With chaos in the House, anyone want to take bets on whether Trump deliberately violates his gag order and winds up in jail (where I think he wants to be so as to more effectively play the victim in a bid to rile and radicalize his base)?
I wouldn’t underestimate the strength of his hatred and desire to destroy the American republic (such as it is) and replace it with a dictatorship. It might lead him to endure a month in jail.
True, but he'd be largely cut off from that river of emotional gratification and I think at this point he may need that to continue functioning. He has absolutely no ability to engage in delayed gratification, thank god.
I honestly think it was the impeachment hearings that did him in with the Democrats. That was dropping a nuclear bomb on politics. I know that he did it hoping to kind of push it into a "sound bite for Fox/OANN/Newsmax" level of politics instead of a straight vote, but it's *so* spectacularly bad that the effect was essentially the same.
Close #2 was that he spent the last year or so making mutually exclusive promises to diametrically opposed factions of his party. Even if you were willing to deal with him hypothetically, he's shown that he isn't trustworthy.
I've been right once and wrong once in the last week. I suspected a shutdown would be avoided, at least temporarily and was correct to a point. But I also thought Gaetz would end up looking like the buffoon he so clearly is and McCarthy's removal would fail. As you so eloquently put it, oops! I love roller coasters but only at theme parks and I think the next few weeks are going to be gut wrenching in some very weird ways between the House and the gagging former potus. And your right of course no actual governance will be occurring except maybe by Biden EOs. Oh and let us not fail to remember that the Gang of Five on SCOTUS just started the fall term so there's that. Mark Duplas movie title comes to mind, safety not gauranteed! At least Aubrey Plaza was in it.
There's some bizarre facet of my brain that clings to this idea that Nancy Mace is some kind of "moderate" or "realist" Republican -- where the hell is this coming from? Clearly she's as fringe as they get.
Yes, Laura, I don't think you were *wrong* in any more of a meaningful way than the weather forecast being wrong about it raining today. The chaos in the entire government has made any meaningful predictions virtually impossible. We are now living in a world where I doubt anyone at all can make any political forecast correctly any more often than the proverbial broken clock.
McCarthy is going to try to rebrand himself as to always having been "the adult in the room" and it's going to sell a bunch of books and get him a cushy cable job. It's going to be so absurd and untrue on its face and it's going to easily work.
A lot of people think that a few Republicans might support Hakim Jeffries as speaker just so the House can operate. They wouldn’t support any programs from the Democrats, just must pass stuff like a plain vanilla budget. I don’t see that happening. If anything gets us out of this mess, it would be an agreement that installs someone from the center (to the extent that there are any centrists left) as a caretaker Speaker. For example, Rep Brian Fitzpatrick, who I know nothing about, is the Republican co-chair of the Problem Solvers’ Caucus. He might be an acceptable Speaker for what would be essentially a caretaker government that does nothing but keep the government operating. No attempts to do anything but get us though the next election with the lights on.
The emergence of a viable third party has long been a dream in centrist circles. We're now witnessing that happening in real life — and it's a radical right vs insane radical right schism. The Republican Party has fissured, and there's no bridge to the Democrats. Think the two-party system is bad? Just wait.
I'm thrilled. Someone is going to renominate McCarthy. If the Dems know what's good for them (and the country) they'll do what they should have done in January. About 20 centrist Dems agree to neuter the loony wing of the Republican House delegation by backing McCarthy. They get real concessions for doing this. (Those representing red-leaning districts are good candidates.) These 20 will then be in the same "swing vote needed to pass anything" position that the so-called "Freedom Caucus" was before now. Since they're not intent on "burning the place down" sensible shit can finally get done, with the House being pulled further to the left then would otherwise have been possible. And McCarthy can continue to use the lunacy of the Freedom Caucus as political cover for this. . .
I doubt McCarthy will be re-nominated and if he does the Democrats absolutely will not bail him out. He's already shown to not be trustworthy. He's made mutually exclusive promises to multiple factions inside his party and he could have avoided all of this by working with the Democrats back in January to prevent the rule change that enabled his ousting today. At this point there's blood in the water and I would be surprised if nobody tried to primary him in a few months or run against him at the first opportunity.
Edit: Called it. McCarthy isn't going to try to regain the speakership right now. May change down the road but right now he's probably wondering if he has a career ahead of him in congress.
With chaos in the House, anyone want to take bets on whether Trump deliberately violates his gag order and winds up in jail (where I think he wants to be so as to more effectively play the victim in a bid to rile and radicalize his base)?
anything is possible apparently
I think Trump would nut himself if he got thrown in jail.
