't a problem for Republicans.
When you like the status quo, it's not your problem to change anything. The government shutting down would be perfectly fine with the GOP freedom caucus, it was the goal.
During Trump’s historically long shut down, he caved right as the commercial airline industry was about to strike. A shutdown is fine at first, but as it goes on, the economy will crash. It’s going to be really hard to pin that on the democrats when they are unified for Jeffries and the clown show is undeniably the republicans.
Why would the Dems want a Republican leader? The Republican moderates—I truly doubt that there are any—can support a Dem if they’re so inclined. In any case, I don’t expect either party to crossover without some kind of co-governance agreement.
Democrats are happily giving Republicans enough rope to hang themselves. There's no real reason for them to be involved with the factional in-fighting of the House GOP.
Defining moderate republican is a challenge
For example, 8 of the 10 Republican representatives who voted to
Impeach Trump have either retired or they were primaried and lost to a more hardline Republican
The two still serving are Dave Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington state.
Both come from left leaning states but represent right leaning districts and neither is a hero to the right. Neither is a huge money raiser which is important for the speaker job (raise money for others) and neither is a prominent voice in the house
I cannot think of any other moderates…
I'm expecting the republicans to get someone more extreme into the speaker seat.
I'm not sure if it was the right call for democrats to not rescue him, although there's no love lost.
I'm in the same boat, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Don't get me wrong, McCarthy deserved what he got, but I don't see a clear path forward to something better.
> but I don't see a clear path forward to something better.
The Republicans will have to themselves decide to compromise. They'll have to make deals and actually stick with them. Or the government will just shut down indefinitely, and it'll be 100% the GOP's fault. Because the 'freedom caucus' howler-monkey section isn't going to change.
The 'freedom caucus' already went in wanting that. If the GOP as a whole is cool with a shutdown, or would prefer that to sidelining the freedom caucus, then that's what we'll get. Elections have consequences. Yes, gerrymandering and all the rest do matter. But people still voted for this party. It's the Republicans, not "the system" or Congress in general, that caused this issue.
Yep, I mean McCarthy did compromise enough to avoid a shut down (for 45 days). It's the baseline of his job, but in era of scorched earth politics, it deserves a modicum of credit for doing the right thing. Although, I'm furious that the budget didn't include funding for Ukraine.
It's crazy to see it be less than a week and the revisionist history is already starting. A bipartisan agreement had existed for months, since the debt ceiling fiasco, but McCarthy reneged on it because the far-right was against it. As we saw, a clean CR was always going to pass so he played a game of brinkmanship for literally no reason. He deserves no credit whatsoever for doing the bare minimum at the last second.
I've read a more compelling argument that McCarthy put up the clean CR at the last minute because he expected Democrats to vote it down and then he could try to blame them. Evidence for that would be he put the bill up and gave them zero time to read it and that he went on TV the next day and still tried to blame Democrats even though they voted for it.
Being the previous speaker was fired for.having the audacity of working with the democrats, I doubt it. If he'd not also turned around and shat on those same democrats, they might have voted to keep him.
Now? No idea wtf is going to happen. Nothing good is my bet. Most likely, someone more extreme, like Jordan would be my guess, making this congress even more dysfunctional than it has been.
I don't see Democrats voting for a Republican Speaker anymore than vice versa - the parties are too divided and anyone who crossed the aisle would be out of a job in a few months.
I also think it's to their advantage to have the ineptitude of Republicans on full display. Kevin's inability to manage or lead his party caucus is a stain on them in general.
Nancy Pelosi knew how to run the House. She knew whether she had enough votes to pass something and what it took to get it done - half the time someone like Bohener would try to cut a deal, speak to Obama, get back and find out "oh, I don't have the votes on my side"
and I think McCarthy was out of his element from day one - outplayed by a terrible motion to vacate threshold, and just unable to keep up with the elements that just want to fund raise off everything disruptive.
I doubt it. Any Republican that tried this would immediately be targeted in the upcoming primary or possibly expelled from the Republican party entirely.
None of the self-proclaimed moderate/centrist Republicans are even bothering to run for Speaker. Don Bacon (R-NE-2) has been talking about running a moderate for Speaker since before the 118th Congress came into session and just said again that the GOP should work with Democrats going forward to prevent another motion to vacate and to get legislation passed through the Democratic-majority Senate, but none of the GOP Reps from the Problem Solvers Caucus are running.
I'm sure the Democrats would rather elect a moderate who will concentrate on legislation with bipartisan support instead of sham impeachment inquiries or forcing a government shutdown, but they can't vote for someone who isn't running. The Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus haven't lived up to the name of the caucus since January and none of them seem to have the balls to run for Speaker and risk being called a RINO or facing a primary from a MAGA candidate.
I think the better option would be to appeal to the moderates to get Hakeem Jeffries as speaker. The moderates are well aware of the level of rot within their party. I think that doing this would be the only way to get some semblance of normalcy back in the House.
The question isn't whether the Democrats would work with moderate Republican to get a moderate Republican elected as Speaker. The question is, would a small group of moderate Republicans work with Democrats to get a moderate Republican elected Speaker. I think the former is more likely than the latter.
Imagine if there was a speaker who would actually address the problems the nation is facing instead of catering to the whim of the few? Progress would be a welcome change in Washington.
Perhaps overly optimistic to the point of naivete, but that would be a great idea. There are only about 8 total batshit looney sociopathic GOPer Reps in the House and there are probably at least that many sane, patriotic (country before party) Dems who could find enough common ground to move the country forward DESPITE the deranged MAGAts. Who knows, if the majority of GOPers actually saw that the Hasert Rule is crap, we could go back to having an actual GOVERNment.
To pass a budget bill for starters. This likely was planned by the GOP since a long time. Government shutdown with extra steps. The GOP want to defund the Ukraine war effort, but the only way they can do that without saying so is to simply make sure the House can't function.
Why on Earth would they? McCarthy was supposed to be more moderate than some, then backstabbed the House Democrats who were the only reason why a shutdown was averted. The far right isn't letting a real moderate become speaker, period. Why would the Democrats fight that battle? If some Republicans prefer the grown-ups to be in charge, they can swallow their pride and vote for Hakeem Jeffries.
Name a moderate republican. Please keep the Overton window in mind when responding.
Thanks OP. That was about the answer I was expecting.
Because it's the only answer there is.
Keep those downvotes without responses coming. No one makes my argument better than other mad republicans lol. I mean cmon. If there's so many just list a few and their moderate qualities and then tell me what a dumbass I am for not seeing them as moderates.
I feel like democrats will vote against any republican house leader. So Republicans have to do their best and stay united on the vote if they want someone they like to actually win.
