Should Democrats have provided Kevin McCarthy with the votes he needed to stay on as Speaker of the House? After all, it's not as if they're likely to get someone better in his place. I think Matt Yglesias has the right read on this:
My view on this is that Democrats should have been willing to bail McCarthy out in exchange for a very very very low price ... but he had to offer them *something* and as I understand it he didn't.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 3, 2023
Not only did McCarthy offer them nothing, he explicitly said he didn't expect their help. Under the circumstances—and given the serial betrayals they've endured from him—it's hard to see why they'd break tradition and vote for him.
Nonetheless, apparently McCarthy's supporters in the House are furious at Nancy Pelosi for not doing more to help him out. Patrick McHenry is the new acting Speaker and he's already hard at work:
NEWS - As one of his first acts as the acting speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry ordered former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vacate her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday
“Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed"
w/ @DaniellaMicaela https://t.co/iRqbztb0Wu
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) October 3, 2023
What a dick.
In other news, Steve Scalise, the #2 Republican in the House, has announced that he'll be running for Speaker. I fully support his candidacy. It's about time that people with multiple myeloma had some representation in our nation's highest offices.
DeLong: https://braddelong.substack.com/p/briefly-noted-for-2023-10-04-we
So it is as I thought it was from the start -- the intention was always to shut the gov't down. Now, with McCarthy out of the way, it seems even more evident that they're going to shut the gov't down in 41 days.
Yglesias should be ignored in any and every circumstance.
You really want to be represented by that guy?