As for how this helps Gaetz et al there is a clear answer. There is a huge movement on the right which feels they have been repeatedly and extensively sold out/betrayed by everyone they've elected to represent them (and the government more generally). They've gotten so frustrated by this cycle their desperate to support and donate to someone who they think won't betray them even when the rest of the value proposition is really poor. Gaetz isn't going to get money or support from sane moderates so his only play is to court this group (and it was part of what worked for Trump).
And to be fair to these people on the right, there is a fair bit of truth in their feeling they've been repeatedly and regularly screwed over. Educated city dwellers tend to have very different values (or at least expressions of them) than many more religious/traditional GOP voters. But the effect of sending educated people to the big city to represent you where they go around speaking to panels and thinktanks is to immerse them into liberal culture.
Though it's probably less about changing values and more about changing how they express the values.
I don't see anyway Ukraine loses the war. Where the populace has supported them, they have succeeded. Where the populace literally helped them get over bridges, the Ukrainian government has not done well. Trying to remove countries from bases that they have controlled for 250 years is tough work.
"This is the thing people keep not getting about Donald Trump: He’s not a stupid person who you are easily manipulating and bending to your will. And he’s also not a champion of your cause who’ll crush your enemies. He’s a smart guy who’s exclusively a champion of his cause and who’ll stab you in the back to make a quick nickel every day."
I agree with some of this, but I am sorry, I just can't get onboard with the idea that Trump is somehow this really smart guy, and that he just does and says a lot of really stupid things, and all of the smart people everywhere in the world are all just fooled by his act. "He's really smart, you are just being tricked into thinking he is stupid" doesn't fly with me.
I agree that lots of people, even smart people, underestimate him or misread him, and that Democrats in particular often get "tricked" into using the worst approach to combat him, but I don't think this is because he is some mastermind.
He has a certain degree of emotional intelligence and plays to some of his strengths but I think it would be incredibly hard to argue that he's "smart" unless we're really just saying that words don't matter.
For item #7, I would switch “smart” and “stupid”. Trump’s incredible stupidity is often mentioned by those who know and have worked with him. However it is true that he is not easily influenced and is only looking out for himself. Actually, it is easy to influence him by but it requires large sums of money. It appears that the Russians and Saudis purchased influence. SBF determined that Trump would drop out of the presidential race for 5 billion dollars. In the long run it would probably be worth it for Germany and the EU to come up with this money.
15 points -none of them bad with 3 so good (No 5, 7&12) so good that one of them alone would have justified the reading of this piece. Good work Mr Ygliesias.
Why haven’t third parties played a bigger role? Because alternative parties don’t stand a chance. See Duverger’s Law. Modern alternative parties see, to be filled with malcontents and crackpots. Libertarianism is a bankrupt philosophy, and Greens can’t decide whether to be a political party or an advocacy organization.
Certainly making the Republicans look as dysfunctional as possible may have a payoff in Nov 2024, but it's a long time to January 2025 and, in the interim, a chaotic House can do a lot of damage to the economy by causing a government shutdown and to the Ukrainian cause by making it impossible to vote further aid.
Then there's this: In 2024, Democrats win the House with a small majority and Jeffries becomes speaker. A few months in Ihlan Omar comes to him and says either he backs a resolution condemning Israel as an apartheid state or she moves to vacate the speaker's chair. He refuses and with six, or whatever, Democrats joining all Republicans Jeffries is voted out. Then what?
I'm also not optimistic about this helping Democrats in Nov 2024. One popular theory of politics is that when people are dissatisfied, they (at least the remaining swing voters) vote against the president's party. Allegedly this was also the centerpiece of Republican political strategy during the Obama administration -- block popular bills and intentionally hurt the economy, then blame Obama and reap the political rewards. I hope voters are not as stupid as this story portrays them, though (or perhaps severely misinformed?) -- if such tricks reliably pay off, democracy and competent government are doomed.
Well, start by not allowing a stupid one member can call a motion to vacate rule. Jeffries is no Pelosi, but her caucus never had anyone so crazy that they wanted to burn it all down for unattainable nonsense. Even with only a slim majority Neither Jeffries nor an alternative will need to face Gaetz level nonsense.