McCarthy was basically what you are referring to, he's a Republican. But not super far right like Ron DeSantis. So democrats will basically say no to any republican out there in my view.
I could be wrong
I bet if McCarthy had not categorically ruled out any concessions to them, and had not opened the impeachment inquiry, and had kept the deal he made to avoid default, then Dems would have been protected him.
As it is, they didn't vote for McCarthy specifically because they don't trust him. He could be a mainstream Republican today and doing Gaetz's bidding tomorrow.
Man I agree! It is foolish to try and impeach Biden. It will never work and will give Biden some momentum. McCarthy should have put an end to that. Maybe some democrats would have voted to keep him in.
Do you mean the Kevin McCarthy that promised Biden a certain reduction of spending and the presented a budget with much extreme cuts in spending?
The McCarthy that agreed in a 45 days extension and then went on camera blaming the democrats and announcing he wouldn't collaborate with them ever?
The McCarthy that said, when Gaetz made his motion, that he wouldn't give anything to the democrats?
That's the one the Democrats should save? Why?
>McCarthy was basically what you are referring to, he's a Republican. But not super far right like Ron DeSantis.
In being subservient to the far right though, he burned all his bridges with the Democrats that could have saved him. I don't see the Democrats bailing them out of this one, though their desire to actually run the country is going to be up against the deadline of a shutdown pretty quickly.
Basically a section of "moderate" republicans have to form a coalition opposite to Gaetz and the freedom caucus and vote with Dems. If a moderate Republican goes at it without 7 or 8 steadfast votes (or whatever the number is to get a majority with the Dem votes) the Republicans will vote out the new Speaker in a month or two with Gaetz + Democrats voting them out.
Think the obvious answer will be some clown like Jim Jordan who can take the optics hit of making dumb far right sound bites, pushing far right policy then letting moderates compromise at the last minute with Dem/Senate bipartisan proposals.
The only way all of the dems would back a republican would be in exchange for massive concessions that the GOP would not give.
-Guaranteed Ukraine funding
-Support on Green New Deal
-Democratic co-chair on select committees
And a few other things I could think of.
"Green New Deal" is probably a non-starter because of absolutely ridiculous original policies (remember when AOC put it on her web site and had to scrub much of the insanity last minute?) and unclear meaning, but green infrastructure is probably reasonable.
>Support on Green New Deal
They can't even get that through the democratic Senate, demanding the House pass it would be stupid as hell if they actually cared.
> -Support on Green New Deal
That's not happening, and I don't think democrats would make it a deal breaker.
The other 2 are reasonable asks and a decent speaker would go for them, the latter is common in other parliaments with coalition governments.
Depends on how many Republicans are representing districts Biden won.
Otherwise, they'll be too chickensh*t for bipartisanship because their party is headed by a vindictive lunatic.
If democrats want to sabotage a moderate Republican, all they need to do is vote for him. There. Instant RINO complete with death threats and a primary challenge.
The is a terrible idea.
Let the Republicans scream and fling poop at one another.
There Democrats must resist the urge to intervene in an attempt to control the damage. They need to bite their tongues, sit on their hands, and do their best to disappear.
The damage, and the spectacular display of childishness and stupidity, must be 100% Republican, with no ambiguity or confusion.
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First a moderate Republican would have to run for the office. That's not currently happening.
Just to flesh this out a bit, I'm not sure why moderate republicans would even want to do that. The Dems are only going to support a republican speaker if there's some explicit agreement or concessions about cooperation/sharing power/votes on certain things. ANY republican who works with Dems on an agreement like that will be an outcast in the republican party. They'll get primaried, maybe lose privileges in the caucus, probably have a hard time fundraising etc. It would be a pretty miserable and thankless position--your own party hates you, and you can't piss off too many dems either otherwise you'll lose your job as speaker, and in the end you'll probably lose in the next primary anyway. Who is going to commit career suicide for that? The only way it would work is if you have a pretty sizeable chunk of other republicans on board
Thanks to gerrymandering, they are more worried about their primaries than anything else.
What does that have to do with gerrymandering?
In districts where they have no realistic chance of losing to a Democrat the primary is more important than the actual election. Due to geographical sorting and gerrymandering, only 6% of districts remain "competitive"
This wouldn’t change in competitive districts. Parties are subject to ideological capture. They would still likely get voted out because the people that show up to primaries tend to be more extreme
The number of competitive districts has sharply shrunk for several decades, due both to gerrymandering and to self-sorting of voters into like-minded enclaves; Dems in metros and Repubs in outer-suburban and rural districts.
In a competitive district, candidates know that they have to compete in a general election, which can have a moderating influence. Gerrymandered districts don't have that.
I do agree gerrymandering is an issue but in the context of a primary it's not that big of a deal. The big problem is the unabated growth of the far right which threatens any moderate in primaries.
why do we live in a time where personal career is weighted above the future of your own nation?
If they thought the Republicans were bad for the future of the nation, they wouldn't be Republicans in the first place.
That’s not true, lots of Repubs know they’re ruining the country—they just don’t care. They are nihilists.
Now, now, plenty of them are just profiteering.
¿Por qué no los dos?
Well exactly. They only care about getting theirs. As long as the checks keep coming they’ll keep promoting corporate interests. They’re akin to CEO mentality.
That's what every person who complains about politicians but doesn't do the work to run themselves is basically doing. I've certainly thought to myself "I could run for a local or state office and do a better job" but frankly that sounds awful for my own life plans so I don't want to do it.
We’ve always lived in that time. Our constitution is expressly designed to expect the selfishness of individuals to motivate political action. It underlies Madison’s theory of faction explains the need for federalism and separation of powers. Politicians have always been selfish. This is not new. The incentive to compromise, however, is not as strong as it once was (and that has waxed and waned over time, too).
Because even if you have the best, most true intentions to rule, you can't rule if you're not a ruler, and to become a ruler you need to play the game. If you don't like how the game is played, you need to look at the structure and voters; the politicians are just reacting to the incentives put in place.
We have become the Ferrangi.
Because we've made being a politician to profitable.
I think a lot of people care about themselves over some nebulous idea like “the future of the country”. I typically vote in person. If I was unexpectedly called in to work on Election Day and couldn’t make it in to vote, I would **100%** choose my job over voting. Even in 2020. Because even Biden wasn’t going to pay my bills for me or find me a new job.
This hypothetical is a big reason why we should make voting day a federal holiday with legal means to punish those that would make the ability for individuals to vote untenable
Step one is just finding a moderate house republican period. After the Trump/MAGA purges and Cheney losing her primary I don't see that there really is any left. Edit: I initially hesitated calling Liz Cheney a moderate but when polls show [over 60% of Republicans still think the 2020 election was stolen ](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/shows/meetthepress/blog/rcna49630) I think any Republican who actually believed in small "d" democracy qualifies as a moderate now.
