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House Republicans are jumping off the sinking ship
(thehill.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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politics
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Is there ELI5 for us Europeans?
Members of parliament are vacating their seat because they are not satisfied with what their party is doing? That would be seen as rather undemocratic over here. You would expect them to leave the party, maybe join a different one, or stay as an unaffilated member.
What will happen with the empty seats?
So in 2015 the headquarters of the DNC and the RNC were hacked by two different expert Russian hacking groups,…
Massive amounts of dirt on everyone in the DNC and RNC was acquired.
All the DNC (Democrat) dirt was leaked before the 2016 elections. The RNC (Republican) dirt was held back, and has been being used for other purposes since 2016.
All who do not support the Orange GodKing are being forced out.
So you are saying they are forced to leave parliament because there is Kompromat?
Basically yes.
There was a guy here in Congress just recently, a Far Right up and comer, super popular with Qult45; he publicly mentioned he was invited to a GOP cocaine orgy.
A flood of incredibly damaging dirt on him came out soon after and quickly destroyed his whole political career and reputation amongst his peers.
Isn't that terrifying news? I mean there are always actors not believing in democracy at all, but them being so powereful to blackmail members aout of parliament that's a new level of fucked up.
They didn't blackmail, they sandbagged. Suddenly his entire backstory he ran in was a lie, or at least partially ginned up. That he was secretly gay, even tho being a paraplegic. Anything they could somehow spin into turning the guy into a gay communist who drinks puppy milkshakes. All very publically broadcast thru the news. Daily. Non stop. They had a point to make and they made sure every ear within shot would hear it.
I'm no fan of the kid, and he was obviously in way over his head, but his naivity def let a couple skeletons fall out of the church closet.
I suspect they are talking about Madison Cawthorn.
There always was a lot of dirt on him: he was known for sexual harassment, he was caught lying several times, he engaged in nepotism and graft, ... None of those scandals were a problem for the republican party, but when he mentioned some dirt from other republicans, they went after him with a vengeance. An example article, but you can find many more: https://wlos.com/news/local/republicans-and-democrats-take-shots-at-rep-cawthorn-over-latest-video
From looking at it as an outsider, I've become convinced that the entire republican party is rotten and only people on whom there is kompromat, are given opportunities to be elected to the highest level.
Yes but also they are likely being offered some lovely private sector positions where they do speeches 6 times a year for a cool 300k.
Politicans gonna be Politicans, right?
Sounds like you got it alright. They're resigning because they don't want to be associated with ultra right wing fascists, which opens up their seat for ultra right wing fascists.
Look, nobody accused Republicans of being intelligent.
Everyone with two brain cells wants to stay away from facists, that part is clear.
What i don‘t understan is why they are vacating their parliament seat. Wouldn‘t it be better to stay and vote with the democrats?
Or better found a new conservative party? Considering there are several fed up members.
Are they only leaving the parliament or also the party?
They are leaving ahead of the elections next year. I can think of quite a few reasons why they might do that.
Basically, most reasons come down to either just wanting out, or wanting to make sure they don't ruin their future political career choices.
If they stayed and voted with democrats, went independent or switched parties, or tried to start a new party, most likely they would end up just as unemployed but with fewer friends and no followers. Going directly against the party would lead to the party itself attacking them, along with the right wing media that many of their supporters get all their info from. Most districts lean to one side or the other, and while a few politicians have made careers on being independent or moderate, the ones that had been on the Republican side of the aisle are all gone, as are those who had the courage to take a stand against Trump when it mattered.
Honestly, at this point they may actually be able to get more done by quietly coordinating with others who have left or been forced out and organizing support for whoever emerges as a viable Trump alternative in the Republican primary. That keeps them out of the cross hairs and at least increases the chances that Trump will lose either in the primaries or the general election if they can at least drag out the fight for the nomination.
If Trump loses badly, political winds could shift in the party. Or if another politician gets the nomination and goes on to win the election, they'll be in a position to push Trump's people out. That's how his people took control in the first place.
Wow, thanks for the extensive answer. Makes things much clearer. Unfortunatly I can only give one upvote.
The thing that is different about Congress is that Reps and Senators are free to vote with or against the rest of their party without any repercussions. We don't have three line whips or anything like that here, so the party system isn't as powerful. This is why Manchin could go against the Democratic Party agenda so frequently and the Democratic leadership couldn't do anything about it.
So in theory these Reps could stay Republican and vote with the Democrats, or go independent/libertarian/etc if they really want to make a break with the Republican label. Staying or changing parties really doesn't matter except in how it defines the majority party in each house, and also practically as to what legislation is likely to get brought to a vote per the Hastert Rule or the Standing Rules of the Senate.
So this all can go to explain why they're not changing parties or who they caucus with. It still leaves the question of why they're choosing to leave rather than remain and affect change from within. Answer: They don't care about the country or the party. They were here for power, the lobbying money, the post politics sinecures, etc. Now that all of that is gone, they have decided to cut and run. They are abandoning ship now in the hopes that they can get the best life raft.
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We have effectively two rounds of elections. In the primaries we determine who the candidate will be from either party. That candidate then runs in the general election against the other candidate.
Republicans have now run into the problem where party voters in primaries will pick candidates who can't win the general election. The Republicans retiring could possibly win another general election, but they're not extreme enough to win a primary anymore.
Plus Republicans aren't known for courageous behavior. Retiring quietly is what they do.
They're resigning their seat but not leaving the party, as I understand it. Makes no sense at all.
I agree, we need a 3rd party terribly right now. You guys have got the edge on us in that.
