This is an utter, unmitigated disaster. Chaos tends to bring about chaos until it no longer brings about chaos. We’re a long way from the point at which chaos stops bringing around more chaos.
Karl Rove, 1-3-23 (Watching multiple votes.)
It is not a good look.
When people vote “you” into power (the Republican party) with the idea that you can do a better job than the Democrats who were there prior to the election, they are right to expect competence in getting the most basic thing done, literally the most basic thing – picking a leader.
Now Karl Rove has lost his utter mind over the failure to get this done and the ripple effects going forward. First, Rove is mad because it seems as though there was an agreement.
“Well, I’m more interested in the horse-trading that went on beforehand, because my understanding is, is that yesterday, late in the day, late in the afternoon or into the evening, McCarthy made two concessions on the motion to vacate, where he had offered to allow such motions to take place if five members supported it. The Freedom Caucus people wanted one, he conceded.”
And then he pounded the Freedom Caucus for essentially taking the Republican House hostage and demanding all they wanted at the price of every other member:
“In addition, they wanted Freedom Caucus members to be able to designate what committees they wanted to serve on. And then the Freedom Caucus wanted to give the speaker a list of subcommittee chairs that they would be able to designate the chairman for, which, again, is, you know, no group in the House that gets to be able to do that. The Black Caucus doesn’t get it. The Veterans Committee, nobody gets to be able to do that. That’s done by the committee on committees,
Rove then complained about something that has become somewhat of a Republican specialty in the last few years. Make an agreement and then back out to get a better one.
So these are extraordinary demands by the Freedom Caucus and both for personal power. Scott Perry to be the chairman of this high-profile committee, the Freedom Caucus members to be able to designate what committees they served on and so forth. It’s a pretty extraordinary list. And what was interesting was after after McCarthy had conceded on their two big issues, they came up with a whole bunch of other demands.
This is what Trump has wrought. Politics as personality and politics revolving around personal power. Instead of getting together as a team to take real power, unified by one guy and ready to go, they continue to destroy themselves by pettiness and putting themselves over the country (in the sense that they’re worried more about their career than any sort of sense of teamwork).
Now, we, as Democrats, can enjoy this like it’s a second Christmas morning because it’s doing nothing but sap the power of the Republican majority. The angrier and bitter members are, the harder it will be to get them to agree to something in the future. In the long run, however, it shows some deep fissures in the Right that can explode into something “bad.” Remember, these people are ready to give up on Constitutional government altogether.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: IT WAS A VACCINE CLOT! MAGAS ONCE AGAIN PUTTING AMERICANS IN DANGER
Well Turd-blossom, this is what you and people like you created–the G.Q.P. Blame yourself dumb-ass while the rest of us laugh our asses off at your expense.
Amen to that! Who cares what another GOP has been like Rove, Gingrich etc. care what they have to say/
As Spike said, Karl, this is YOUR fault. Not just yours but you had an outsized role in getting us here. To go from your pipe dreams of “empire” and “permanent Republican majority” to this must be quite the shock. And I am JUST petty enough to hope it hurts you a TENTH of how much you wound up hurting others.
Will popcorn supplies keep up?
Asking for a friend.
If they run short, switch to peanuts.
I’m eating right now and had to keep myself from choking when I got to Rove’s little whine about McCarthy’s concessions and then the Freedom Caucus’s wanting more.
That’s EXACTLY what Rove started: Get the other side to cave on one issue and demand they give up ten more things. (Of course, the “other side” in Rove’s plan was always Democrats. But sometimes, well, the best laid plans of mice and morons and all that . . . . )