Both Republicans likely need the support of Democrats to prevail in their battle over the speakership. Here’s how that could shake out.
His plan is simple. Pay some underage girls for sex.
Winning.
Gaetz has been building up his degeneracy for several years now. I get the feeling his finale is nearer now than it has ever been before. He is a very weird man who does not have the best interests of his constituents in mind. He certainly does not represent our country’s values.
I think Gaetz has realized that Trump is his only possible path to power. With his past misdeeds, running a traditional campaign is a complete no-go for him.
He absolutely needs to leverage that base of insane people who will vote as they’re told, no matter what, which Trump has hypnotized.
I suspect that’s why he’s also trying to copy the looks of one of those crazy televangelists.
running a traditional campaign is a complete no-go for him.
The other side of the argument is that McCarthy is the GOP’s greatest fundraiser, and getting rid of him would help Democrats take back the House. No replacement for McCarthy would have the same set of relationships and the donor network and political operation.
This is, to me, the winning argument - it hurts them politically, both by taking away their best fundraiser and by replacing him with somebody who’s likely to be even more extreme and so do even more dumb things the Democrats can campaign against. A McCarthy replacement is even likely to shut down the government in 45 days than McCarthy is, and for Democrats that’s probably a good thing - Republicans screwing up air travel right before Thanksgiving and taking away government employees’ paychecks right before Christmas.
Is it good for the country, maybe not, but Republicans losing the House in 2024 will do several orders of magnitude more good for the country than whatever harm might be done by that short-term idiocy.
Historically, when Republicans have shut down the government under a Democratic president, the Democrats get an outsized share of blame. If I were the Dems, I would avoid a shutdown if possible, even just for purely political reasons
As the republicans have veeered more and more into extremism, the veneer has been lifted and they get most of the blame. Their propaganda machine doesn’t work as well when people know it’s propaganda. Obviously the third that live in an alternative reality still blame the dems.
I think that’s more a reflection of your specific changing tastes in media/social networks, and not people in general.
Let them fight.
Why is he starting to look like Richard Nixon? Is this like that thing with the crab formfactor?
