Discussion for article #241513
To some extent, McCarthy’s backers couldn’t care less about governing. Big Ag, for example, sells to a global market. Over 70% of almonds produced in California go to export. Similarly, oil is a globally traded commodity, with the price set in world markets. Moreover, defense likes instability as it opens the floodgates of money even wider. So the House can sit around and fight about the rights of zygote Americans and deporting Muslims and Mexicans, while defunding whatever the far-right is upset about. McCarthy’s people do not care about education or health or quality of life, just resource extraction and avoiding liability for their messes. My fear is that it is not a “governing” crisis we face but rather something quite a bit darker.
23 Likes
It would be a crisis if you assume that McCarthy and his ilk are interested in governing. They aren’t.
11 Likes
I might be way out in left field here, but what if a bunch of the more moderate Republican’s said “to H#@L with this STUFF” and voted for Pelosi as speaker. Add in the Democratic votes, it might be enough to elect her as Speaker. Then she would govern with a group of moderates.
Some of them might get attacked in the Primaries, but the work of the Congress would get done until then. They might just want to Retire because the Democrats are going to be in charge in 2017 any way.
6 Likes
And Republican conservatives are running everything because… they’re principled?
Ha!
3 Likes
The extent these assholes could damage the US in a very short period of time is pretty scary.
5 Likes
The more long term problem is that all the prospective candidates are frighteningly dogmatic and really stoopid.
2 Likes
Get ready for the next GOTP led shitstorm, promises to be as big as Sandy. Let’s hope it does less damage.
1 Like
“You still have this substantial group of more conservative members…" We have GOT to come up with a better word to describe them. They are not conservative, they are anarchists.
6 Likes
What are these “more moderate Republicans” of whom you speak?
Seriously, the rarely discussed other edge of the two-edged sword known as “gerrymandering” for the new, improved, extra-crazy, extra-nihilisty GOP members of Congress is that it puts almost all of them in utter thrall to the craziest hard-right loons in the district. Just how the game theory math works.
Gerrymandering works by creating districts with “just enough” of your party’s voters to make the district “safe” and, where the demographics or the Voting Rights Act compel the creation of a seat for the other party, packing as many voters of the other party into it as possible.
As a happy by-product, this results in districts that punish heterodoxy. The close balance means that the loon vote is the decisive demographic. Even if a Republican who supported the evil she-Satan Pelosi survived the inevitable primary, they’d still never steal enough votes from the Democratic candidate to make up for the Republican base crazies who’d skip that vote or vote Libertarian.
7 Likes
These are all symptoms a deeper problem. Lack of engagement by American citizens. After two wave elections in 2006 and 2008, primarily the result of 6 years of disastrous Republican rule including the worst economic crises since the Great Depression, Democratic voters stayed home in 2010. In 2014, Democratic voters again took a vacation day, and only 39% of REGISTERED VOTERS turned out. My understanding is that only 60% of eligible voters are registered. So 39%-40% of 60% is 24%. That means 24% of eligible voters actually voted.
During Wendy Davis filibuster of that Texas abortion bill a couple of years back, there were mass protests. I believe it was on either Rachel Maddow or Chris Hayes show, they did a survey of the protestors. 40% of the people they asked, did not vote in 2010. The 2010 election was the election that seated the state legislature that enacted that law.
Until we solve this problem, we will all continue to suffer at the hands of these extremists.
And while I am sympathetic to some of the apathy of voters, as well as the road blocks the Republicans are throwing up, Democratic voters are WAY too easily discouraged and defeated. A determined voter could easily overcome these restrictions to show up once a year to cast a ballot.
One example, the African Americans cast ballots in a higher percentage than White voters for the first time in history in 2012.
Why? Because they were determined to vote for the first African American President in history.
When people vote in large numbers, Democrats win.
The solution is getting this to happen in off year elections, as well as Presidential elections.
15 Likes
Agreed. There is NEVER an excuse not to vote.
3 Likes
See democrats, this is the kind of mess you get when you don’t vote. You get an inept House of Representatives, gerrymandered districts, terrible governors, and senators who would rather defund PP, than fund the government.
2 Likes
Oops…
7 Likes
LOL. That’s hysterical.
How could anyone forget the curious Chaffetz visage?
The ONLY WAY to TAKE back America from THE LIBTARD RINO WINO anD HIS GANG OF BOUGHT AND PAID FOR OHBummer SOCIALISTS IS FOR the FREEDOM COALITIon to FORCE freedom on America. go chaffetz, no ON RINO McCarthy. YOU GOT TO burn IT DOWN before YOU caN TaKE IT back aND REBUILD aMERICA’s greaTNEss!1!1!1!!!one!1!!1!!
Kevin McCarthy is a joke that is funny and sad at the same time. His ignorance reminds me of George Bush the Dimmer.
1 Like
The big problem is that large portions of the Democratic coalition - young people, African-Americans, and single women in particular - are what I refer to as low-intensity voters. They’ll show up every four years, but they don’t vote in local elections or off-years. They just don’t. If the Democratic party could find some way to get these voters to the polls in off-years, we wouldn’t be having these problems in Congress.
3 Likes