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.”

  • danhakimi@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    He is an insurrectionist. See his political positions on wikipedia here. It’s a well-sourced article. He also opposes

    • The ACA
    • Research on disinformation
    • The Environment, in general
    • Abortion, to the point where he said that the 10-year-old girl who got raped and needed to travel to Indiana to get an abortion was lying about it until the police arrested the guy and he confessed.
    • Regulating big tech
    • Taxes, Spending, pretty broadly
    • Same-sex marriage

    He’s an extremist. They do not have the political power to elect an extremist from their ranks. They need a moderate.

  • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Instead of “trashing Gym Jordan as an ‘insurrectionist’” it should read “reminding them that Gym Jordan is an insurrectionist”.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      No, “trash” is used appropriately.

      trash (v): to subject to criticism or invective especially : to disparage strongly

      • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes but in the political landscape it implies the usual hyperbole and rhetoric. That he is an insurrectionist is a simple fact and should be treated as such.

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          It doesn’t imply anything but strong criticism.

          If anything, you are the one inferring rhetoric and hyperbole simply because the criticism comes from politicians.

          • Lyrl@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            In sports, ‘trash talk’ is saying mostly untrue negative things about the other team as part of pumping up your team. Maybe it has different connotations for people who don’t interact with sports culture, but for me it strongly implies rhetoric and hyperbole.

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yeah why should they help cleanup the other sides fucking mess, not like they’d get credit and cooperation if they did.

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      Honestly it’s astounding that they’ve apparently managed to realize this for once. I’ll have to send a letter of thanks or something.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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        Seriously… Treating bad faith children as if they’re functioning adults is the ONLY thing Democrats are actually great at. Maybe if they start acting like there actually is something to be responsible for, this country might have a sliver of a chance.

  • AstridWipenaugh@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why do the Dems have to “help” the GOP? I say the GOP isn’t helping the Dems! All it would take is a handful of Rs to vote with the Dems to make Jeffries the speaker.

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    “People can talk a big game about that. I haven’t personally heard anybody talk about that; it’s only hearsay,” he said. “But I think that’s pretty nuclear. Let’s keep this conventional.”

    This quote by a Republican Congressman explains absolutely everything that is wrong about the GOP. The idea of talking to Democrats to see what compromise could take place is considered a “nuclear” option. Keep in mind that had 5 districts gone the other way nationwide, Republicans would be in the minority. But they’re talking as if they have an ironclad majority that demands they never compromise on anything.

    This party deserves to die.

    • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
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      Oh he listened plenty. He just ignored them. That’s what they’re really interested in. They want somebody who will ignore the truth and continue to support the ongoing insurrection.

  • kibiz0r@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So…

    The second-largest voting bloc (moderate Republicans) is angry at the first-largest voting bloc (Democrats) for voting for their preferred candidate, cuz they think they’re entitled to the votes of the third-largest voting bloc (MAGA Republicans).

    Makes sense.

    Edit: Not sure why I got down-dooted to oblivion right off the bat. ¯\(ツ)

  • duckCityComplex@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    At the risk of sounding like a hopeless optimist… Wouldn’t it make sense for the Republicans to nominate more of a centrist with promises to work on common ground with the Democrats (whatever narrow terrain that may consist of now) and thereby sideline the MAGA crew to irrelevancy?

    Yeah they would take a lot of heat from Trump & co., but maybe they could actually pass something for their constituents.

    • mrcleanup@lemmy.world
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      On the one hand, yes, but the Republicans made it so any one person can call for a vote to oust the speaker, so it only takes one unhappy rep to restart the cycle.

      So I think the current plan is to just sit back and let the American people see that the current batch of Republican reps has as much ability to work together as a bag of weasels until the Republicans are willing to actually admit that they fucked up and ask for help fixing it.

      So this could take a year to resolve.

      • leds@feddit.dk
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        But wouldn’t a moderate speaker supported by the majority from both parties easily survive a vote like that?

        • mrcleanup@lemmy.world
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          I’m sure we will find out. It sounds good in theory, but I’m not sure how many true moderates may be left. We seem to be in a “compromise is weakness stage”

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    Even if Dems wanted to help sincerely, why would they aid a party whose platform is to harass the shit out of everyone else. Nevermind the fact that the staffers are probably still dealing with the fear from Jan 6 in therapy; helping get Jim Jordan up of all people is voting for a dude who indirectly tried to kill you. The idea of even asking for that is so weird to me.

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    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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      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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        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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        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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      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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      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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        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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          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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      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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      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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        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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      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.