> It seems like aide to Ukraine could end up being a casualty of this. If that causes Ukraine to lose the war, that would be terrible. If it causes Germany and other European countries to step up and decide that Europe should take primary responsibility for Europe’s defense, it will be great. Which will it be? I don’t know.
If it really is a choice between these two, then Ukraine will lose :(. Europe is nowhere near the point required to get that together.
"This drama is essentially downstream of the fact that the Speaker is picked by the whole House rather than by the majority party, which requires near-unanimity among the majority party to seat a speaker. This is a stupid system."
Lemme tell ya about a little system I like to call the Parliamentary system.....
Except you don't need to switch to a parliamentary system to fix this issue. As I noted in a reply to someone else, the Constitution just says that the House chooses the Speaker, but it doesn't specify a mechanism, so the House could just adopt a rule to use a different procedure.
Old guy walking in front of you slips and falls and is having trouble getting up. Do you say to him "For $20 I'll help you up"? If he responds, "I've only got a $10" do you respond "Sorry, that's not enough" and walk on?
The debate depends on how you see booting out a speaker. Just another political transaction or something more important than that?
I can't say that I've entirely thought this through, but voting out a speaker is, at the least, disruptive of the workings of the House at a time when the issue of a potential governent shutdown still hasn't been resolved. No speaker has ever been voted out before. I don't think we want to establish the precedent of speakers with thin majorities being repeatedly booted out. Who knows what the result of the 2024 election will be but I doubt either party will end up with a large majority in the House. I don't think we want speakers being held hostage to the extremists in their party.
In another comment, someone drew the analogy to Weimar, which I think is a good one. By the '30s, no Chancellor could command a majority in the German parliament. Turner's "Hitler's Thirty Days to Power" gives a good account of how dysfunctional the government had become by 1933. Being able to disrupt the current leadership without having a replacement that commands majority support isn't a recipe for good government.
There isn't such a thing as a "generic member of the Republican caucus". And the reality is that it was McCarthy or nothing. The next guy will do no such deals with the Dems, as he (or she) has seen what happens you do.
As for how this helps Gaetz et al there is a clear answer. There is a huge movement on the right which feels they have been repeatedly and extensively sold out/betrayed by everyone they've elected to represent them (and the government more generally). They've gotten so frustrated by this cycle their desperate to support and donate to someone who they think won't betray them even when the rest of the value proposition is really poor. Gaetz isn't going to get money or support from sane moderates so his only play is to court this group (and it was part of what worked for Trump).
And to be fair to these people on the right, there is a fair bit of truth in their feeling they've been repeatedly and regularly screwed over. Educated city dwellers tend to have very different values (or at least expressions of them) than many more religious/traditional GOP voters. But the effect of sending educated people to the big city to represent you where they go around speaking to panels and thinktanks is to immerse them into liberal culture.
Though it's probably less about changing values and more about changing how they express the values.
I don't see anyway Ukraine loses the war. Where the populace has supported them, they have succeeded. Where the populace literally helped them get over bridges, the Ukrainian government has not done well. Trying to remove countries from bases that they have controlled for 250 years is tough work.
"This is the thing people keep not getting about Donald Trump: He’s not a stupid person who you are easily manipulating and bending to your will. And he’s also not a champion of your cause who’ll crush your enemies. He’s a smart guy who’s exclusively a champion of his cause and who’ll stab you in the back to make a quick nickel every day."
I agree with some of this, but I am sorry, I just can't get onboard with the idea that Trump is somehow this really smart guy, and that he just does and says a lot of really stupid things, and all of the smart people everywhere in the world are all just fooled by his act. "He's really smart, you are just being tricked into thinking he is stupid" doesn't fly with me.
I agree that lots of people, even smart people, underestimate him or misread him, and that Democrats in particular often get "tricked" into using the worst approach to combat him, but I don't think this is because he is some mastermind.
He has a certain degree of emotional intelligence and plays to some of his strengths but I think it would be incredibly hard to argue that he's "smart" unless we're really just saying that words don't matter.
For item #7, I would switch “smart” and “stupid”. Trump’s incredible stupidity is often mentioned by those who know and have worked with him. However it is true that he is not easily influenced and is only looking out for himself. Actually, it is easy to influence him by but it requires large sums of money. It appears that the Russians and Saudis purchased influence. SBF determined that Trump would drop out of the presidential race for 5 billion dollars. In the long run it would probably be worth it for Germany and the EU to come up with this money.
