GOP Will Shit Itself

[Thad]

20 Republicans voted against him on the first ballot.

It bears noting that he is the only Republican running. 20 Republicans voted for people who aren't running rather than vote for him.

Doesn't mean that 16 of those motherfuckers won't change their minds. Every last one of them is an insurrectionist; I saw someone say "there are no moderates, just proud MAGA and scared MAGA", and I think that's a good way of putting it.

Among Scared MAGA, there are definitely some people from purple districts who are worried that backing Jordan is the kind of thing that's going to cost them their jobs. Course, once Trump starts ranting about them by name and they start getting death threats, they may find themselves a little less concerned about re-election.

[Büge]

@friday

[Friday]

I'd vote for him. I know he'd never make an error, bud.

[sei]

did you avoid "I know he'd never err, bud." on purpose? >:(

[Mongrel]

Jordan just announced he's suspending his bid in favour of extending Henry's temporary speakership.

[Thad]

Jordan just announced he's suspending his bid in favour of extending Henry's temporary speakership.

About 90 minutes after Jordan rolled out this plan it made first contact with the House GOP caucus and blew apart into a million pieces. As I write at roughly 2:30 on Thursday afternoon the plan is absolutely dead. At least for the moment there doesn’t seem to be any idea of a possible next step. It was probably doomed all along – see the main point of this post: the model exists for a reason. But Jordan and his lieutenants at least made the concept far too explicit. They made it crystal clear it made him de facto Speaker with no vote at all. And here we are.

[Mongrel]

[Thad]

Ken Buck is being evicted from his main Colorado office. The landlord is a major GOP donor.

Buck, a GOP congressman from Colorado, said the eviction is because he refuses to support Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid to become House speaker

[Mongrel]

Given some of the GOP reps say they've been getting credible death threats for not voting for Jordan - including Buck, as the article states! - spurious evictions might be the least of his (and other GOP members') worries.

[Thad]

Scared MAGA has elected a Proud MAGA speaker.

[Mongrel]

MAGA being basically just a proprietary GOP label for 'fascist', really.

[Crick]

[Yoji]

Our long national nightmare is finally different!

[Thad]

Yeah, symbolically this is pretty fucking awful. Johnson is, I suppose, a morally better choice than Jordan because he hasn't covered up sexual abuse (that we know of), but...not for any other reason.

In practice, in terms of actually doing stuff in his role as Speaker, I don't know that he'll be that significant a change from McCarthy. I take a certain grim satisfaction in knowing he'll be miserable and ineffectual and possibly be removed the next time Gaetz wants to flex, though I'm not looking forward to the government shutdown that's looking inevitable at this point.

I don't see how this works out well for Republicans next year. Every single House Republican voted to confirm an election denier who wants to make it a crime to get an abortion or to be gay. That'll play great in safe Republican districts, but I'm pretty skeptical it's going to help Republicans get reelected in swing districts. (I mean the New York Democrats are pretty fucking incompetent, and if anybody can find a way to blow this it's them, but I'm skeptical last year's surprise Republican victories are going to be repeated next year.) That's the albatross the House GOP has hanging around its neck before Johnson even starts doing anything as Speaker.

[Mongrel]

Wait, so the rule they made which allowed Gaetz to yank McCarthy was permanent and not just for McCarthy's tenure?!

[Thad]

Not *permanent* -- I'll be very surprised if the next Congress extends it -- but as far as I know they haven't changed the rules for the new Speaker, no.

[Mongrel]

Ah. Speaking of Gaetz, things seem to have gone quiet on throwing him out of caucus, but I have no idea if that actually makes it more or less likely.

[Thad]

Yeah, maybe Johnson's thinking "he won't eat my face." Or maybe he's just thinking "if we kick Gaetz out, one of his buddies is going to eat my face in retaliation."

[Thad]

Rolling Stone: Abortion Wins Big in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia 2023 Elections

Mostly-good article, aside from a handwringing digression where they act like polls a year out from the election are something anyone should take seriously. (I mean, it's still outrageous that Trump is polling as well as he is under the circumstances, but it doesn't tell us anything about how he's going to do a year from now.)

We can't get complacent, but results like this keep demonstrating that we're not. The kind of results we've been seeing in midterms and off-year elections are a very good sign that people are engaged, and they're engaged enough that all the GOP's dirty tricks aren't enough to stop them.

No election here yesterday; Tempe's isn't until March. Which is a little odd but seems like probably a good thing? Off-year elections don't bring as much turnout, and I feel like having it a week before the presidential primary is likely to get more people out.

Or at least I'd expect it to in a more competitive primary. This one, who knows.

[Friday]

yeah both of us have talked about this before, but I am really curious if Silver is just going to throw up his hands and go "okay you know my data is all based on precedent, right" next year