Democrats are standing firm in their refusal to bail out the House Republican majority as it struggles to elect a new speaker 10 days after after booting Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

They’re also dialing up the rhetoric against the GOP’s new nominee for speaker, prominent Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan of Ohio, blasting him as an insurrectionist, election denier and extremist.

“House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people’s House the chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction, and an extremist extraordinaire,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Friday on the steps of the Capitol, flanked by dozen of Democratic lawmakers. “His focus has been on peddling lies and conspiracy theories and driving division amongst the American people.”

  • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What is the end game here? Continue to trash gop as chaos party as long as possible and then get Jeffries in as minority speaker? Not sure how they will accomplish that…

    • hibsen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean in a less dark timeline the republicans would reject extremism and get their shit together around a normal human being for speaker. That they won’t is neither the democrats’ fault nor the democrats’ job to save them from.

      Democrat reps do not exist to elect a Republican speaker.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The GOP has been dancing with the devil since the 2009+ Tea Party fiasco. The only thing that’s changed is the faces and the lengths they’ve gone to win.

      • SuperDuper@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That they won’t is neither the democrats’ fault nor the democrats’ job to save them from.

        Also worth mentioning that reaching across the aisle to elect white supremacists and insurrectionists would not be “saving” the GOP from extremists.

    • Unaware7013@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      What’s the alternative? Do nothing and let another bugfuck crazy GQP nutbag run the Senate House?

      I’m ok with the Democrats finally finding a spine and making the party of traitors squirm while the whole world sees how fucking stupid and disorganized they are. They made their bed cozying up to the lunatic fringe, and now we get to watch them have some sleepless nights until the donor class lands on them again like they did to McCarthy for the last budget negotiations.

    • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The majority party should have no problem electing their own leader. It’s not the Democrats’ place to run the Republican party for them.

      • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There is no majority party in the House. It might look that way at a glance, since two of the parties operate under the same name, but there are actually three parties in the House right now and none of them have a majority.

        The only way to govern in this kind of situation is via a coalition, and as the largest unified party in the House the Democrats should lead that coalition.

        • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          If that were true then the centrist Republicans would help the Democrats elect a Democratic speaker. But they want to pretend their party is two parties when it’s convenient and one party when it’s convenient.

          Fuck ‘em. Let them sort out their own mess.

    • SuperDuper@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The Democrats end game is to vote for their preferred candidate. The real question is “what is the GOP’s end game?” Continue nominating white supremacists and insurrectionists to kowtow to the most extremist bloc of their party, then whining when Democrats don’t make up for their inability to whip the necessary votes?

    • danhakimi@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I think it’s mostly to not have Jordan as speaker, since he’s a pretty hardcore extremist, and then to make the Republicans look incompetent, at least until they can find another moderate, fail to elect them, find another moderate, fail to elect them, and then make small concessions to elect the first moderate with the help of a few moderate democrats who just want x y z.

      • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Is that somehow suggesting something you read into my post? Pretty confused here…you think I’m republican? Lol you have no idea how wrong that logical jump would be, no idea

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The end game is when Republicans realize they cannot elect a Speaker without Democratic votes and offer something meaningful to Democrats in exchange for those votes.