Unless they agreed Team Sedition would get All The Powers

A new Congress has begun. In the House the first order of business – before anything else is allowed to happen – is to elect the Speaker. American news (and even Canadian news) has been talking about it because it hasn’t happened yet. For the first time in 100 years – news reports mention this frequently – a Speaker wasn’t elected on the first ballot. There have now been six ballots and still no Speaker. Jen Hayden of Daily Kos put up a post at 1:20 pm on Tuesday with a bunch of tweets. This is just after the proceedings got started. My favorite is Rep. Ted Lieu showing a photo of himself standing outside his office with a bag of popcorn saying he’s about to go to the House floor. Rep. Robin Kelly says she also has her popcorn ready. Even though there is no Speaker Republicans have shown their priorities. The metal detectors that have been at the entrances to the House since just after the Capitol attack have already been removed. In response to that Leah McElrath tweeted:

The GOP’s first priority was to make it easier to bring weapons onto the House floor—nothing unsettling or ominous about that. Nothing at all.

Back to Hayden’s post. Joe Sudbay tweeted that Andrea Mitchell asked Rep. Dingell if any Dems would support McCarthy “for the sake of the institution.” Sudbay added:

Republicans are will to destroy the institution and our democracy. But leave it to Mitchell to find a way to implicate Dems in their mess

And Fox News refused to talk about it. After the first vote Mark Sumner of Kos posted about the result and included:

Kevin McCarthy is such a huge egotist, and such a weak leader, that he’s already promised to hand over almost all the power of the speakership in order to secure his name above the door. He just wants it so bad. But in the first round of voting, Republicans whose philosophical position is roughly 1mm away from McCarthy’s own denied him the speakership because … again, he’s just that weak a leader. ... And right now, as this was being written, Kevin McCarthy lost the second round of voting before the clerk was even halfway through the alphabet. Damn. That’s … well, that’s Tuesday. So far. Everybody take a drink. But limit yourself to something non-alcoholic, because this thing looks like it could go on for a gallon or two.

Joan McCarter of Kos liveblogged the third round of voting. At the end of the day Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted:

The problem is…this isn’t just today. This is going to be everyday in the House Republican majority. It’s not just that they won’t be able to govern. It’s that they are going to be an embarrassing public train wreck while they refuse to govern.

Before the voting began today McCarter wrote about Republican meetings where McCarthy is trying to bring the far-right dissenters into voting for him. They refused. Speaking about the rest of the Republican caucus angry at McCarthy for suggesting bribes – as in certain committee seats the not-so-far-right Republicans thought they were going to get...

Right now, their anger is directed at the maniacs, but the more McCarthy courts them, the likelier they are to abandon him and look for an alternative.

Just before today’s voting began Sumner posted. He started by saying the Republicans haven’t had a party platform since the summer of 2020. Actually, I think they do, but not one they’re willing to write on paper. Their platform is to make miserable the lives of everyone not already rich.

That Republicans are conducting this farce in the form of a speaker election, is a sign of just how reflexively Americans have been taught to take out their frustrations on the party in power, even if the alternative offers them nothing at all. And now Republicans are giving a textbook demonstration of what it means to have no principles, no morals, no plans, and no loyalty. The Republican Party is dead. But hey, its corpse can still put on a show.

That’s also something Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has been saying.

It’s easy to complain that, over the last several election cycles, Republicans have had no positions except that they hate everyone and everything about the Democrats. Only that’s exactly what’s left of the GOP. Shambling about moaning “Woke! Woke!” is all the zombie can do.

Aysha Qamar of Kos posted before 1:00 today what’s happening on the Democratic side. In every vote all 212 Democrats voted for their leader Hakeem Jeffries. That’s a great show of unity. It also means on every vote Jeffries has gotten more votes than McCarthy. But the Speaker job goes to the winner of the majority, not a winner of a plurality. With that show of support Jeffries is able to mock the Republicans, talking about the “chaos, crisis, and confusion.” He said he and Democrats won’t save Republicans from their dysfunction. Hunter of Kos added some analysis. Those who are refusing to vote for McCarthy are the ones who were in favor of the sedition that happened two years ago. They’re not going to make their displeasure known through a couple show votes, then join the fold.