Then within 48 hours he'd be absolutely miserable.
I wouldn’t underestimate the strength of his hatred and desire to destroy the American republic (such as it is) and replace it with a dictatorship. It might lead him to endure a month in jail.
True, but he'd be largely cut off from that river of emotional gratification and I think at this point he may need that to continue functioning. He has absolutely no ability to engage in delayed gratification, thank god.
I honestly think it was the impeachment hearings that did him in with the Democrats. That was dropping a nuclear bomb on politics. I know that he did it hoping to kind of push it into a "sound bite for Fox/OANN/Newsmax" level of politics instead of a straight vote, but it's *so* spectacularly bad that the effect was essentially the same.
Close #2 was that he spent the last year or so making mutually exclusive promises to diametrically opposed factions of his party. Even if you were willing to deal with him hypothetically, he's shown that he isn't trustworthy.
I've been right once and wrong once in the last week. I suspected a shutdown would be avoided, at least temporarily and was correct to a point. But I also thought Gaetz would end up looking like the buffoon he so clearly is and McCarthy's removal would fail. As you so eloquently put it, oops! I love roller coasters but only at theme parks and I think the next few weeks are going to be gut wrenching in some very weird ways between the House and the gagging former potus. And your right of course no actual governance will be occurring except maybe by Biden EOs. Oh and let us not fail to remember that the Gang of Five on SCOTUS just started the fall term so there's that. Mark Duplas movie title comes to mind, safety not gauranteed! At least Aubrey Plaza was in it.
There's some bizarre facet of my brain that clings to this idea that Nancy Mace is some kind of "moderate" or "realist" Republican -- where the hell is this coming from? Clearly she's as fringe as they get.
Apparently McCarthy didn't even try to keep his job. He made no offers to substantially work with Democrats.
McCarthy opted for a Charles I strategy I guess.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/03/centrist-dems-mccarthy-speaker-00119626
Yes, Laura, I don't think you were *wrong* in any more of a meaningful way than the weather forecast being wrong about it raining today. The chaos in the entire government has made any meaningful predictions virtually impossible. We are now living in a world where I doubt anyone at all can make any political forecast correctly any more often than the proverbial broken clock.
Wherever "funny" and clusterfuck converge is not a place I want to hang out near.
Stick a fork in us. These people are going to kill us all.
McCarthy is going to try to rebrand himself as to always having been "the adult in the room" and it's going to sell a bunch of books and get him a cushy cable job. It's going to be so absurd and untrue on its face and it's going to easily work.
A lot of people think that a few Republicans might support Hakim Jeffries as speaker just so the House can operate. They wouldn’t support any programs from the Democrats, just must pass stuff like a plain vanilla budget. I don’t see that happening. If anything gets us out of this mess, it would be an agreement that installs someone from the center (to the extent that there are any centrists left) as a caretaker Speaker. For example, Rep Brian Fitzpatrick, who I know nothing about, is the Republican co-chair of the Problem Solvers’ Caucus. He might be an acceptable Speaker for what would be essentially a caretaker government that does nothing but keep the government operating. No attempts to do anything but get us though the next election with the lights on.
The emergence of a viable third party has long been a dream in centrist circles. We're now witnessing that happening in real life — and it's a radical right vs insane radical right schism. The Republican Party has fissured, and there's no bridge to the Democrats. Think the two-party system is bad? Just wait.
We'll recoalesce around a two party system. Anything more than that is wasteful in our current system.
agree.
I'm thrilled. Someone is going to renominate McCarthy. If the Dems know what's good for them (and the country) they'll do what they should have done in January. About 20 centrist Dems agree to neuter the loony wing of the Republican House delegation by backing McCarthy. They get real concessions for doing this. (Those representing red-leaning districts are good candidates.) These 20 will then be in the same "swing vote needed to pass anything" position that the so-called "Freedom Caucus" was before now. Since they're not intent on "burning the place down" sensible shit can finally get done, with the House being pulled further to the left then would otherwise have been possible. And McCarthy can continue to use the lunacy of the Freedom Caucus as political cover for this. . .
I doubt McCarthy will be re-nominated and if he does the Democrats absolutely will not bail him out. He's already shown to not be trustworthy. He's made mutually exclusive promises to multiple factions inside his party and he could have avoided all of this by working with the Democrats back in January to prevent the rule change that enabled his ousting today. At this point there's blood in the water and I would be surprised if nobody tried to primary him in a few months or run against him at the first opportunity.
Edit: Called it. McCarthy isn't going to try to regain the speakership right now. May change down the road but right now he's probably wondering if he has a career ahead of him in congress.