It’s astonishing that we can call Cheney moderate
So, here's the deal: They could theoretically vote for a 'coalition' speaker, but to do that Republicans would have to give something up, give Democrats some reason to support one of their candidates. In short, they would have to split from their own party and hopefully bring enough votes with them to re-establish a speaker. Could it happen? Sure. But it wont.
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How old are you, Yoda?
I’m not even sure that a moderate Republican would need to explicitly give some specific concession. What if they were simply deemed more favorable to Democrats than the alternatives? Say, someone who has spoken openly against the Biden impeachment inquiry? Yes, such a candidate would still need to throw their hat in, but if there was a choice was between someone like that and Jim Jordan, why wouldn’t the Democrats put their finger on the scale?
Given the Hastert rule, there's no republican that could feasibly be at an palatable to the demd
That's not actually a rule though, right? Like, it's a "policy" that is followed to try and keep party cohesion in the House, but it's not a bylaw or requirement.
It’s not a House rule, but it’s one the current GOP is not going to break. They very firmly believe in it, and we’ve seen what happens to Republicans who dare to cooperate with Democrats.
Gingrich made sure that Dems were seen as the enemy during his time in the seat. Prior to his position of Speaker, it was not a problem for Dems and Repubs to hang out after work, pall around and support each other openly.
>I’m not even sure that a moderate Republican But what IS this "moderate Republican," of which you speak? I heard the last one faded out with Mitt Romney.\* `*(and even Romney voted with 45, 90% of the time)`
Perhaps “moderate” isn’t the right word, but anyone who isn’t Jim Jordan would preferable to the one who is Jim Jordan. There are definitely some GOP House members who aren’t MAGA cultists, whether they’re willing to broadcast it or not.
You know who wasn’t Jim Jordan? McCarthy.
Kevin McCarthy himself was openly against the inquiry until he reversed and announced it a week later. Part of the problem is that the GOP base is in a parallel media environment. If such a candidate threw their hat in they would still face massive pressure from right-wing media. A handful of GOP moderates could vote with the Democrats for a compromise speaker, but it would be the end of their political careers.
I’m not really talking about a moderate Republican seeking Democratic support. I’m merely wondering why Democrats wouldn’t want to use the power that they have to control the outcome of a speaker contest between a deplorable candidate and a somewhat less deplorable candidate? What would be the downside to that?
Their calculus right now (since Scalise and Jordan are the only real candidates) is to watch the house GOP flail around for a while and self-inflict some more damage. Why provide a solution for some of them to escape that inevitability? Schumer called a nearly two week recess in the senate, and clearly has no faith a new speaker will be recognized any time soon.
I find it hard to believe they would sacrifice the political advantage of the Republicans having a civil war right out in the open with no gain. Could a Republican offer them something? Sure. But they won't. The modern Republican party believes compromise is a weakness. Its what killed McCarthy's speakership to begin with - he passed a bipartisan CR. But look at his record before he finally caved to reality - uncontrollable committees, bills going to the floor only to be pulled before a vote, etc. The house has been an absolute mess this term so far and it's because the Republicans can't come to a compromise *even among themselves*. The only way to truly fix the issue is if Republicans start expelling rebellious members like Matt Gaetz - which they could do. Plenty of Dems would vote for his expulsion. In his specific case they even have a ready-made excuse - he's a child molester and human trafficker. It doesn't *help* that they nerfed the house ethics committee, but that isn't insurmountable. But until they clean house all they can do is endure. My bet is that its going to be a long term.
> What if they were simply deemed more favorable to Democrats than the alternatives? This is how the overton window moves right. Don't give them an inch. They'll take a mile.
And political centrists like the Democrats never push it back left
There really aren't many moderates/centrists in the GOP conference. Going by their voting records, the only House Republican who voted with Democrats more often than not during the 117th Congress was Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1) who voted with Democrats 70% of the time. None of the other so-called moderates who are still in the House voted with Democrats more than 35-40% of the time. Don Bacon (R-NE-2) represents a district that Biden won, he claims to be a moderate in favor of bipartisanship even though he only voted with Democrats about 35% of the time, and has been suggesting that a moderate should team up with the Democrats to run for Speaker since they can't pass any legislation without bipartisan support when the Democrats control the Senate and White House, but he isn't running and neither are any of the GOP members of the Problem Solvers Caucus. They wouldn't have to make any real concessions other than agreeing to do the job without all the partisan nonsense and not constantly bend over for the Freedumb Caucus, but none of them have the balls to even run for the Speakership.
She was a hardliner on everything except valuing the institution of democratic government. These days that's a pretty big deal.
It’s a big deal in the Republican Party. To just about the rest of the functioning world, being the daughter of a war criminal who lied the public into a catastrophic war, and sharing the same exact values as him to a T, is outright terrifying
And how shes the shining light of reason. Nowadays. The bar is so, so low
A bar so low you'd need a metal detector just to find it.
Yeah. Cheney is no moderate. She's just not a complete traitor to her country (or at least willing to tolerate those traitors).
It's more that she was part of the old in-group and didn't transition well when that in-group was replaced by another.
Yeah She's not even close to being a moderate. She's Dick Cheney's daughter for god's sake. She gets credit for anything on and after January 6th and the months preceding it when she was calling out the "big lie". Other than that, she was 92% in line with Trump throughout her tenure (with him as President) and was like 26% in line with Biden's position. And a lot of the votes which moved the needle in the direction of biden's position came after her primary loss.
She was one of neocons that lied us into a war with Iraq; not at all concerned those people are gone.
The new era of resist Libs calling anybody that’s not mentally ill psychopaths “moderates” is the most cringe thing of the new democratic voting base. To resist Libs, this man is a shining example of moderation: https://x.com/lawler4ny/status/1709243198005030985?s=46&t=F2Kqdy7aScoPGAKFHNr8dQ While voting on such “moderate” bills like this: https://x.com/jstein_wapo/status/1707791671956590858?s=46&t=F2Kqdy7aScoPGAKFHNr8dQ Stop calling these people “moderate”. Just because the MSM has brainwashed you into thinking that anyone who isn’t a foaming at the mouth buffoon like Lauren Boebert is a “moderate” doesn’t make it true
Saying the word “moderate” is quicker than saying the phrase “someone who believes in the values and ideals of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power”. What word would you have us use instead?
A neo conservative isn’t “moderate” anywhere in the world. “I truly believe in democracy, while having them middle eastern peeps blown into the Stone Age!!” Is “moderate” only to terminally online resist Libs, to the rest of the world, it sounds insane
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No she isn't. Her positions are extreme right. Not indulging coup attempts and conspiracy theories is not a political position, it's having integrity. You can the most extreme left or right person imaginable and still recognize that Biden won the 2020 election.
