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[Folly]

Gotta admit I'm surprised by this one.

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.
Are they banking on the new speaker being so far-right and dysfunctional that it disillusions the middle-right, convincing some to change sides? I guess that might be the only slim hope of salvaging anything when the right sets the bar this low...

[hector13]

They have to find someone to nominate first. Gaetz wanted Scalise, who is being treated for blood cancer and was happy with McCarthy.

This is uncharted territory though. The rules don’t set out what an interim speaker can and can’t do, how long they can remain in the position, or when a vote has to be held.

Edit: there’s also nothing stopping McCarthy running again.

[MorleyDev]

Wait, so USA politicians in 2023 are going to have to rely on convention and unwritten rules of good governance?

*pulls up a chair and popcorn* Oh, this should be good...

[Lord Shonus]

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.

Let's turn this around. What motivation do Dems have to even consider supporting McCarthy here? He's made it blatantly obvious that he will ignore any deal he makes the second the vote is over, bends over backwards to cater to his far right extremists, and very occasionally grudgingly allows legislation that has nigh-universal bipartisan support through. If they decided to vote to protect him, he would reward that by continuing to cater to Gaetz and MTG, not by acting in the favor of the Democrats.

[EuchreJack]

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.

Let's turn this around.

Why?

[hector13]

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.

Let's turn this around. What motivation do Dems have to even consider supporting McCarthy here? He's made it blatantly obvious that he will ignore any deal he makes the second the vote is over, bends over backwards to cater to his far right extremists, and very occasionally grudgingly allows legislation that has nigh-universal bipartisan support through. If they decided to vote to protect him, he would reward that by continuing to cater to Gaetz and MTG, not by acting in the favor of the Democrats.

Exactly. The only reason this even happened was because McCarthy changed the rules so that it only took one representative to bring forward a motion to vacate in order to placate the far-right Freedom caucus.

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.

Let's turn this around.

Why?

Why not?

[Frumple]

I mean, among every single thing else involved, from the fact whatever replaces the guy will almost certainly not actually be worse on any front given how terrible he was, to how staggeringly untrustworthy the shitlicker is, to how stupidly weak his position was, from what I understand the debate period and folks that talked in his "favor" in the leadup to the vote basically spent the entire time shitting on the dem party.

Why in hell would anyone vote for that? He's not going to work with you, his replacement will be no worse, and his advocates just spent much of an afternoon basically pissing on you. When someone's fucking around like that, most folks're going to let them find out.

[hector13]

They didn’t spend the entire time blaming the Dems, it was a back and forth of Gaetz’ opponent ceding his time to his “very good friends” in the party to big up McCarthy while Gaetz spent a lot of his time going “nah, he sucks ass and you’re idiots for supporting him and allowing him to negotiate to avoid a shutdown.” with the occasional ceding of time to other nutters saying broadly the same thing.

Gaetz also had to do this while standing at a Democrat podium, because they apparently wouldn’t let him use one of the Republican ones.

[Lord Shonus]

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.

Let's turn this around.

Why?

If you're going to say "These people should totally have done something!!!!!", it is completely unreasonable to not first look at what they could possibly gain by doing it. And the answer in this case is absolutely nothing. Neither the individual Democrat representatives or any Democratic policy is boosted by bailing out McCarthy, because he will immediately renege on any promises he makes to gain that bailout. And has explicitly refused to even consider making such promises in the first place.

[hector13]

EJ just wants to blame the Democrats, and is willing to do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify that position.

[Frumple]

Most it really just boils down to mccarthy (and the GOP in general) being dumb enough to pander to the freedom fucks when they're utterly unwilling to reciprocate, while also being so goddamn stupid they were unwilling or unable to get some degree of support from the dems. Even a basic degree of willingness to work with folks that might actually reciprocate, and make and keep promises, would probably have prevented this whole mess.

McCarthy (and the GOP :V) completely lack that degree, and so here we are, ha.

[Folly]

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.

Let's turn this around. What motivation do Dems have to even consider supporting McCarthy here?

McCarthy just cooperated with the Democrats to keep the government open. That was explicitly stated as the primary reason why The Right removed him from office, and we can only assume that whoever they support as the next speaker will be unwilling to do the same.

[hector13]

Sure, the Democrats had plenty of reason to dislike McCarthy. But they have to realize that he can only be replaced by someone worse.

Let's turn this around. What motivation do Dems have to even consider supporting McCarthy here?

McCarthy just cooperated with the Democrats to keep the government open. That was explicitly stated as the primary reason why The Right removed him from office, and we can only assume that whoever they support as the next speaker will be unwilling to do the same.

They are <2% of the vote in congress. They need to make compromises or there won’t be a permanent speaker in office for a long while. What that means in practice is anybody’s guess.

[Frumple]

McCarthy just cooperated with the Democrats to keep the government open. That was explicitly stated as the primary reason why The Right removed him from office, and we can only assume that whoever they support as the next speaker will be unwilling to do the same.

Eehh... it was the dems and ~60% of his own party, and mccarthy promptly stabbed the dems in the back for it. McCarthy largely didn't cooperate shit, the weight of his own party forced him into it.

The next speaker'll probably be about as likely to be jerked around by the majority of his political party as mccarthy was, and might (though it's a big might, the GOP is what it is) actually be capable of following through with agreements.

[martinuzz]

I hope the lesson learned by this is that the new law that allows anyone to hold a vote of no confidence should be scrapped, if the Senate wants to do it's job instead of spending it's time electing new speakers on a monthly basis.