Guess I was wrong. Looks like he wants FL gov.
15 points -none of them bad with 3 so good (No 5, 7&12) so good that one of them alone would have justified the reading of this piece. Good work Mr Ygliesias.
Why haven’t third parties played a bigger role? Because alternative parties don’t stand a chance. See Duverger’s Law. Modern alternative parties see, to be filled with malcontents and crackpots. Libertarianism is a bankrupt philosophy, and Greens can’t decide whether to be a political party or an advocacy organization.
Certainly making the Republicans look as dysfunctional as possible may have a payoff in Nov 2024, but it's a long time to January 2025 and, in the interim, a chaotic House can do a lot of damage to the economy by causing a government shutdown and to the Ukrainian cause by making it impossible to vote further aid.
Then there's this: In 2024, Democrats win the House with a small majority and Jeffries becomes speaker. A few months in Ihlan Omar comes to him and says either he backs a resolution condemning Israel as an apartheid state or she moves to vacate the speaker's chair. He refuses and with six, or whatever, Democrats joining all Republicans Jeffries is voted out. Then what?
I'm also not optimistic about this helping Democrats in Nov 2024. One popular theory of politics is that when people are dissatisfied, they (at least the remaining swing voters) vote against the president's party. Allegedly this was also the centerpiece of Republican political strategy during the Obama administration -- block popular bills and intentionally hurt the economy, then blame Obama and reap the political rewards. I hope voters are not as stupid as this story portrays them, though (or perhaps severely misinformed?) -- if such tricks reliably pay off, democracy and competent government are doomed.
Well, start by not allowing a stupid one member can call a motion to vacate rule. Jeffries is no Pelosi, but her caucus never had anyone so crazy that they wanted to burn it all down for unattainable nonsense. Even with only a slim majority Neither Jeffries nor an alternative will need to face Gaetz level nonsense.
> It seems like aide to Ukraine could end up being a casualty of this. If that causes Ukraine to lose the war, that would be terrible. If it causes Germany and other European countries to step up and decide that Europe should take primary responsibility for Europe’s defense, it will be great. Which will it be? I don’t know.
If it really is a choice between these two, then Ukraine will lose :(. Europe is nowhere near the point required to get that together.
What does this mean for a possible shutdown later this year?
it's a near certainty, the only question is its duration.
If some crazy jerk going the other way runs down a pedestrian, does that make it a good idea for me to do it?
Crazy. May be the first Slow Boring with which I've agreed 100%.
"This drama is essentially downstream of the fact that the Speaker is picked by the whole House rather than by the majority party, which requires near-unanimity among the majority party to seat a speaker. This is a stupid system."
Lemme tell ya about a little system I like to call the Parliamentary system.....
Except you don't need to switch to a parliamentary system to fix this issue. As I noted in a reply to someone else, the Constitution just says that the House chooses the Speaker, but it doesn't specify a mechanism, so the House could just adopt a rule to use a different procedure.
I think the point is that Prime Ministers are also chosen by the whole of Parliament
Yes. They lose a vote and the government used to come down.
Old guy walking in front of you slips and falls and is having trouble getting up. Do you say to him "For $20 I'll help you up"? If he responds, "I've only got a $10" do you respond "Sorry, that's not enough" and walk on?
The debate depends on how you see booting out a speaker. Just another political transaction or something more important than that?
I can't say that I've entirely thought this through, but voting out a speaker is, at the least, disruptive of the workings of the House at a time when the issue of a potential governent shutdown still hasn't been resolved. No speaker has ever been voted out before. I don't think we want to establish the precedent of speakers with thin majorities being repeatedly booted out. Who knows what the result of the 2024 election will be but I doubt either party will end up with a large majority in the House. I don't think we want speakers being held hostage to the extremists in their party.
In another comment, someone drew the analogy to Weimar, which I think is a good one. By the '30s, no Chancellor could command a majority in the German parliament. Turner's "Hitler's Thirty Days to Power" gives a good account of how dysfunctional the government had become by 1933. Being able to disrupt the current leadership without having a replacement that commands majority support isn't a recipe for good government.
There isn't such a thing as a "generic member of the Republican caucus". And the reality is that it was McCarthy or nothing. The next guy will do no such deals with the Dems, as he (or she) has seen what happens you do.