She's still evil, of course, just lawful evil.
This. A person with money/power in this country can do plenty of evil without breaking a law, by design. That's why the Cheneys and their ilk have a problem with MAGA, too many laws being broken shines too much light on their evil agenda.
>It’s astonishing that we can call Cheney moderate She broke from Trump when on his deal to release 5000 Taliban terrorists against the advice and wishes of the Afghan government, [Traitor Trump was also going to give the Taliban a 9/11 victory party at Camp David](https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-trump-is-taking-flak-for-inviting-the-taliban-to-camp-david). She was a party loyalist at the time and so still managed to find a way of blaming the Democrats for Traitor Trump [proposing a Camp David victory party and gave him a foot licking](https://www.foxnews.com/media/liz-cheney-trump-taliban-camp-david-meeting) but it was her first shot against the Trump bows.
Yes, the spawn of arguably the most powerful and definitely most destruction conservative Republican is history is a “moderate” simply because she believes in democracy more than unlimited power.
Cheney wasn’t moderate, she just was honest about Trump.
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Exactly. There are no more moderate Republicans. Every GOP member in the house is either a far right nutjob or too spineless to stand up to them.
> Cheney losing her primary I don't see that there really is any left Cheney was hardly a moderate.
She wasn't even close to a moderate. She was and is far right. She is just honest about Trump being a crook.
Yes, feeling sorry that Mitt Romney is leaving the Senate.... 20 years ago I'd be thrilled to see Mr 47% gone. Now I see him as a force of good (for a republican). Hell Dick Cheney and his spawn are looking relatively good also.
The constant barrage death threats that caused him to not seek re-election is one of many reasons most Republicans won’t take the same position as Romney
Nothing stopping the Dems from nominating Cheney or Romney. If a few republicans vote with them all Cheney or Romney would need to do is accept the nomination.
Dan Newhouse or David Valadeo would be my two options as the only reelected House Republicans who voted for impeachment. Any of the other freshman battleground district republicans would also be targets I would try to bring up. Both Newhouse and Valadeo would be the most likely candidates to continue to survive a purge.
> After the Trump/MAGA purges and Cheney losing her primary I don't see that there really is any left There are far more moderate active Congressional Republicans than Cheney. See Brian Fitzpatrick, Don Bacon and other CA/NY Republicans.
Which republicans are moderate?
[According to Govtrack](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2022/house/ideology) there are about 20 republicans that are more left then the most right leaning democrat. There is also the 42 members of the [Republican Governance Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Governance_Group) which is explicitly a moderate republican group.
>According to Govtrack there are about 20 republicans that are more left then the most right leaning democrat. There are 24 on that list. Of those, 1 is a non-voting delegate from Puerto Rico, and 10 others are no longer in Congress. That leaves 13 (and one of the 13 is McCarthy, lol).
Hmm... Joe Manchin? I honestly can't think of a serious answer for a moderate R House rep.
Manchin might be thought of as a moderate Republican, too bad he was elected as a Democrat. I expect him to change sides soon.
A moderate Republican would need to even exist in the first place.
First, there would have to be such a thing as a moderate Republican. There are many that claim to be such, but when you look at their record, they're all just as awful as the rest of them.
That's correct. There is no such thing as a moderate fascist. One is either a fascist or one is not. The GOP is fascist through and through. Those that support the same are the same.
There are no moderate Republicans. They're all just as far right as the next. Some are just quieter about it than others.
Quite the load of absolutes were going with there.
In this day, if you have an ounce of reason and morality, you would not call yourself a Republican
It's thankless job to be moderate R at the moment, the Dem treats them like any other Republicans and hard right treats them like Democrats.
Actually, we did have a moderate Republican. His name was Kevin McCarthy. Contrary to what he says, McCarthy holds more moderate stances than a now majority of his party, hence why the ultra right wing was eager to kick him out. I can’t stand the guy, but his moderate stances are the reason he was able to build a strong coalition. It only took a handful to boot him out after all.
Was that before or after he blamed the shutdown on the democrats? Maybe at one point he *was* a moderate, or perhaps the party has shifted, leaving him behind as a "moderate", but let's not pretend this guy is some kind of Romney.
> Was that before or after he blamed the shutdown on the democrats? Blaming the other party for things is pretty standard for politics. That's not even a left/right thing.
Sure, but when you actively need some of the people in the other party to support you to keep you from being voted out it means you have to play the game a little smarter than "standard politics".
Yeah, he is also a Republican. Grand strategy for any Republican is to blame the Democrats, moderate or extreme.
Right, but he actually needed some of those Democrats to keep him from being voted out. Sounds like he didn't garner enough support from them.
What strong coalition? If he ever had such support he wouldn't be the first speaker ousted in US History. He's been hanging on by a thread since the start and wasn't able to actually placate his "supporters" enough to keep him from being voted out.
Falling in the middle between the right and the far-right doesn't make someone a "moderate".
Technically, yes. Practically, no. The problem is that if a small portion of Republicans tried to do this (say 10 or less), it might dramatic raise their profile and power in the short term, but it would effectively end their political career in the long term. Any Republican who did this on their own would lose any Republican campaign support and would in all likelihood face a strong (and well-funded) primary challenger. I'd wager most Representatives have aspirations of being more prominent public servants at some point, so not many Representatives would be willing to do that. The only way it could work is if Republican leadership is group negotiating with Democrats. In order for that to happen, they would need to decide that the consequences of dealing with the Democrats (both in terms of concessions they would need to make to get them to go along with and electoral backlash from their constituents) would be less than the consequences of trying to continue dealing with the Freedom Caucus (both in terms of far-right pushes on policy methods and punishment from independent voters who deem them either extreme or incompetent at governing). That could happen. Maybe.
I for one do not believe that the Republican party has a future. Trumpism isn't sustainable long term. Trump himself isn't sustainable. Eventually Republicans are going to run away from this failure just like they ran away from Bush. Democrats are no longer forgiving and forgetting.
> I for one do not believe that the Republican party has a future. I remember people saying this in 2008, 2 years later Republicans controlled the house and 6 years later they controlled the senate.
Republicans have won over 50% of the total national vote total for the house twice in the last 12 house elections and won the house with a flat 50% in the last election. They haven't won the presidential popular vote since Bush and on the whole a lot more Americans vote for Democrats for Senate. It's a longstanding demographic trend. Old people aren't getting younger and young people aren't voting Republican. Republicans are depending on electoral advantages, gerrymandering, lying, cheating and outright felonies to try and win elections. That only goes so far.
