Subject: Re: An idea for sane Republicans & Democrats
This would require Democrats to do something they’re not used to: voting to keep a Republican Speaker of the House. It would require Republicans, some of them, anyway, to work with Democrats on rules and legislation and such.

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It would be a very tough sell, based on 30 years of observable, consistent behavior on the part of Republicans who have followed rules when it benefited them and ignored them or made up new ones when they lacked the ability or popular support to get their way by other means.

The majority of the majority rule ("the Hastert Rule") isn't a rule stemming from written law or traditional parliamentary procedure practiced in the US prior to the mid 1990s. It was an outgrowth of the Newt Gingrich era implemented as a means of militantly enforcing ultra-conservative orthodoxy within the Republican ranks.

Mitch McConnell invented the last-year, last-term appointment freeze as a means of blocking Obama from filling a vacancy in the Supreme Court and delaying that choice in the chance a Republican would win the next Presidential election. Not coincidentally, a similar concept has been adopted as state law in Kentucky by the Republican controlled legislature to completely eliminate any power held by the Governor to select a replacement for a sitting Senator who dies in office or resigns. Under the prior law, the Governor made the appointment but chose from a list of three candidates chosen by the outgoing Senator's party. The new law leaves the seat vacant until an interim election can be held. Kentucky Republicans enacted this change not only because they are clearly worried about Mitch McConnell's health but they don't even want a Democratic Governor to have the choice of picking a MODERATE Republican should a vacancy arise.

Saving Johnson's Speakership on the hope of 218 Republicans in the House suddenly developing a sense of true bipartisanship as a means of trying to accomplish any meaningful legislation in the next six months seems like an extremely low-odds bet. There are 43 Republicans retiring from the House, leaving roughly 175 running for re-election. Those 175 may have already won their primary for this round but they have a post-Congress career to protect and "working with the enemy" at this point would not endear them to their future corporate masters. So the odds of additional, significant legislation being passed that would be of interest to even moderate Democrats and Independents are extremely small.

To extend the metaphor of a "teachable moment" from a prior post, saving Johnson's Speakership now could be viewed as squandering a "teachable moment" for three distinct groups of people:

* Republican politicians still lacking the courage to publicly reject and oppose MAGAism
* "moderate" Republcian voters who still think they're supporting a 1950s era GOP
* "independent" voters who are pondering staying home thinking a Dem versus Rep choice is meaningless

If a deal was struck and it only returned a semblance of normalcy without accomplishing anything, it would defer recognition of the true state of the Republican Party and likely trigger many in the above camps to just continue the current trend toward apathy that is allowing the MAGA fringe influence to grow by leveraging the power of an established party.

I'm not wishing strife upon the country but there is nothing in the historical record to show a temporary truce will change a 30-year downward trajectory of behavior. If we're going to have a teachable moment, I can think of no better time for it to occur than prior to a Presidential election when the House, Senate and Presidency are all up for grabs.


WTH