this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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The initial comment stated that it was the Republicans who voted McCarthy out. You called that statement wrong, that democrats voted him out. While you could argue semantics about the voting process, this historic event of ousting a speaker was controlled by the republican party. You're claim otherwise is dishonest (misleading) because the democrats acted the way the minority party always acts for speaker votes, meaning the Republicans knew what the outcome of the vote would be.
It would be the same as saying democrats were the ones responsible for the initial election of McCarthy taking so long. While they didn't vote for him, that's not new or surprising, the surprising thing was Republicans inability to agree on a speaker (and thus making them the ones primarily at fault for failing to elect a speaker). To state otherwise is misleading because you are purposefully ignoring important details.
This simply isn't true. The minority party, GOP or Dem have been known to support speakers of the opposite party when it suited their purposes.
Look at any of the elections since 2001 (and probably well before). Not a single vote (at least that I saw) for the opposition from either party - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
This is why you're getting down voted, it's not about what politics it's that you aren't giving correct information.
Nah, the downvotes are weird partisanship. The rest of the world knows that these parties sometimes cut deals on speakers.
https://time.com/6320202/house-democrats-refused-save-kevin-mccarthy/
I understand what you say, but in this particular instance I'd like to live with the view that both semantics holds, due to the following criterion on my side.
The perception by some newspaper I read outside the US was that Gaetz & co. was a small minority rightwing and everybody didn't want to play his childish game.
You say it was predictable that Dems would vote against a Republican Speaker, and that indeed turned out to be the case. However, at the same time Dems essentially voted together with Gaetz and that was a bit surprising to me and that newspaper.
Ah, that last paragraph really helps explain your viewpoint. While you could argue that Dems voted "with" Gaetz against McCarthy, they certainly didn't vote for the same people for speaker. The real problem here is that while US, by law (as in laws officially recognize a two party system), is a two party system this situation is best understood from a 3 party perspective (Maga, Republicans, democrats).
The Republicans need the Maga votes to form a coalition to elect a speaker, democrats would prefer their coalition gets to elect a speaker. When you understand all of the chaos is the republicans and Maga Republicans fighting over power in their "coalition" it's easier to understand everyone's behavior.
With that context none of this has been surprising and many people were expecting a Maga republican to call the speaker vote at some point. It also reinforces the concept that this is more about republican infighting rather than anything going on with the democrats.
Just like in parliamentary systems, one coalition isn't going to vote for the other without some concessions. Republicans weren't willing to concede anything to democrats and thus had to cater to the Maga Republicans (which is why most wouldn't put blame on democrats in this scenario).