The House has been with a temporary speaker for more than two weeks now with nothing but toxic gas blowing from the Republican caucus that can't make up its collective mind as to whom to support for House Speaker. First there was the little water rat from Louisiana, Steve Scalise, who went down in a floor vote and chose to abandon his bid. Then came "Beavis" Jordan, the Ohio Congressman who appealed most to the insurrectionists but failed on three floor votes to be confirmed as speaker and has since stepped down. Now, we have nine aspirants, only two of whom, Tom Emmer and Austin Scott, voted to confirm Biden's 2020 electoral college win. The others "objected" to either Arizona's or Pennsylvania's election results.
To be fair most of the the Republican members in the House objected to the election results, as they like to put it. I suppose they thought it was their way of lodging a protest vote given that the Democrats controlled the House and Senate at the time and Biden would be confirmed anyway, but not since antebellum days had so many party members voted against confirmation. 121 House Republicans refused to acknowledge Arizona's electoral outcome. 138 refused to accept Pennsylvania's outcome, despite the fact Biden won this state by more than 80,000 votes.
It didn't matter that Trump orchestrated an insurrection during the joint session on January 6 when members of both chambers convened for the formal roll call of Electoral College votes or that he actively tried to sabotage the roll call by installing fake electors in Michigan and Georgia that would vote for him instead. These GOP Representatives along with 12 GOP Senators voted against Biden anyway, essentially making them complicit in the coup attempt.
In a crude effort to rationalize their unprecedented actions, they point to the 2016 election when a handful of Democrats refused to acknowledge Trump's electoral college victory. There are Congressional holdouts every election cycle but there hadn't been an orchestrated effort to defy an election result since seven states seceded from the Union before Lincoln's inauguration in 1861.
Roughly 55 Republican Representatives confirmed the results and now form what is considered the "centrists" of the GOP. Of course, none of them want to work with Democrats to affirm Hakeem Jeffries as House Speaker, who is only 5 votes short. That would be an egregious party sin which would no doubt lead to them being "primaried" in the next election. Yet, one of these centrists may be able to attract just enough Democratic votes to put him over the top if he can't get the votes from the radical wing of the party. However, that doesn't seem to be the way Republicans think these days. They would rather expose themselves as the dysfunctional political party they have become, incapable of making a very basic decision among themselves.
At first, the media seemed to be blaming Democrats for this mess as they could have easily voted present and allowed McCarthy to remain Speaker by only having to gain the majority of Republicans. He had fallen just 8 votes short in his bid to retain his seat. But why should the Democrats bail out Kevin? He is himself an election denier, who only turned to the Democrats at the last minute to avert a government shutdown. He offered no real concessions. The best they could get was a temporary spending bill which may end before the Republicans elect a new speaker.
We are told not to worry as Speaker pro-tem McHenry has all the powers of a normal speaker, although he sure isn't acting that way. He is very much keeping a low profile as he doesn't want to be seen as working with the Democrats in any capacity.
As the days have turned into weeks the onus of the blame has shifted to the Republicans with Jake Tapper admonishing GOP Rep. Mike Turner for how "clownish" his party looks right now. Jake also called out Nikki Haley when she tried to shift the blame to the White House when asked why it is taking so long to elect a House Speaker.
It sure doesn't look good but Republicans keep finding interesting ways to shift the narrative to the White House, like Tim Scott's feeble attempt to blame Biden for the Hamas attack on Israel. This after Bibi Netanyahu himself praised Biden for the support the US has given Israel after the horrendous terrorist attack. The Republicans have long considered themselves the true defenders of Israel but unable to elect a speaker, let alone rush an aid package to Israel, they have ceded all responsibility to the President, who is providing all he can to Israel through his executive authority.
But that executive authority only goes so far and Republicans have to get their act together if they want to reclaim Israel. Not like the Democrats don't support aid to Israel but there are those among them that question it, and so the Republicans project Rashida Tlaib and Cory Bush as the face of the Democratic Party.
This has been the problem with the Republicans all along. They refuse to own up to their own bitter in-fighting and instead project it on the Democrats. However, the Democrats are in full accord when it comes to House Speaker - 212 votes for Hakeem Jeffries. Whatever differences they have are minor by comparison to the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, which the GOP has become.
All this turmoil isn't reflecting well in the polls either. Most Americans want the matter resolved quickly, including a majority of Republicans, but their leadership appears determined to put an election-denier in the House Speaker seat to appease Donald J. Trump. This is what happens when you let the tail wag the dog.
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