Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Your GOP (Secretly) at Work
I’m having a hard time not fully agreeing with this:
Just so you know …
The Republican Party sold you out this week for their big money donors – then they mocked you on X after they did it.
These cocky narcissists hate you. They think they’re better than you. They deserve nothing from you going forward …
Not your money.
Not…— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) October 21, 2023
Elected representatives had a secret vote over Jim Jordan’s candidacy for Speaker of the House. These are public officials avoiding public scrutiny. It’s the same reasoning that brings us omnibus budget bills, and continuing resolutions anytime we don’t have a budget, which has been nearly all the time since, what? The first lengthy expanse was six of the eight years Obama was in office…when Republicans held the House of Representatives.
Why do you think the 25 who publicly voted against Jim Jordan didn’t mind doing so? Because most were on either the Appropriations Committee or Armed Services. They didn’t mind reminding Washington who the sugar mommies and daddies were. Washington reminding Washington who to thank when the budget hands out the money. (That’s just a bit of my frustration coming out.)
Republican primary voters chip away at this mentality every cycle, but we haven’t done enough yet. Nice of these folks to energize our motivation.
Look, I publicly didn’t agree with social media pressuring from this same account (above) to reps who didn’t vote for Jim Jordan. If there is a case to be made, it should be made mainly by constituents. That is who these representatives serve, and they can choose to serve by their own view of their district’s interests, or by their voters’ view. These are not always at odds, and I think it unlikely some of the X users who lambasted these reps researched and polled every district.
I understand the anger they have over this, too, but it’s just fuel for disregard of what people want to accomplish. And, no, I don’t believe leaving them alone will change anything.
The Elder Members of the Church
The church I grew up in recently held a vote over whether to remain United Methodist or join the Global Methodist church. The dispute was over doctrine, of course, and you may have heard something about this. The older members of the church expressed their fervent wish for “everything to be how it’s always been.” They wanted no change and failed to grasp that voting for change was actually the way to preserve the substance of the church they had, if not the visual and physical brick-and-mortar.
It seems like we’re in a similar situation with the GOP. The organizational structure of the party continues in power despite disagreements with its general membership. The difference, though, is there is only one party structure, whereas, for example, my hometown had over 70 different denominations of Christian churches when I was a teenager.
That’s an oversimplification of the religion problem, I know, but the point is that as conservatives or center-right conservatives, or whatever label you wish to wear, we only have one place to go and it’s broken. We either fix it the way we want or start something new. Most of us, it seems, think our adherence is to what the Republican Party should be. In other words, we’re not the problem, so I don’t anticipate the solution will be to start anew.
No Stated Reasons for Opposition
Did it have to be Jim Jordan? No, I suppose not. The vocalized opposition to him was so weak, though, making references to “pressure” and not offering a single argument against Jordan’s candidacy. Pressure? You haven’t faced anything like that in running for office or being a sitting member of the US House of Representatives? But, then, I assumed they meant pressure from other members.
“When the pressure campaigns and attacks on fellow members ramped up, it became clear to me the House Republican conference did not need a bully as the speaker,” said Republican Drew Ferguson of Georgia. (Source: Bloomberg)
Representative Ferguson’s reference was to online pressure. The online statements are plainly ridiculous, as already stated, and not a campaign. Does Ferguson really believe that was orchestrated by Jim Jordan? Jordan has a lot of popular support, and it’s possible to see how someone might believe it, if they didn’t give it much thought. It was enough, though, to prompt a response from Jordan, “No American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together.” (Ibid)
So, I get it, but I’m still not buying it. Why? Because the opposition was there already. The social media was reactive. There was no one to target prior to the first vote. So, you’re against Jordan because of the online pressure? Try again.
Like him/hate him, Matt Gaetz had reasons behind his opposition to McCarthy. He stated them, then compromised. I suspect he had plenty of people pressuring him as well. These 20-25 did nothing like that. That suggests their reasons aren’t reconcilable with public opinion, or for some other reason the reps don’t want to say what they’re thinking aloud. Fair enough, but don’t complain what motives we assign to your opposition in our own analysis.
Next Up
Can’t say I’m impressed or not impressed with this next round of candidates, I simply don’t know who they are other than Byron Donalds. Rep. Donalds makes a splash here and there and strikes me as thoughtful. He seems to know his stuff when it comes to energy and financial services. He also had something to say about the pressure campaign:
“Listen, in any organization, you or any team or any locker room, you have to deal with everybody differently. You can’t have the same style with everybody because everybody responds to different things. And you have to understand that and know that,” Donalds said when asked about outside pressure from “email mobs” and “Twitter mobs.” (Source: The Hill)
Sensible. I suspect he has no shot at getting the approval of the Scalise crowd. Why? Reasons to be named later, I guess.
I also suspect many more GOP reps will face primaries in 2024. It seems a popular idea on X, anyway, so someone is orchestrating that, right? After, uh, Catturd’s anger subsided, that was the action he advocated as well. Had the opposition to Jordan made their case, we might have reason to disagree with this action. They made a choice, now voters may make another.
Published in Politics
I like this…
Apparently, Donalds’s competitor will be Tom Emmer.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4268188-tom-emmer-potential-speaker-candidate/
Emmer is “next up” in terms of current leadership. Donalds may be “next up” for those who wanted Jordan. I’m sure there were at least two other names mentioned yesterday.