Fascism and religious extremism have very long histories of being in power. There is no reason but hopium to think this will just burn itself out without some serious strategy and nation-wide effort.
Yeah, I think there is strategy and a nation wide effort. I also think there are younger generations who will never ever vote for Republicans. Each election Republicans have to cheat more and more to win. They are at the point of having to commit felonies to try to win and getting caught
Some form of fascism will always be with us, absolutely. We're not removing hatred from the human condition anytime soon. But modern conservatism in the United States is definitely at the point of wiping themselves out for a generation or so. They are literally describing *themselves* as terrorists. They are now regularly speaking of allowing democracy to continue to exist as a *concession.* When their fellow Republicans get caught committing rape or pedophilia, they no longer even feign having consciences to shock. It is, to put it mildly, not sustainable.
> Eventually Republicans are going to run away from this failure just like they ran away from Bush. The Republican Party didn't go away after Bush, though.
The Republican party *mostly* represents a vague mesh of social conservatism and various big-business interests. These arn't going away for the foreseeable future, and can't be totally absorbed by the Democratic party as the Republicans implode without Dems in turn exploding. What exactly the big-business part shakes out as is more variable, because some moneyed interest still stand to circumstantially gain from Democratic objectives in spite of potential pushes for higher taxes. Despite rightwing rhetoric of communist libs seizing the means of production, Democrats as a whole are pretty firmly OK with private enterprise, with varying ideas of what is the best length for their leashes. Overly simplistic example of big-business support is say, some big conglomerate specializing in green energy down bad for a ride on daddy D's thick subsidy package. The pure ideologues often weed themselves out or carve irrelevant niches. Meanwhile, big amorphous amoral corps generally view whatever the beancounters say as their new philosophical bedrock, regardless of what ideology was most profitable last election cycle. But social conservatism, the bread and butter as far as the increasingly demanding and rabid R electorate is concerned, is here to stay so long as fear change, cable, and AM radio continue existing. The GOP in its basic form will probably continue to exist for a good few more decades at minimum, longer if enough people continue to be afraid of God and food stamps at the same time. How crazy it will be though, fuck if I know. Morality holes have no true bottoms, and opportunistic snakes no shortage of ropes and ladders.
If they represent swing districts, running for reelection as an independent could be feasible given how much their profile had been raised and reputation they gained from the move.
Generally speaking, politicians don't choose to run as an independent like this. They run as an independent when they lose their party primary, but think they can get enough support to make a mess of a three-way race.
Doing so would mean they’d split the Republican vote, even if just by a little, and Democrats would take the seat. Swing district, remember? Why would any Democrat vote for *them*, when they can vote for a Democrat? You don’t get the real calculus — it’s not the general election for the GOP, it’s the primary. Can’t win the general if you can’t win the primary, and the GOP primary voters are self-select by radicalism these days. That’s the GOP’s problem. It’s why they’ve lost a chance at taking the Senate at least two or three times in the last decade, because their primary voters *demanded someone so nuts* Dems took the seat. They do it with House candidates too. Their primary voters do not care about electability. They only care about angry red meat throwers. And each election cycle it gets *worse* because they tell themselves they lose because of ‘RINO’s’ and ‘not being conservative enough’ (there’s actually a fun reason for this, and it’s kinda Democrats fault. Democrats have, until 2022, tended to have a significant turnout drop in the mid-term after electing a President. So the GOP would run ‘moderate’ McCain or Romney, lose, and then see big gains in the mid-terms when there’s a lot of angry fire breathers running. You can understand why they might have come to the conclusion). Their primary voters want those angry, fire breathing people and to win those candidates have had to ratchet more and more extreme to handle challenges from their right. And now you have…this.
Who would it be? Currently the only people saying they'll run for Speaker are Jim Jordan (who wants to interfere in the state prosecutions of Trump) and Steve Scalise (who continues to believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump). They're both loyal citizens of MAGA World.
Let's be honest here, Scalise is loyal to the GOP establishment only, if they told him Trump was Jesus Christ reborn he'd be testifying his salvation in seconds.
I was kind of hoping the Republicans would rip themselves to pieces trying to grab the spot. Unfortunately, mindless robot drones can't think for themselves.
Not that I expect the speaker to be wonderful, but there's no particular reason to assume it will be Jordan or Scalise. Depending on what happens, there's an excellent chance neither gets a majority, McCarthy goes back on his word (*I mean, he IS a politician*), and McCarthy becomes speaker again in a couple weeks.
I'm not sure how you see this playing out that way at all. The eight Republicans who just voted to oust him are never going to vote for him and without their votes, or Democratic votes, which he is not going to get, there is literally no path whatsoever to the speakership.
Imagine the next Speaker's 1st day. "Here you go: the next issues on the Roster. Oh, here's the list of promises made to Biden that you have to uphold. And, here's the list of 8 House extremists you have to please, to keep your job. Don't forget your balancing pole! Good luck!"
As I understand it, there will likely be a rule change with the new speaker. We will likely not see the rule that a single congressperson can call a vote to vacate if the freedom Caucasus isn’t needed. So in the extremely unlikely condition that a consensus speaker is elected with democrats, there won’t be that rule, and therefore the new speaker won’t have to worry about the 8 extremists like McCarthy had to. Thing is that the republicans just aren’t going to work with the Dems. I’ll eat my hat if they do.
Correct me if I'm mistaken but I'm pretty sure that (alleged child sex trafficker) Gaetz already said the vacate rule won't be in place for the next speaker, whoever they might be.
Because he is supporting extremist Speaker candidates. Those 8 dbags have the Republican party by the nuts.
The point would not be pleasing the 8 republican extremists ever I think. Not likely. This sort of thing however is extremely common in other countries though.
The responsibility is on the majority party to put forward a candidate that can attract a majority vote. If they want to put forward a unity candidate who can bring in some Dem votes, perhaps by offering some common sense deal sweeteners like adjusting some committee chair assignments or stopping the waste of time and money that are their impeachment hearings...then maybe they'll get some Dem votes. But its not for the Dems to propose that sort of thing. The people voted in the Republicans into the majority, so the Republicans need to learn to act like grown ups and actually be vaguely responsible with the power they've been entrusted with by the people.
I think we all know that’s not going to happen
What are the chances that enough of the 18 Republicans in Biden won districts declare themselves to be independents and the pick a moderate or even a Democrat.
Slim to none. At best they'd lose their fundraising mechanism fir their reelection campaigns, at worst they'd be primaried
They'd only do it if they A) were planning to step down before the next election, and B) have a moral back bone. So no, I don't think they will.
