(gets out popcorn)

[james_davis_nicoll]

Chaos in Speaker selection leaves observers wondering if the living will envy the dead:

“It is total confusion — a banana republic,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a Boehner ally, as he recounted seeing a handful of House Republicans weeping Thursday over the downfall of McCarthy and the broader discord. “Any plan, anything you anticipate, who knows what’ll happen. People are crying. They don’t have any idea how this will unfold at all.”

Comments

[onyxlynx]

<pitying tone> Ces enfants pauvres.<tone>

(I never did learn to do sarcasm in foreign languages.)

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Sow the whirlwind, etc. etc.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

"People are crying."

I should feel bad that my first reaction to this is "ha ha ha," but I really don't at all.

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

Banana Republics are better run than this...

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

At least they produce bananas, which is more of a positive than anything the Republicans do.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I'd laugh, but a potential consequence (for the third and perhaps most likely time) is a default on the US national debt, thanks to our bizarre practice of requiring a separate House vote to make the payments on debt we already spent, and speaking of it publicly in a manner that makes it sound analogous to raising a credit limit.

It's quite possible that the only reason the global economy did not collapse in 2011 or 2013 was that John Boehner was not Tea Party enough to let it happen. Now he's gone.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

The weird thing about this is that it's probably the most convoluted way to keep boehner in the position he's "left" - basically until a new speaker is picked Boehner retains the position.

So by betting on the tea party republicans being too incompetent and divisive to allow the house to picking a new speaker, Boehner's backers in the house have forstalled the motion the tea party were threatening to do to remove Boehner from the position, thus ensuring he keeps the position.

Finally, the "moderate" republicans have figured out how to make the house's gridlock work for them.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That only lasts a finite amount of time, though. Maybe no shutdown/default immediately, but it sounds like the faction currently in the driver's seat has a positive hankering to do it as soon as they get the opportunity, a few months from now.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Not if Boehner sticks it to them by cutting a deal on the debt ceiling and a few other critical items with the Democrats and the non-nutbar Republicans before he leaves. There's been some talk that he's been meeting with Pelosi and other senior Democrats to see if he can work out a deal, and losing his choice for his replacement might provide some personal motivation to flip them the bird.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

If the US had a parliamentary system (like every sane democracy) we'd have had a new coalition in power by now, with the teapartiers out of it.

This could be sarcasm

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, Harper and Cameron are such compassionate leaders.

Re: This could be sarcasm

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah; but, would you rather have our loons?

Re: This could be sarcasm

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

Worked so well in Australia, too.

Re: This could be sarcasm

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

In their defense though, they have been able to pass budgets and have been trying to fuck up government via legitimate legislative means.

Rather than just bumblefucking so hard that government does nothing and things are defunded by accident.

Re: This could be sarcasm

[autopope.livejournal.com]

How about we trade you folks Bernie Sanders for David Cameron, Stephen Harper, and Tony Abbot?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Much more likely, sometime around 2010 or 2014 we'd have gotten a new coalition in power with the teapartiers IN it. The main advantage would be that, with the Democrats or any equivalent completely shut out of power, they'd be held accountable for the ensuing catastrophe. But by now we might have been through two or three cycles of this.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...As it is, there are political-science models indicating that economic growth in the second quarter of a presidential election year is predictive of the incumbent party's chances of success. So if they can just hold it until Q2 2016, and then pull the trigger and tank the world economy, they can maybe get Donald Trump, Ben Carson or Marco Rubio elected President.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...The main thing to realize is that the destructive foolishness they're selling is a fairly popular political position in the US electorate, and while it's not a majority position, it's most popular among the demographics with the highest propensity to vote.

You can't get rid of that just with some kind of structural reform, as long as the government is more or less democratic. Mandatory voting might help a bit, as would reducing the number of veto points held by an intensely committed minority. But they don't just go away.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

An analysis I've seen pegs the problem to two things: gerrymandering and the elimination of earmarks.

The Republicans have created House seats so safe that they don't have to worry about appealing to a wider spectrum of the voting public so the only challenges they have to worry about are coming from the right. And while earmarks were a source of needless spending, they were also a way Congresscritters could bring government benefits directly to their districts and fund projects that needed to be funded. But that meant the member in question would have to be open to negotiation and horse-trading in order to get their earmarks in, and if a member started going too far off the reservation, the leadership (and other members) could pull their support and the rep would have a problem bringing benefits home, which would hurt them come election time. *And* they couldn't be so rabidly anti-government as to want to shut the whole thing down, because it was government that was required in order for them to bring the presents home.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

*And* they couldn't be so rabidly anti-government as to want to shut the whole thing down, because it was government that was required in order for them to bring the presents home.

A political scientist I know puts it this way: What kinds of people are anti-government, and therefore run for government? Idiots and crooks. This has perennially plagued the more conservative outlying districts for the Republican Party. But now—thanks to gerrymandering and no earmarks, as you say—they're all outlying districts, and there's no percentage in a crook who isn't an also idiot getting into Republican electoral politics in the first place. The more usual sane-but-craven politicians have been fleeing the Republican Party for a while now; Boehner and McCarthy took people surprise only by how sudden and public their withdrawals were.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

If we're the Weimar Republic, does that make Trump Hitler?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I've grown much fonder of the compulsory ballot --- heck, I've come to like it in the slightest, which is a big change --- since the most recent round of voter-suppression tactics got started.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

If the U.S. had had a parliamentary system from the get-go, how would it have handled the regional disagreements over slavery?

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

Likely with a war.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

The US started with Version 1.0 of Democratic Government and hasn't had a major version revision since. (We're at Version 1.x now and you can quibble all you like about the value of x.) Other nations have learned from our early adoption, but we're pretty much stuck with the legacy code until there's a major system reboot.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

There's no guarantee that parliamentary systems can form governments, see for instance Belgium 2010-2012, where no majority coalition could be formed despite many many attempts.

I don't think of the Belgians as particularly insane.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

How much of the problem in Belgium in 2010-2012 was a consequence of significant political factions absolutely determined that reality will change if they want it enough?

It doesn't have to be particularly insane; it just has to be an unwillingness to face facts.