Unfortunately I think it's less likely for the Greens or Libertarians to get their shit together than it is for moderate Republicans to somehow retake their party. For them to be viable today, they needed to be financing widespread state and local races 30 years ago. And a new party is unlikely to prove viable.
I think our best option is to fight against Republicans until they're firmly defeated, and then split the Democrats into centrists and Progressives.
They are vacating now to try to come back later after the zealots infighting kills them off.
There are effectively only 2 parties in the US: Republican and Democrat. They are so ideologically opposed (far-right vs moderate, mostly) that changing parties is anathema. There are a few other parties, usually called Independent when they win a seat, but those tend to go to politicians in spite of them being of a different party, i.e. following the individual.
When people vacate seats before a term is up (more commonly a person just states they won't run for reelection), the state either appoints a replacement (senators) or the states hold a special election (representatives).
I was really wondering about that one. Thanks for answering.
Everyone here seems to be relaxed about tzhte fact that there will be vacant seats. Good to hear it's just part of how the system works.
Leaving the parliament before the term ends is so uncommon here, I really don't know what would happen.
They aren't that different tho. The range of policy and stances in policy would/could/does fall within one single party in the rest of the world. Let's break it down.
Foreign policy = same, cept for the Pro-Putin MAGA crowd. So essentially, there's 2 sides. One side pro-"western" nations (EU, US, Can, Aus, NZ, Jap, SK, Iz, UK) the other is Pro-Putin (Rus, NK, etc, etc)
Economic policy = samesies; both NeoLiberal, both pro-wartime debt spending, both austerity as matter of course, suppressing knowledge of an alternative even existing.
A happy worker is a productive worker. Shut up and do your job.
one side pulls hard hard right, the other comes pre-negotiated to guarantee plans will land further right than they've been written. Like clockwork, undoing the gains from the new deal, slowly and steadily to not invoke revolution. Democrats pass more Republican legislation than Republicans do. We have a choice of working class slavery with no taxes on business or the wealthy, or working class slavery, now but with 10% less taxes on the middle class - but with higher gas prices, cuz fuck you. Since communism fell the US has turned its ire inward trying to turn everyone into proletariat. In other words, with only their labor to sell for $. Add in the destruction of small, local business, rigging the stock market against retail/'dumb' money but usurping retirement accounts and investing everyone's pensions into their pyramid scheme, essentially holding everyone, not just those that want change, hostage
Social policy = the ONLY difference. This manifests not just thru media, but judicially. Both Pro-Police state. Both twist Mass media (and that's 5he only media now) into the 5th government branch, regurgitating the governments propaganda.
Republicans are varying degrees conservative, pining for years long gone that no one has actually lived thru. The right wants a return to the post war era, minus unions, taxes, and civic investment (the things that allowed the middle class to exist). Democrats are socially conciliatory. Which is seen as spineless. They'll go along with the get along. But they'll never actually spur change, just appease w/e unrest and go right back to fellatiating corporations and police unions.
Civilians on both sides want change. Both sides can acknowledge that America is broken but one side says it's because of the transgenders and the gays and the other side just says, to song and dance, "hey, we aren't them 👉" to distract from the pointing fingers at consolidated wealth as the problem.
So it's get in line, act in line, or get benched.
Fuck America. We're out here starving and we have the choice of a road side carcass or a multivitamin but never actual food.
None of that matters. It's a 2-party FPTP system and one party is fascist and trying to overthrow democracy. It's literally a choice between a shitty country and facsism.
The place to try to push for progressive change is the primaries, not the fucking General Election. At this point the General is just survival.
You've seen less election cycles than I have if you think voting will bring change.
Social unrest, protesting, rioting brings change
Voting (in the past 50 years) simply reaffirms or denies the social unrest. The media talks of nothing else. It's ratify the status quo or the end of democracy, neverminding that the status quo is essentially institutionalized fleecing. We are tax-chattle. Every dollar you save, somehow, in the system entirely built to make that impossible, will be extracted from your body in exchange for medicine. We will all die penniless and propertyless. By design.
So fucking do it. Get out there and riot or whatever you want. All you're doing is shitting on the last form of peaceful change we have left. We all get you're jaded and cynical.
I never said I was against voting, quite the opposite actually.
I'm just trying to temper expectations back to reality. Voting for change when you have two options 1. Status quo, even tho everyone acknowledges it's not working - for us anyways 2. Fascism.
Ya see how only one side offers change, and that change is terrifying?
The Dems are essentially incapable of leading change that benefits everyone, and when they do pass big policy, it's Republican policy (Welfare to work, 3 strikes, ACA).
Unfortunately for anyone concerned with the future or wanting better, be that the youth or progressives, Liberals (moderate "Democrats", commonly called centrists nowadays)vision of society is what we have. Trickle down. Subscription model everything. Yada yada. When all you care about is money (which is implied by being pro-corporate, socially conciliatory) all you care about is not rocking the boat. It's the mayor of DC naming the street Black Lives Matter to placate unrest, NOT to do ANYTHING actual meaningful, but to do something trite and superficial that liberals can close their ears off to anything else while they point and say "I did something".
Voting my guy, is the START of defense. It is not offense. The difference is CRUCIAL if effecting change is your actual goal. We need precise language, expectations, and goals to ward off the liberal duplicity and double speak. I'm on your side man, I'm just trying to flesh out some of the nuance your way.
And yo, don't at me, we gotta be better than that in an exchange of ideas. You don't know where I'm coming from. I just lost my house and every fucking thing Ive ever owned, and my hedgehogs, on the 5th of July (neighbors fireworks, FML fr). I'm a little busy trying to stay warm and clothed this winter instead of leading a protest, sorry if that doesn't fit your timetable, it doesn't fit mine either.