Look, once a sizable chunk of the Republican Party has decided that seditious revolt is better than accepting election results they don't like, nobody can really claim to be surprised that the same crowd would willingly sabotage their own party's governing majority unless that majority, too, agreed that Team Sedition would get All The Powers. These aren't people who do real well with the concept of “voting.” ... They despise the notion that people other than themselves should be in charge of things.

Hunter quoted a New York Times analysis:

The paralysis underscored the dilemma facing House Republicans: No matter the concessions made to some of those on the far right, they simply will not relent and join their colleagues even if it is for the greater good of their party, and perhaps the nation. They consider themselves conservative purists who cannot be placated unless all their demands are met — and maybe not even then.

Hunter added:

This is performative, for the would-be rebels. There's nothing McCarthy can give them that would appease them because the moment he agrees to a thing, the performance requires demanding something else—or the "far-right" no longer has demands to differentiate itself with.

There won’t be a consensus candidate. And any Republican who allows Democrats to win won’t be in office in two years David Nir of Kos ponders the question: What happens if Republicans never settle on a Speaker? Nir says that would be good for the country. Republicans weren’t going to do anything anyway except open investigations into Biden and his administration. Delaying that would be good. Anything else won’t get past the Dem controlled Senate. They only thing they have to do raise the debt ceiling sometime next summer and enact the government’s budget next fall. If either of those don’t happen there will be 300 more Democrats elected in 2024.

Alternately, of course, Democrats could propose to make McCarthy a pure figurehead, telling him that as long as he gives them the gavel and the majority on every committee, he can be “speaker.” Since he’s willing to give away absolutely everything to chase this dream—including what remains of his dignity—he might just say yes. But if he doesn’t, then let him twist. Like I say, we simply don’t need a Republican House, and we’d be better off without one.

Just before New Year I wrote the book Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe was my 46th book for the year. Today Kobabe had a seven minute interview with Rachel Martin of NPR. Kobabe said e wrote the book to explain what e was going through to people who already love er. Kobabe also talked about er lesbian aunt, who e thought would understand. But the aunt is a feminist and sees being a woman is joyful and celebratory and didn’t understand why Kobabe was turning away from it. When the book was first published Kobabe felt the wave of love and support. The pushback – it is one of the most banned books – didn’t come until about a year and a half later and e was amazed at the timing, the strength, and the longevity of it. The Cultural Tutor tweeted about eleven Christian churches that were hewn out of rock in northern Ethiopia more than 800 years ago. The Kingdom of Aksum had been what is now Ethiopia and some of the surrounding countries. This was the area that was second in adopting Christianity as a state religion. The Solomic Dynasty took control in 1270 and lasted until 1974. Before then was King Gebre Meskel. When Jerusalem fell to Islam in 1187 pilgrimages became more difficult. So Meskel had a vision to build an alternate Jerusalem. He created the complex at Lalibela and carved these eleven churches. Most churches – most buildings – are built by adding things together. These were carved – stone was subtracted out, building in reverse. It took 24 years. They are all carved into pits below ground level or carved into hillsides. William Dalrymple, an art historian, tweeted pictures of the Catacombs of Ancient Alexandria. It is implied the catacombs were where 2nd Century Christians hid, similar to the catacombs near Rome. But Dalrymple doesn’t actually say that. These underground chambers are quite interesting because the walls are heavily carved – and they show a strange mix of gods. There are the gods of the Pharaohs – Horus and Anubis – and of Rome – Dionysus, Hermes, and Zeus. The Christ drives a chariot across the heavens. The ankh is carved beside the cross. Isis nursing Horus becomes the Virgin nursing the Christ child. Dionysian vines become symbols of the Eucharist. And Apollo with a lamb is repurposed as the Good Shepherd.