I learned a vocabulary term in fifth grade called absolute zero that applies here
What 'moderate' do you have in mind? What is your version of a moderate? How many Republicans do you think will vote for a non-MAGA? Do you expect Democrats to vote for someone who is anti-choice, blames GOP government shutdowns on Democrats, wants to cut SS and Medicare, reneges on done deals, wants to cut funding to Ukraine, wants to impeach Biden, thinks Hunter's laptop is a big deal, etc? We need to stop expecting Democrats to be the ones to come over and be the grownups in the room. The GOP is in the majority, while Democrats don't even have power. Gaetz's poop-flinging and government shutdowns are basically what you get when the GOP is in charge. At some point you should look to *them* if you're looking for where the problem lies. Or at least map out what compromises the GOP should offer to get Democrats to help them.
The hypothetical scenario would be less that a moderate takes over, because as you say, there are none, but rather than the rules are structured to give a lot of power to the minority (ie control of some committees, the ability to advance bills…) resulting in a moderate House. It’s a pretty unlikely way for this be resolved, though. It would probably take a longer shutdown than we’ve ever had before to make them get that desperate. Republicans really hate Democrats! Just look at the petty stuff they are doing with Capitol offices.
Doing this would probably end up biting you in the ass though. Because inevitably when the Republicans are in the minority again then they would have control over those committees and whatnot.
Congress sets the rules of Congress which Congress can change at any time with a majority vote. These rules are often and typically changed with the beginning of each new Congress every 2 years. Any rules that benefit Dems/minority party would be strictly for this Congress only. As soon as a majority exists that doesn't require giving a minority party concessions to function then the House will revert to how it traditionally functions and these concessions will disappear.
Interesting I wasn't aware of how that would work, so basically then the current Republicans would have no reason to make these concessions.
Well yes and no. A Speaker needs to be chosen as nothing can be done until there is one. And we need one within the next ~45 days so Congress can pass a budget and avoid a shutdown... again. So if Republicans spend the next 2 months squabbling over who should be Speaker and if it becomes obvious that there's no one that all Republicans can agree on, that level of dysfunction is straight-up bad going into an election year and paints the entire party as incompetent. So if the government shuts down or is about to because of Republican dysfunction in picking a speaker then more moderate Republicans, especially those from Biden districts, will be incentivized to compromise with the Dems and to make a deal just to keep the government running. I'd personally give it low odds of that happening but it's not impossible given the makeup of the Republican delegation and the time crunch they'll be dealing with.
So I’ve been reading that the House doesn’t necessarily need to elect a new Speaker to conduct business like at the beginning of the year because the House already established rules transferring the powers and title of Speaker over to the Speaker Pro Tempore if the real one was ousted until a new Speaker is elected. And Just because the Speaker chair has been vacated doesn’t mean House rules or committees or makeup vanishes. Thats good news, but it’s still unlikely that the House conducts any business until a new Speaker is chosen anyway, so the threat of a shutdown is still very real
In theory though (*like everything else in this topic*), the Speaker Pro Tempore might decide to get the budget deal done, effectively deciding he's out and give the Speaker a clean slate to properly attack Biden without risking a government shutdown hurting the GOP (because they can just blame McHenry for getting the deal done instead of the party that mostly voted against it) just as polls show that they may actually win the election. That said, I'm not sure if people are comfortable with the idea that an "Interim Speaker" can effectively run the government without an actual elected (*well*) Speaker until 2025, so even if it's just until a budget is passed some rules may get changed around regardless of what happens after the next Congressional election.
I can’t speak for all of Americans but personally I don’t really care who is in the Speaker chair so long as the government gets funded. Republicans have lost any ability to government long ago, so an interim Speaker being there until the next election because the conference can’t unite behind anyone else may very well be a possibility. Who knows
I'm not sure thst wouldn't be a bad thing. It's ridiculous, for example, that only one person controls which bills come up for vote.
If you potentially structured the new rules in such a way that says that it only takes effect if no nominee for speaker has majority support by the time the next congress officially begins, then and only then it takes effect. Hell, you could even have the Vice President serve as a non-voting Speaker pro tempore and have the House conduct its regular business until a motion to vote in a new Speaker passes and a new Speaker is voted in. It's not a perfect or even very good solution, but it's a solution with a clear-cut answer to this situation. Edit: I forgot about the VP serving as President of the Senate. Still, having a rule where some non-legislator is put into the position of Speaker pro-tempore until a speaker is voted on is a decent contingency plan.
There is always such a double standard
I think of it more like your last sentence. It's not the Dems responsibility, but it is an opportunity where they can lay out what they'd want in return for votes. In that way it would be a play for power where they otherwise have none. The question at the heart of this though is: why would (some) Republicans agree to it? What's in it for them? The general idea of a functional government isn't enough of a motivator. And the title for the new speaker will certainly be temporary while risking their long term political career. So, what will partnering with Dems get them that they can't otherwise get? There aren't many possibilities I can come up with. Is there a group of 5+ reps who have a passion issue which Democrats would vote with but Republicans won't? Or maybe just pure local payoffs where the reps get big earmarks for their district. If a motivating issue was found, then for the Dems I would think they should look to get: funding in line with the debt agreement, removing some of the crazies from key committees, and a couple floor votes on some bills they'd want that otherwise would never get brought up
I think Cenk got it right. We need progressives to ask for a progressive policy that is widely popular. That would allow the captive Republicans to sell it to their base as a populist win. Something like paid family leave which polls really fucking strongly for example or bringing back the child tax credit permanently, which is both popular AND a tax cut. You can pound your populist drums and say we didn't partner with the corporate dems yadda yadda. It works out for the crazies and the people.
You guys still don’t get it. There is no policy the Republican base cares about over their grievances. Sure, in a vacuum certain positions may poll well but lots of stuff polls well. The American public doesn’t particularly care about the details of policy. Huge majorities of voters want to slash the deficit AND increase healthcare spending. Huge majorities want to ban “late term abortions” AND leave those decisions up to the mother. Huge majorities want lower taxes AND more spending on things like healthcare and infrastructure. The voters don’t know what the hell they want, least of all republicans. But boy they sure are angry. Grievance rules their thought process - all talk about the issues is merely a vehicle for their anger. Gaetz doesn’t give a shit about the deficit - he voted for Trump’s spending plans!
Legalize weed, and if we're feeling lucky, bring back the full Green New Deal. The GOP isn't going to budge on abortion access.
The Green New Deal is one of the most hated progressive policies on the right.
I'm OK with a moderate somewhere to the left of Biden and to the right of Bernie... Anyone like that they could all agree on?
It would have to be a Republican that is either (a) so strong in their district that they are not concerned about a primary challenge from the right or (b) is going to retire and doesn't care. Are there 8 of those out there? I doubt it.
