Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of October 23

Yeah, it's an interesting perspective to be sure. I actually read the same blog post yesterday, after I already sent my email to my Representative.

But the premise of the argument is that it's impossible to do bipartisan legislation. Although it looks like we only have two political parties in the United States, as others on Tildes lately have pointed out, that's a bit of a mirage. Look no further than the animosity between the House Freedom Caucus and the Problem Solvers Caucus or, hell, the entire rest of the Republican Party. If a Speaker were selected from the more centrist caucuses of both parties, that would be their procedural coalition. I know that is anathema in American politics, but when you have the House as divided as it is and essentially held hostage by far-right radicals, what's the alternative? Appeasing the House Freedom Caucus on everything? Certainly, in the end, the Speakership became such an exercise in appeasing them. But where does that end?

I have to wonder, if you put the entire list of potential candidates for Speaker on a secret ballot of ranked-preference voting, who would really be elected speaker? Hell, maybe it doesn't even need to be secret. The Democrats could all mark Hakeem Jeffries as their #1 preference. They could present that to their constituents and perhaps that would appease the "no compromises, ever" faction of voters on the left. But maybe, somewhere further down the list, there is a Republican who actually has a chance of gaining a majority of votes from more centrist members of the House. Maybe someone who, like Tom Emmer, Trump and his followers hate. When a potential Speaker is referred to as a RINO by Trump, that sounds like a pretty resounding endorsement to me.

If politics is the art of making sure everyone leaves the table equally dissatisfied, stubbornly refusing to work with people you disagree with is a losing game. At least if you want to govern. If you just want to win political points, that blog is full of examples of how that philosophy can be great for radicals like the House Freedom Caucus. Given the climate of the House right now, a good Speaker would probably have to be someone who is equally undesirable to, say, AOC as Matt Gaetz.

Having said all of that, I'm under no illusions as to how politics in America works. I certainly can't imagine voting for a Republican short of the only Democratic option being Joseph Stalin reincarnated. But I can't help but see the bigger animosity between Republicans in the House as an opportunity to try to moderate the influence of the fascistic wing of the Republican Party. They're the real threat right now.

People need to be a bit more pragmatic, particularly on that side. Get the work done, THEN worry about your niceties/nonsense.

Yes, you could analyze the difference as a white vs blue collar issue, but you could also consider it the difference between pleading guilty versus being found guilty. In a "perfect world", perhaps you wouldn't have plea deals at all -- after all, if someone really did commit several felonies (as was the case with Sidney Powell), is it truly just to forgive those felonies merely for the convenience of avoiding a criminal trial? And that's to say nothing of innocent people who plead guilty due to their inability to make bail. But from a practical perspective, eliminating plea deals is a non-starter: there simply aren't enough judges to try ever case.

As for these particular defendants, it does feel a bit unfair that the architects of the big lie are receiving such light sentences despite being the ones who engendered the conditions that led directly to the attempted insurrection on January 6. But honestly, like you, my sympathy is also blunted: the ones who received prison sentences (as compared to merely receiving probation) are the ones who trespassed into the Capital building. And, for the most part, those who received relatively long sentences (~5+ years) also committed acts of violence (attacking officers).

Polling suggests that congressional Republicans as a whole are underwater with Republican likely voters, which is not the normal state of affairs. Whether that turns into anything is another question, but implies an overall vulnerability to primary challenges.