Moderates can never again be counted on to moderate

My Sunday movie was the first four half hour episodes of season 2 of Heartstopper on Netflix. I see I watched season 1 almost exactly a year ago (I went back and read my posts). This is the continuing story of Charlie and Nick in high school in England. If you haven’t watched season 1 some of this will be spoilers. Read on accordingly. At the end of season 1 Nick declared Charlie to be his boyfriend. A big part of the episodes I saw now is Nick trying to get the courage to publicly declare Charlie as his boyfriend. It’s a lot harder than he thought especially when dealing with his rugby teammates. To his surprise the coach is lesbian and is supportive. In season 1 I wondered if Ellie, who transferred to an all girl school, was trans. In the fourth episode of season 2 that is confirmed. Ellie is best friends with Tao and this season there is a lot more about whether Tao and Ellie are more than friends. The story is an adaptation of a graphic novel series of the same name by Alice Oseman. Season 3 is in production and likely available next summer. I’m enjoying the story. Ah, the House and the vacated Speaker chair. A lot has happened since I last posted. Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community wrote about the situation a week ago (and I don’t remember which Speaker candidate was up then).

Amid all these threats and bullying, Democrats are sitting back and enjoying the show as Republicans reveal themselves to be utterly incapable of policing their own ranks, let alone settling on a speaker to represent them. But even as Americans watch as the mean-spirited, violence-threatening, authoritarian face of the GOP rears itself, they are being taught a valuable lesson that would never have occurred had Democrats simply done the “nice” thing—the “expected” thing—as they nearly always do, in keeping Rep. Kevin McCarthy afloat.

Dartagnan quoted David Faris of Roosevelt University in a Newsweek op-ed.

The inability of Republicans to choose a leader in the House is a lot of things at once—it's a tremendously telling indictment of the party's lack of interest and skill at the basic tasks of governing. It's further evidence of a widening gulf between what is now a caucus majority of radical election-deniers and the few remaining institutionalist holdouts. And it's proof that the new, cut-throat Democratic strategy of letting Republicans hang out to dry instead of coming dutifully to the rescue is the correct one—for now.

Dartagnan again:

Faris observes that for years Democrats have “shielded” the American public from the real-world consequences of Republican “governance.” The public still—perhaps desperately—clings to the notion that these two words (‘Republicans” and “governance”) are anything but a complete oxymoron, because in prior instances it was Democrats (along with a few Republicans) who have taken on the task of preserving or saving things that the public actually likes. He cites the attempt by most Republicans to destroy the Affordable Care Act, as well as Democrats’ recent forestalling of Republicans’ attempt to shut down the government. Faris believes that this has created a false sense of security among the public, tantamount to thinking that things will always somehow “work out,” mostly thanks to the intervention of reasonable people, i.e., elected Democrats.

And a bit more from Faris:

Without their Democratic training wheels, GOP leaders are failing over and over and over again at the simplest job in all of politics - choosing a party leader for your congressional majority. It is a terrible look for Republicans, especially with multiple pressing legislative matters on the agenda.

Yesterday Joan McCarter of Kos did a liveblog of the voting to nominate a new Speaker. In a closed door Republican conference they were to vote on the nine candidates, though by the time voting started there were seven. In each round the one with the fewest votes was dropped. A bit after noon Tom Emmer takes it with 117 votes and Mike Johnson got 97. Since there were six abstentions there was a big worry that Emmer couldn’t get to the needed 217 – he could lose only a few votes. Many were annoyed that Emmer had voted to certify the 2020 election. Then sometime after 2:00 and before Emmer could take his nomination to the full House the nasty guy weighed in, apparently while sitting in a courtroom in New York. He described Emmer a Republican in Name Only, then called his supporting representatives to lobby against Emmer. Steve Bannon added a few shots of his own. And before 4:30 Emmer had dropped out. And the process started again. McCarter posted again describing the nasty guy’s campaign against Emmer. Hunter of Kos had some comments on what happened and on a poll conducted by Suffolk University that was “deeply goofy.” Hunter wrote:

What we have here, yet again, is more evidence that Trump's base is hostile to the very concept of government, doesn’t understand what it does, and is far more interested in nihilistic trolling than in developing actual, well-considered political opinions.

Hunter said the poll results show a well-known conservative partisan taunt.

