If at first you don't succeed, try try again.
If at eleventh you don't succeed, give up.
As I type this, Kevin McCarthy (R) has lost the ELEVENTH round of voting for Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States. It takes a special kind of stubbornness, stupidity, and madness to keep on trying the same thing 11 times in a row. I would have though that after someone had gone 0-11 that they'd get the hint but apparently not. I would have also thought that the RNC after going 0-11 that they'd get the hint that the House wants someone more moderate and more centrist but apparently not.
It has to be said that the Republicans’ failure to elect a Speaker of the House, purely down to a small yet vociferous group of hardened nutcase MAGA Republicans.
Just for context, the last time that an incoming House failed to elect a speaker on its first roll call was the 68th Congress; which started its term on December 3-5, 1923, in the wake of the Teapot Dome scandal. That was in the wake of corruption which saw Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall accepting bribes from oil companies and going to prison, following the investigation led by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. It is fitting that 100 years later, following a similar era of corruption, extremism and chaos, that this should be the current turn of events.
For my Australian readers and readers who are familiar with a Westminster Style parliament, the Speaker of the United States' House of Representatives, is completely different. Not only are they the de facto leader of the House and thus have the same kind of party role as the Prime Minister, but they are also the leader of House business. This means that they have the power of the calendar to decide which reach the floor and when. They also chair the majority party's steering committee in the House. This role as head of what is effectively the head of Congress' business, very obviously means that they are absurdly powerful. The best way to describe this is that they are the combined roles of Tony Burke, Anthony Albanese and Milton Dick all at once.
On the other side of the chamber, Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries received unanimous support from the Democratic caucus and almost as an aside, became the first Black lawmaker nominated for Speaker of the House. Of course he doesn't have the numbers to overcome the Republicans in the chamber but the Democrats showing a united front is more that can be said for the rabble opposite.
Also what is really curious is that The House of Representatives can literally choose anyone in the world to hold any of their offices:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei
The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
- Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5, US Constitution (1789)
This has meant throughout this process, there have been vexatious nominations such as Donald Trump, who don't even sit in the House, as Speaker. This kind of thing is not exactly new either. The most common vexatious nomination for Speaker of the House is Mickey Mouse; which itself is a pretty good metaphor for American politics generally.
Yet again, the whole system proves itself by demonstration to be utterly terrible at every single turn. What's even worse about this is that if someone can't even establish control over ungrouped House members, then when the House is eventually brought under the Speakership of someone, the necessary discipline to be able to get simple things done just won't be there. The simple and necessary things like passing a budget, increasing the debt ceiling (since America was started on the basis of a tax dodge by business and has never really understood why taxation is important in civil society), getting the passage of law through - all of these things require discipline on the floor, at least symbolically, and if that never exists, then the whole process is bunk.
The basic problem is that over the last five years, enabled by right-wing trash media who are worse than terrorists, we've seen the rise of whole factions of eejits who don't even believe in government. Government is necessary for the functioning of society, and as all of the institutions are steadily being degraded and dismantled, the goblins which have emerged from the shadows, are all representative of a kind of anti-civil society. The really stupid thing is that these people have been elected by an equally eejitacious general public who, given inputs from right-wing trash media have decided to become right-wing trash people. In that respect, an 0-11 set of results in failing to elect a speaker, is absolutely representative of the society which created it.
Democracy works?
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