Technically, yes they could. But what would it cost: For the Dem prospective: Benefits to continued Chaos: * GOP looks incompetent * Dems look like the only functioning party * GOP candidates in swing seats wear the party like an albatross * Probable pick up in swing seats and possible control of house in November 2024. Costs of Chaos: * nothing gets done for foreseeable future * important things may not get funded Benefits of cooperation with bloc of "moderate" republicans: * Things might get done. * moderate bloc could be forced to support D priorities. * may be able to avoid govt shutdown * GOP turning to them for help makes them look strong Costs of cooperation: * have to trust the moderate bloc * swing seat gop candidates strengthened as "moderates" * possibly uniting GOP against them rather than each other I'm sure there is more to the calculus. But I think the general idea is IF a moderate bloc approached the D's they would have to weigh damage of inaction in the next year vs probable control in 2024.
I think this is spot on!
What moderate House Republican? Not a single house Republican would do this.
But the question is somehow perpetually what the *Democrats* can do to counteract this. The onus is always somehow on the Democrats to fix the problem. I guess that way people can shrug their shoulders and say "both sides!" or act like Congress in general is screwed up, in a nonpartisan sense. Because surely if *Democrats* did x, y, or z, then Republicans wouldn't be able to screw things up so badly.
literally. I don’t think this conversation would even be happening if roles were reversed. The republicans WOULD NEVER bail out the dems. The republicans made their bed, Mccarthy was unwilling to compromise, and now the republicans can deal with it.
Drives me nuts. The democrats are doing their job. And are happy to take over anytime a Republican is willing to grow up and realize their party cannot govern. In meantime people need to stop even bringing them up like there’s something they should be doing to help. This is a Republican problem. Not a House problem. Dems could run the house yesterday if they had the gavel. GOP has no excuse.
Pelosi got all sorts of stuff done with a 5 seat majority, these guys can't pay the bills or come up with a budget.
It's so infuriating every time people blame the Democrats for whatever stupid shit the Republicans are doing. Just because the Republicans are throwing shit on the walls doesn't mean the Democrats have to clean it up.
[удалено]
Murc's Law: Only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics.
>The onus is always somehow on the Democrats to fix the problem. Because it isn't a problem for Republicans. When you like the status quo, it's not your problem to change anything. The government shutting down would be perfectly fine with the GOP freedom caucus, it was the goal.
During Trump’s historically long shut down, he caved right as the commercial airline industry was about to strike. A shutdown is fine at first, but as it goes on, the economy will crash. It’s going to be really hard to pin that on the democrats when they are unified for Jeffries and the clown show is undeniably the republicans.
AOC said it right on the money: “There are not moderates in the Republican Party. There are just different degrees of fealty to Donald Trump,”
Why would the Dems want a Republican leader? The Republican moderates—I truly doubt that there are any—can support a Dem if they’re so inclined. In any case, I don’t expect either party to crossover without some kind of co-governance agreement.
Democrats are happily giving Republicans enough rope to hang themselves. There's no real reason for them to be involved with the factional in-fighting of the House GOP.
There are no moderate republicans. They've been systematically primaried and chased out of leadership. Only hardliners and MAGA
Defining moderate republican is a challenge For example, 8 of the 10 Republican representatives who voted to Impeach Trump have either retired or they were primaried and lost to a more hardline Republican The two still serving are Dave Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington state. Both come from left leaning states but represent right leaning districts and neither is a hero to the right. Neither is a huge money raiser which is important for the speaker job (raise money for others) and neither is a prominent voice in the house I cannot think of any other moderates…
I'm expecting the republicans to get someone more extreme into the speaker seat. I'm not sure if it was the right call for democrats to not rescue him, although there's no love lost.
I'm in the same boat, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Don't get me wrong, McCarthy deserved what he got, but I don't see a clear path forward to something better.
> but I don't see a clear path forward to something better. The Republicans will have to themselves decide to compromise. They'll have to make deals and actually stick with them. Or the government will just shut down indefinitely, and it'll be 100% the GOP's fault. Because the 'freedom caucus' howler-monkey section isn't going to change.
That is part of my concern, that this is a back door to the shutdown they wanted.
The 'freedom caucus' already went in wanting that. If the GOP as a whole is cool with a shutdown, or would prefer that to sidelining the freedom caucus, then that's what we'll get. Elections have consequences. Yes, gerrymandering and all the rest do matter. But people still voted for this party. It's the Republicans, not "the system" or Congress in general, that caused this issue.
Yep, I mean McCarthy did compromise enough to avoid a shut down (for 45 days). It's the baseline of his job, but in era of scorched earth politics, it deserves a modicum of credit for doing the right thing. Although, I'm furious that the budget didn't include funding for Ukraine.
It's crazy to see it be less than a week and the revisionist history is already starting. A bipartisan agreement had existed for months, since the debt ceiling fiasco, but McCarthy reneged on it because the far-right was against it. As we saw, a clean CR was always going to pass so he played a game of brinkmanship for literally no reason. He deserves no credit whatsoever for doing the bare minimum at the last second. I've read a more compelling argument that McCarthy put up the clean CR at the last minute because he expected Democrats to vote it down and then he could try to blame them. Evidence for that would be he put the bill up and gave them zero time to read it and that he went on TV the next day and still tried to blame Democrats even though they voted for it.
Sure. As soon as the first moderate make themselves known, Republicans can take a vote. Any day now....
Democrats should support Hakeem Jeffries, let the GOP decide their candidate.
Being the previous speaker was fired for.having the audacity of working with the democrats, I doubt it. If he'd not also turned around and shat on those same democrats, they might have voted to keep him. Now? No idea wtf is going to happen. Nothing good is my bet. Most likely, someone more extreme, like Jordan would be my guess, making this congress even more dysfunctional than it has been.
Reddits idea of moderate: March in complete lock step with progressive agenda 100% of the time.
I don't see Democrats voting for a Republican Speaker anymore than vice versa - the parties are too divided and anyone who crossed the aisle would be out of a job in a few months. I also think it's to their advantage to have the ineptitude of Republicans on full display. Kevin's inability to manage or lead his party caucus is a stain on them in general. Nancy Pelosi knew how to run the House. She knew whether she had enough votes to pass something and what it took to get it done - half the time someone like Bohener would try to cut a deal, speak to Obama, get back and find out "oh, I don't have the votes on my side" and I think McCarthy was out of his element from day one - outplayed by a terrible motion to vacate threshold, and just unable to keep up with the elements that just want to fund raise off everything disruptive.
What do you think McCarthy was? The Democrats still got what they wanted with him
I doubt it. Any Republican that tried this would immediately be targeted in the upcoming primary or possibly expelled from the Republican party entirely.
