Day: January 2, 2023

Kevin McCarthy has now agreed to let any five House Republicans call a vote to oust him as Speaker at any time, meaning he’d spend every day auditioning to keep the job, trying to keep everyone in his caucus happy so they don’t remove him. Even with this concession, he still doesn’t have the votes to become Speaker.

We’ll see what happens between now and tomorrow. Either the holdouts are just trying to get more out of him before giving him their vote, or they really have decided not to vote for him no matter what. Only they know which it is. You and I don’t know. McCarthy may not even know.

That said, there is no indication that any other potential Speaker candidate could currently come anywhere close to 218 votes. So tomorrow’s vote will likely either result in McCarthy becoming Speaker, or no one becoming Speaker for now.

If House Republicans were smart and savvy, they’d just get behind McCarthy now, given that he’s the only one who can get 218 votes. As weak of a Speaker as he’d be, he’ll be even weaker if they embarrassing drag this out for weeks before finally picking him.

But as we keep seeing, a lot of these House Republicans are not smart or savvy. All it takes is one of the dumb ones delusionally believing he can become Speaker just by dragging the process out for weeks, and convincing a few others to go along with it, and it’ll be a clown show.

The best case scenario for House Republicans is that McCarthy becomes Speaker tomorrow, in a way that leaves him powerless over his own caucus and forces him to spend every day scrambling to avoid being ousted. And that’s the best scenario for House Republicans.

How can House Republicans collectively accomplish anything under these circumstances? They can’t. They won’t. They each just want to run free like maniacs, carrying out their own bizarre personal agendas, not caring how much it hurts their odds of keeping the majority in 2024.

Even as this plays out, House Democrats are solidly united behind newly elected leader Hakeem Jeffries, with his mentor Nancy Pelosi still in the building, and they’re already pouncing on the opportunity to help House Republicans make themselves look bad. It’s going to be a very strange two years. It’s not a good look for the country. It’ll be a far worse look for the Republicans.

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