It's better to have no government at all than one I don't agree with or control.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Tom Nichols of The Atlantic about the threats of violence against those Republicans who weren’t supporting Jim Jordan for Speaker:

Republicans have long feared their own voters, and have for years whispered about it among themselves. Now that Jordan has been defeated, they will likely go back to pretending that such threats are isolated incidents. But the threats during Jordan’s candidacy should confirm that Trump’s MAGA loyalists, firmly nested in the GOP, constitute a violent movement that refuses to lose any democratic contest—even to other members of its own party.

Down in the comments kurious quoted a column by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of Axios. The excerpt lists the five crises currently facing the world, the most since WWII ended 78 years ago. The crises are: 1. Israel’s response to the Hamas terror attack that could spill over into a wider war. 2. Putin meeting Xi Jinping of China to coordinate Middle East policy. 3. A malicious Iran and its ties to Hezbollah might be helping Hamas or take advantage of Israel’s distraction. 4. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is still testing nuclear capable missiles. In two years Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea could have twice as many nuclear weapons as America. 5. In all these conflicts are doctored or wholly fake videos ready to manipulate people. And all five threats could fuse into one. And it comes when the American political system is broken. This morning the Republicans turned to the guy who came in second to Tom Emmer. Laura Clawson of Kos introduced us to Mike Johnson of Louisiana:

This is the guy Republicans now say should be leading the House: An anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ extremist who was “the most important architect” of the argument House Republicans used to justify voting to block the president’s 2020 win from being certified and considers Jim Jordan a “friend and brother.”

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that last night, before Johnson went to the floor for a confirmation vote Republicans held a press conference. Rachel Scott, a member of the press, asked a question about Johnson’s past – and got booed by the Republicans around Johnson. He replied, “We’re not doing any policy tonight.” The question wasn’t about policy. Even if it was...

The potential speaker of the House calls a press conference but doesn’t want to discuss policy. In the end, like everything the Republican Party does now, this was simply a theatrical production. No substance. Nothing for the American people.

McCarter did a liveblog of the vote on Johnson. All 220 Republicans voted for him. Yeah, all, including the moderates. McCarter wrote after the vote:

An extremist was always going to get this job—the whole point of tossing McCarthy was to get someone more hardline in. That and he was just a weasel who’d promise anything to anyone. Gaetz and crew—and the puppet-master Steve Bannon—can count on Johnson’s fealty to the MAGA cause. They won't fight him on a continuing resolution, for example, because they trust him to toe the extremist line.

Einenkel created a post of videos of Johnson spelling out his position. Before this vote Johnson portrayed himself as “thoughtful.” So Einenkel included clips from the past of Johnson filling in those thoughts. They are the same small government policies that have harmed Americans since Reagan was president. Here are some of the thoughts of a thoughtful person: 1. He wants to cut “entitlements,” the social safety net programs – Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. 2. He said the 2020 election was rigged and was architect of the effort to overturn it. 3. He is against abortion. McCarter reported that Johnson says he’s got this – the first tell of an inexperienced lawmaker. He laid out his schedule to meet the remaining 12 appropriations bills (which is not realistic). He says he’ll need a continuing resolution to fund the government without a shutdown while those bills are passed. But he wants it to fund the government until January, not December, so the Senate can’t fill it with Christmas goodies. And if the 2025 bills haven’t passed by next July he’ll cancel the August recess – the time candidates go home to campaign. So this should go well. David Nir of Kos Elections reported that McCarthy had been good at raising money. It’s what got him into the Minority Leader position and from there to Speaker. The other thing Johnson has no experience in is raising money. He represented a safely red seat in Louisiana and didn’t need to raise a lot of money. So unlike McCarthy, also from a safe district, Johnson didn’t raise money to help is colleagues. Kerry Eleveld of Kos wrote that Johnson won because, first, he’s been in Congress only since 2017 and hasn’t had time to amass enemies. Second, the nasty guy and his MAGA allies insisted on one of their own.

So the choice for the Republican realists was either elect a MAGA election denier or work with Democrats to elect someone who hasn’t been an outright subverter of American democracy. ... Moderate House Republicans can never again be counted on to moderate their MAGA allies, because those MAGA allies would sooner burn down the House, so to speak, than let saner forces run it. In other words, moderates in pursuit of governance will never outmaneuver MAGA nihilists. But the worst is yet to come. Under the leadership of Johnson, anti-democracy Republicans will surely provide a mesmerizing display of pyrotechnics aimed at destroying functional democracy both at home and abroad.