It’s not worth debating former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s daily bullshit that his resignation three weeks ago, and the Republicans’ inability to rally behind a successor, is the Democrats’ fault that the Democrats, by with a minority of Republicans voting first against McCarthy and then against the incendiary Rep. Jim Jordan, are responsible for the continued paralysis of the House.

Ask yourself: If a Democrat had moved to impeach McCarthy’s predecessor,

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco would join McCarthy and

other

The Republicans voted for retention

his fellow Californian they

into the work?

Right. Not just no, but no.

And yet there are a few individual questions nagging at some Democrats

Are

Worth considering: should House Democrats have tried to save McCarthy?

? a

NL

,

Now that he’s defeated, should they form a coalition with the few relatively healthy Republicans to elect a chairman?

For me the answers are still no and no. And I say that, even though my inclination after years of reporting to Congress is to favor compromise and consensus building in the best interests of the institution and the country, even if the outcome in this case is a loudspeaker not something you decide for yourself would have chosen.

On Tuesday, Republicans in the House of Representatives nominated a third candidate for chairman, Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota. But just like with Jordan

of Ohio,

and House

M

majority

L

leader Steve Scalise of Lousiana, Emmer fell far short of what he needed to win a majority in the House of Representatives, assuming Democrats

would

thwart

D

it. So, like Scalise, Emmer dropped out of contention, further humiliating Republicans and still rendering the House useless.

Emmer had a major handicap. Former President Trump had telegraphed his thumbs down. Emmer had done the unforgivable as far as the Don and his minions of the House of Representatives were concerned: he was among the minority of Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted on January 6.

2021,

post-chaos, to confirm the election of Joe Biden as president. That mood

S

, and Emmer’s relatively moderate record in general, could have made him a candidate for the votes of some Democrats. But he couldn’t have made a deal with them without undermining Republican support.

That dynamic underscores why Democrats haven’t seriously raised the idea of ​​negotiating a speaker compromise with Republicans, despite their professed openness, and it only makes sense: In reality, there has been no one to negotiate with.

Which brings us back to the question of why Democrats didn’t help McCarthy, if only to avoid ending up with a worse speaker (as Jordan’s candidacy threatened). For starters, McCarthy refused to negotiate with Democrats just hours before his defense.

Not only did he offer nothing to the Democrats

,

he gave them more than enough reason to oppose him. Two days before the Republican motion to impeach him, McCarthy infuriated Democrats by falsely claiming on CBS Face the Nation that they had tried to block his stopgap government funding solution that would have prevented a federal shutdown. In fact, the Democrats

had

He took just a few hours to read the bill, rightly distrusting McCarthy’s description, and then delivered more votes than Republicans to pass the measure.

Months earlier, McCarthy backed out of the budget cut deal

‘D

made with

President

Biden to prevent the nation from defaulting on its debt. He simply gave in to his party’s extremists and authorized deeper cuts, creating another standoff with the Senate and the president (and the prospect of a government shutdown in mid-November).

McCarthy and Jordan are therefore the two Republicans most responsible for the now stalled and baseless impeachment inquiry against Biden. Should Democrats reward them with votes for speakers?

Another factor that supports the Democrats is: tradition. For two centuries, since the development of political parties, the majority has nominated and elected one of its own parties as chairman, usually without any vote from the minority party. McCarthy’s resignation on October 3 was unprecedented in US history, and now Republicans are making more history by their failure to unite behind a replacement. It would be historic if the Democrats bailed them out.

And here’s another justification for the Democrats’ position, though not one I necessarily endorse: Their pro-government bias toward making government work runs up against pressure from party voters to fight.

As Republicans have become bolder in recent years in their partisan tactics that deny the legitimacy of Biden’s election; blocking President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee and ramming through three of their own districts, and crossing congressional districts, to name a few. Democratic voters have become increasingly vocal in urging their party poles to grow spikes.

The Democrats have indicated what they would want if the Republicans were to negotiate, and they are not asking for the moon. The mundane nature of their questions speaks to the extremism of Republicans. They want Republicans to agree to prevent a government shutdown, fund the government at the spending levels agreed in the debt deal, and provide further military aid to both Ukraine and Israel, and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, all things that the Republicans should support in their territory. own.

One last hurdle to consider: Let’s say the Democrats somehow help the Republicans out of their troubles. They know that once the House of Representatives reopens, Republicans would return to their own destructive business, not least their search for some reason to impeach the Democratic president.

The decapitated majority in the House of Representatives is a problem for the Republicans. They need to resolve it and make concessions to the Democrats if necessary. As depressing as this paralysis is, it has had this advantage: the Republicans have been exposed for their radicalism and therefore their inability to govern. That’s good for voters to see before they go to the polls next year.

@jackiekcalmes