I guess I should re-phrase. How should I feel about this from the Democrats. I get destabling your opposition but siding with Gaetz to get rid of McCarthy… feels icky.
Gaetz should be in prison, not in the House getting to smash the country into even more turmoil.
My comment was more of a general fuck him comment 
As for why they voted, the GOP just do not have someone who can get through on GOP votes alone. They are not doing this to support Gaetz, but because in the fall out they have a very good shot at ending up in a some form of power sharing agreement, or even a small chance of Jeffries taking the gavel himself.
I hate all of them, but there’s something about McCarthy’s obsequiousness and blatantly transactional nature that makes it fun to watch him suffer. He’s also just not that bright. 
Since the DOJ declined to prosecute , the House ethics committee have restarted their investigation into him , concerning not only the sexual trafficking allegations but his behaviour violating House rules and possible misuse of funds. There is commentary that McCarthy’s refusal to kill the investigation is the real reason for Gaetz’s animus towards him. It also holds out the possibility that Gaetz himself might be ‘going through some things’ himself fairly shortly.
Gaetz is a real sleazeball and hopefully the investigation gains traction.
The Republicans are ably demonstrating at the moment that they aren’t fit to govern. What a collection of bad apples!
I had time for principled conservative people like Mitt Romney. Agree or disagree, but definitely a substantive person to contend with. But even he doesn’t recognize his party any more and is bowing out, as the new authoritarian wave (borderline fascist for me) holds sway.
Hopefully they focus more of their attention on damaging each other, that the herd might be thinned and saner times get closer.
He has a reputation on Capital Hill for being an awful liar and its something he’s perceived to do in a way that is way out of bounds of normal political behavior. Democrats largely hate him on a personal level for it and so I think there a lot of people taking some personal pleasure from this situation now.
It’s funny reading stories today though about him having “lost trust” of too many people. No one had trust in him in the first place. He was a dead man walking from even before the first vote on his candidacy let alone the 15th.
An excellent analysis here , by way of a conversation with a political scientist , of how the Republican Party succumbed to the populist forces that eventually led to McCarthy’s defenestration. Tracing its roots back to the genesis of the Tea Party , and it’s supposed determination to cut the deficit (spoiler alert : it was never about that) to today’s bomb throwers who have been emboldened by Trump. A must read.
Oops; wrong thread. 
As good as the piece, it has elicited a just as good response from people taking the trend back even further.
This is a good piece from 2012 from two, then, ostensibly conservative writers who make a throughline to Grover Norquist and Newt
I’m struggling to articulate my thoughts on this, because while the tea party was very definitely an inflection point in lots of ways it was a predictable step on their existing trajectory. I think maybe what made the tea party different was that it gave the flame throwers, the mouth breathers, and those who pretended to be stupid (Cruz) something different to rally around and the force that developed around became difficult for its own party to use productively.
The fact that there were people in the Republican party willing to take Palin seriously was a shock to many back then.
Nowadays she’s a mainstream party member.
She’s a great marker.
The fact she would no longer feel out of place in the party I think is strong demonstration of how there is a difference now compared to this pre- tea party era. It’s not that anything new is being said, but more that stupidity of it is now unremarkable and unremarked on.
I think the other relevant reference point is she demonstrated the market in their electorate for belligerent stupidity. Her patent absurdity and lack of preparedness was not only not a negative for her, but the freedom it gave her to throw bombs was the basis of her popularity. She became the frame that later, actually smart and well informed people, came to mimic.
Jeezus … what struck me is that piece could have been written last week ( 'Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer, wrote last year about why he was ending his career on the Hill after nearly three decades. “The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe,” he wrote on the Truthout Web site ) … and yet we’ve had twelve years in the interim of things getting worser even faster.
Following that trajectory , wtaf is the end point for these lunatics ?
Jim Fucking Jordan as Speaker.
Their only successful speaker of the last 20 years is a convicted pedophile. It would make sense for them to turn to Jordan with his track record on sexual assault.
I didn’t even know about that dude. So for anyone else who’s wondering ;
But Democrats are the threat to children.
So…
Is Scalise the, ‘How the fuck do we put a lid on these nutcases’ choice?
Scalise is the guy that got shot at the baseball game right?
Yes. The guy who called himself David Duke without the baggage.
The fact that as a long time #2 he was not a more automatic pick tells you everything about the weakness of his candidacy though. He is seen as someone who kind of abdicated his role as McCarthy’s #2. And while a lot of people put that down to him not liking McCarthy and not wanting to spend political capital on him, but the reality is he is someone known to not have great interpersonal skills. If a member needs to be sat down and directed what to do, Scalise is just not that guy. Im not sure there is anyone who could be with this Caucus, but the fact no one would expect him to manage it eve with a normal caucus gives a good indication of what his tenure will be like.
