We have seen how the GOP has taken revenge on Democrats by various petty acts because of their preposterous belief that the Democrats should have bailed McCarthy out as ‘gratitude’ for bringing the debt ceiling and continuing resolution (CR) to the floor for a vote, even though Kevin McCarthy bad-mouthed the Democrats even after they voted for the CR, and had refused to acknowledge their major role in passing it.
But the minority party in the House is already powerless and there is little other than petty things that can be done to them. But the more significant acts of revenge can be done on the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, such as congresswoman Nancy Mace.
Elsewhere in the GOP, revenge is on the menu. House Republicans are now weighing whether to expel Mace from at least two centrist-leaning groups she belonged to, as POLITICO first reported. Her staff was quickly removed from several internal GOP communications channels shortly after her vote Tuesday.
…After whipsawing between distance from and embrace of former President Donald Trump, for example, she recently opened the door to backing his primary campaign. Within the Capitol, she’s known as an outspoken critic of party leadership and a frequent guest on cable news shows.
“I’m not sure what the fallout will be. She has no coalition of support,” said one House GOP lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics.
“I can’t stop her from going on the Sunday shows,” this lawmaker added. “But inside the conference, she is a running joke.”
There are also suggestions to expel Matt Gaetz from Congress, though I do not expect that to happen and it is just blowing off steam. What is more likely is that they will spread salacious stories about his sleazy behavior, like these that Stephen Colbert talked about.
After McCarthy was booted from his job as speaker of the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening, the party members immediately went into a closed door session and emerged shortly after to say that they were adjourning for a week and returning next Tuesday to start the process of electing a new speaker.
The sudden adjournment was a surprise because it has never happened before that a speaker has been removed from office so the body was in uncharted waters and one would think that the first order of business would be to figure out what to do next. Furthermore, the deadline of November 17 to pass a new budget is fast approaching and taking a week off would not seem like a wise move. It appears that the reason they did so was because tempers were so hot that there was a real risk of physical fights breaking out and it was felt that people needed to go back to their districts and cool off.
But that has not stopped the jockeying to replace McCarthy, with Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan already having their hats in the ring. And that rivalry is already showing signs that it might be a bitter one, with McCarthy loyalists attacking Scalise for being too quick to declare his candidacy when McCarthy’s “body wasn’t even cold”, as one person said.
New tensions are colliding with old feuds in the Republican race to become House speaker, intensifying the GOP’s paralysis and raising serious questions about whether any candidate is capable of governing the conference.
Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) has endorsed Jordan for speaker. Jordan is one of the most extreme members of the GOP but McCarthy bought him off by giving him plum committee assignments. Jordan became a McCarthy loyalist and is seen as McCarthy’s choice. Gaetz hates McCarthy and grovels before SSAT so now he has to decide what to do. Jordan and Scalise will have to do similar deals with their party members as they try to first get a majority of people within the party caucus to vote for them and then persuade at least 217 of the 221 party members to vote for them when the full House votes to elect the speaker. The Democrats will all certainly vote unanimously for their leader Hakeem Jeffries, especially after the attacks they have gotten after the McCarthy fiasco.
So there we are, right back where we were in January with McCarthy’s tortured efforts to become speaker. Back then, there was no real rival to McCarthy. This time, there is no obvious leader. If you thought that fight was nasty, I think the next one will be even worse.
Thunderdome fight!
In the old South, a form of no-holds-barred combat permitted combatants to gouge eyes out* and even worse, and as the far right keep nagging about “heritage” they should apply those values to intraparty rivalry.
*Rather like the fictional fighting style in Django Unchained.
Depends on what you mean by worse. There is a significant number of the house GOP that want to gut governmental funding for everything not killing people related. The ‘infighting’ basically guarantees a governmental shut down without having to fail to submit or vote on a budget. I see a long drawn out process picking a speaker so the budget never gets a chance for a vote because enough members want a shut down.
LMFTFY: The GOP
internal fightisgoing to benastyI see a lot of ad hominem attacks on Matt Gaetz, but very little on the idea that for decades, Congress has been abrogating their appropriation responsibility. Because what we have now is a relatively few members of Congress, along with K Street, creating the discretionary budget and forcing a last minute up or down omnibus vote on the rest of Congress.
Last January, Gaetz agreed to allow McCarthy to be Speaker as long as there would be (amongst some other things), a separate vote on each of the 12 budgets and that there would not be a continuing resolution. To me, Gaetz’s actions on this (and this alone), seems to be indistinguishable from principle.
This doesn’t mean I want the government to be shut down. But I do like the idea that if the person in charge can’t get their job done then they may be replaced.
birgerjohansson @ # 1: In the old South, a form of no-holds-barred combat permitted combatants to gouge eyes out…
As a native Mississippian, I was about to give you a description of a particular knife-fight tradition, but decided otherwise to spare the tender sensibilities of Yankees and furriners. Y’all don’t know much about nasty…
#4 marner
Not all personal criticisms are fallacies. If personal conduct is relevant, then it is right to be brought up. And matters involving trust are often relevant to politics.
Home @ 6
Yes, if a congressman is doing a Prince Andrew, it is certainly relevant to trust
Don’t mind me, I’m just over here with my popcorn…
“We have seen how the GOP [blah]”
The GOP. “Grand Old Party”, right?
Such a quaint euphemism!
Used so unironically even when ostensibly used ironically.
“The Grand Old Party internal fight is going to be nasty” is speculative,
but
“The Nasty Old Party internal fight is going to be nasty” is analytic.
(I know the semiotics, too; the oliphant and the ass; obs, one makes bigger piles of poo)
@ ^
It’s short and nobody knows what the NOP is you nutter.
Silentbob, as usual, you are a bit dense.
Whatever made you imagine I thought that the No Operation code is something applied to the Republican Party? I never claimed it was already analytical. 🙂
(Not that it’s that operative right now, but still)
Anyway. It remains, in my estimation, a quaint euphemism.
(Like calling shit ‘poo’)
Oh my gods, shut UP, John!
An interesting ejaculation, WMDKitty.
If you had any knowledge of my posting history, you’d have known just how utterly futile your piteous plea is likely to be.
Basically, I retaliate. Not used to that, are ya?
(Is the Singham blog internal fight gonna get nasty?)
Juan Ramón; remember how you were so utterly despised at Pharyngula back in the day, that you announced, “I see I no longer belong here” (or words to that effect) and voluntarily exiled yourself for a year or two.
Could you not try that again here, but try to break your personal best time?
FartyGob:
Sorta, kinda, back in the day. Um, 2011?
(It sure fixed me, no? 😉
Much, much better to point out how, yet again, you exhibit your personal animus not just pointlessly, but counterproductively.
(Hey, remember how you were a nobody and I am an OM?)