Emmer is a foe of the Electoral College is what I’ve read in another post. If true, he is not acceptable to lead in my way of thinking and his current position should be taken away from him.
Emmer is the GOP’s boy for the National Popular Vote Pact. He is trying to backdoor the Electoral College. He shouldn’t be anywhere near the Speaker’s Office.
I sure don’t understand those who claim the problem was the “Gaetz Eight,” not the 20-something who wouldn’t vote for Jordan.
I appreciate Gaetz doing this and what it has revealed to me. That is why he gets the Trump treatment.
Does anything scream “I want to be out of power” more than this? I don’t know what to call the DC-oriented GOP other than ‘weird.’
I mentioned Emmer in another post, and it has since occurred to me that the Electoral College is the reason Trump won in 2016 and that it would be his likely path in 2024.
You do the math ;-)
Call them , bought and paid for .
Nothing describes it better than this:
https://babylonbee.com/news/republicans-to-spend-weekend-brainstorming-how-to-be-even-more-of-an-embarrassment
Ken Buck is being evicted from his main Colorado office over the vote. Ken is an interesting case. He said “under no circumstances” would he vote for Jim Jordan, citing Jordan’s views on the 2020 election. Buck, apparently, hasn’t shied from criticizing fellow conference members about this.
It turns out Jordan sidelined Buck somewhat within the Judiciary Committee. He changed the focus of a sub-committee Buck was on and appointed another rep to chair it. Long story short, he undercut Buck’s position. I’m somewhat sympathetic to Buck here because he was looking at anti-competitive practices in Big Tech, but the sub-committee’s new focus was looking at power abuse in government, another worthy subject. I’m unsure why they couldn’t have both, but, at any rate, it’s probably needless to say that Buck’s landlord is a Jim Jordan fan.
Of special note, Ken Buck is one of the eight representatives who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy. So, let’s see, he’s after Big Tech, voted against leadership, criticized critics of the 2020 election, and, finally, played a role in this. Who are this guy’s friends in Washington? His path is an interesting one, anyway.
Looks like people might be lining up to challenge Buck next year in the primary, but no one has filed as of yet.
Edit: Rep. Buck’s contention that Jordan’s views on the 2020 election are a disqualifier also disqualifies my contention in the OP that no argument was made. I concede this, and would also be interested in hearing a more detailed explanation from Rep. Buck.
It doesn’t matter if we get a speaker. If nothing gets done, we’re ten steps ahead of when we have a speaker.
When has the House done anything for its constituents? Not for decades. Contract with America? Went nowhere. Repealing Obamacare? Even with both houses and the executive branch they wouldn’t do it.
So if nothing happens then I think we’re actually better off.
That particular failure came down to just ONE “nay”/”thumbs down” vote in the Senate. THIS guy’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH2EeGa2lnc
Yes, but, as either Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins could have gotten it over the top, it’s a wider problem.
Murkowski and Collins had “back home” re-election related justifications/excuses for their votes that McCain didn’t. McCain’s motivation, as far as I can tell, was the same as Liz Cheney’s/Adam Kinzinger’s/etc.: pure personal SPITE.
Sure but I just don’t think the “we’ll let some people vote against because we don’t really NEED them” is any more valid for “us” than it is for “them.”
And shame on any voters who might be fooled by it.
The people voted that mess into law knew they’d pay a price at the voting booth. They also knew, and said out loud, that if it was passed, the GOPe would never repeal it. That’s the difference between the two parties: Demo-rat true believers will sacrifice their political positions for something they want done. It may be that they had assurances that Democrat party movers-and-shakers would take care of them, but don’t count on anything like that from the RNC/NRSC/GOPe donor class.
I think this is right and it is not known even today what different results might have been forthcoming in other parts of the country if Obamacare had been repealed. The elections of Murkowski and Collins don’t stand alone in issues of this magnitude.
True, and it’s quite possible that if certain Powers That Be were willing to allow a lesser degree of pain to happen in the past, it might have corrected the course much earlier and there wouldn’t be so much MORE pain NOW.
Certainly better off with nobody instead of Emmer.
Just looking at the headlines on Citizen Free Press and there is a pretty wide range of opinion reflected by Republicans. I don’t always like it, but I can appreciate it, and it generates some optimism for things to come.
Murkowski is as corrupt as they come, and she would fix her election no matter what vote she supported or didn’t support. I don’t know enough about Collins’ situation. I know that people follow leaders, apparently she’s no leader.
And they could have tried again. Heck, it took 16 votes or so to elect McCarthy as speaker. Imagine if they tried that hard to repeal Obamacare.
McConnell was probably just as pleased as McCain so he wouldn’t do that.
But…
But….
But……….
CHAOS!!!!
Can’t have THAT!
I remember that when asked about a possible repeal if the repubs had a majority, he mumbled something about “that’d be really hard to do.” As I said above, the Dems knew that if they passed it, it would not be repealed.
The ‘genius’ of Obamacare was that it destroyed enough of the old system, such that it was, that dismantling it would lead to uncertainty again.
Oooh, can’t have
uncertaintyfreedom, can we?Sure we can. All we need is a sufficiency of courageous Republican congressmen. I’ll wait here while someone gathers them up.
We have that anyway along with new levels of unidentifiable incompetence in an environment where choice by the individual at the point of treatment is no longer an option.