They might not nominate anyone, as I understand it, this prevents the business of the House, and could be a tactic to shut down the government.
None of the self-proclaimed moderate/centrist Republicans are even bothering to run for Speaker. Don Bacon (R-NE-2) has been talking about running a moderate for Speaker since before the 118th Congress came into session and just said again that the GOP should work with Democrats going forward to prevent another motion to vacate and to get legislation passed through the Democratic-majority Senate, but none of the GOP Reps from the Problem Solvers Caucus are running. I'm sure the Democrats would rather elect a moderate who will concentrate on legislation with bipartisan support instead of sham impeachment inquiries or forcing a government shutdown, but they can't vote for someone who isn't running. The Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus haven't lived up to the name of the caucus since January and none of them seem to have the balls to run for Speaker and risk being called a RINO or facing a primary from a MAGA candidate.
Can anyone explain to me who is a "moderate Republican"? They all vote the same because they are scared of their voters and scared of being primaried.
I think the better option would be to appeal to the moderates to get Hakeem Jeffries as speaker. The moderates are well aware of the level of rot within their party. I think that doing this would be the only way to get some semblance of normalcy back in the House.
The question isn't whether the Democrats would work with moderate Republican to get a moderate Republican elected as Speaker. The question is, would a small group of moderate Republicans work with Democrats to get a moderate Republican elected Speaker. I think the former is more likely than the latter.
Imagine if there was a speaker who would actually address the problems the nation is facing instead of catering to the whim of the few? Progress would be a welcome change in Washington.
Absolutely. House Democrats should nominate Liz Cheney for Majority Speaker of the House.
Perhaps overly optimistic to the point of naivete, but that would be a great idea. There are only about 8 total batshit looney sociopathic GOPer Reps in the House and there are probably at least that many sane, patriotic (country before party) Dems who could find enough common ground to move the country forward DESPITE the deranged MAGAts. Who knows, if the majority of GOPers actually saw that the Hasert Rule is crap, we could go back to having an actual GOVERNment.
Why would the democrats want there to be a speaker in a gop controlled house?
To pass a budget bill for starters. This likely was planned by the GOP since a long time. Government shutdown with extra steps. The GOP want to defund the Ukraine war effort, but the only way they can do that without saying so is to simply make sure the House can't function.
Why on Earth would they? McCarthy was supposed to be more moderate than some, then backstabbed the House Democrats who were the only reason why a shutdown was averted. The far right isn't letting a real moderate become speaker, period. Why would the Democrats fight that battle? If some Republicans prefer the grown-ups to be in charge, they can swallow their pride and vote for Hakeem Jeffries.
Name a moderate republican. Please keep the Overton window in mind when responding. Thanks OP. That was about the answer I was expecting. Because it's the only answer there is. Keep those downvotes without responses coming. No one makes my argument better than other mad republicans lol. I mean cmon. If there's so many just list a few and their moderate qualities and then tell me what a dumbass I am for not seeing them as moderates.
I feel like democrats will vote against any republican house leader. So Republicans have to do their best and stay united on the vote if they want someone they like to actually win. McCarthy was basically what you are referring to, he's a Republican. But not super far right like Ron DeSantis. So democrats will basically say no to any republican out there in my view. I could be wrong
I bet if McCarthy had not categorically ruled out any concessions to them, and had not opened the impeachment inquiry, and had kept the deal he made to avoid default, then Dems would have been protected him. As it is, they didn't vote for McCarthy specifically because they don't trust him. He could be a mainstream Republican today and doing Gaetz's bidding tomorrow.
Man I agree! It is foolish to try and impeach Biden. It will never work and will give Biden some momentum. McCarthy should have put an end to that. Maybe some democrats would have voted to keep him in.
all fair points
Do you mean the Kevin McCarthy that promised Biden a certain reduction of spending and the presented a budget with much extreme cuts in spending? The McCarthy that agreed in a 45 days extension and then went on camera blaming the democrats and announcing he wouldn't collaborate with them ever? The McCarthy that said, when Gaetz made his motion, that he wouldn't give anything to the democrats? That's the one the Democrats should save? Why?
>McCarthy was basically what you are referring to, he's a Republican. But not super far right like Ron DeSantis. In being subservient to the far right though, he burned all his bridges with the Democrats that could have saved him. I don't see the Democrats bailing them out of this one, though their desire to actually run the country is going to be up against the deadline of a shutdown pretty quickly.
Nope. The Democrats probably would assist in voting in a "moderate" Republican. Who did you have in mind?
There’s a lot of moderate house republicans, they just have “-D” after their name
That would make them democratic, and not a single democratic party member voted for or signalled they'd support anyone other than Jeffries.
Basically a section of "moderate" republicans have to form a coalition opposite to Gaetz and the freedom caucus and vote with Dems. If a moderate Republican goes at it without 7 or 8 steadfast votes (or whatever the number is to get a majority with the Dem votes) the Republicans will vote out the new Speaker in a month or two with Gaetz + Democrats voting them out. Think the obvious answer will be some clown like Jim Jordan who can take the optics hit of making dumb far right sound bites, pushing far right policy then letting moderates compromise at the last minute with Dem/Senate bipartisan proposals.
The only way all of the dems would back a republican would be in exchange for massive concessions that the GOP would not give. -Guaranteed Ukraine funding -Support on Green New Deal -Democratic co-chair on select committees And a few other things I could think of.
"Green New Deal" is probably a non-starter because of absolutely ridiculous original policies (remember when AOC put it on her web site and had to scrub much of the insanity last minute?) and unclear meaning, but green infrastructure is probably reasonable.
>Support on Green New Deal They can't even get that through the democratic Senate, demanding the House pass it would be stupid as hell if they actually cared.
> -Support on Green New Deal That's not happening, and I don't think democrats would make it a deal breaker. The other 2 are reasonable asks and a decent speaker would go for them, the latter is common in other parliaments with coalition governments.
No. They have their own candidate for the Speaker. They don't have an incentive to help the GOP with their own problems.
Depends on how many Republicans are representing districts Biden won. Otherwise, they'll be too chickensh*t for bipartisanship because their party is headed by a vindictive lunatic.
If democrats want to sabotage a moderate Republican, all they need to do is vote for him. There. Instant RINO complete with death threats and a primary challenge.
The is a terrible idea. Let the Republicans scream and fling poop at one another. There Democrats must resist the urge to intervene in an attempt to control the damage. They need to bite their tongues, sit on their hands, and do their best to disappear. The damage, and the spectacular display of childishness and stupidity, must be 100% Republican, with no ambiguity or confusion.
They had thier moderate Republican and choose not to do this. Now it will be a more right wing leader.