this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called for Republicans to “get their act together” and elect the next speaker while slamming the “extremists” within their party.

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[–] [email protected] 115 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Traditional Republicans have a name.

Its called "Democrat".

What used to be "the left" is now just a more moderate, reasonable right.

What used to be "the right" is not even on the spectrum anymore, its become a populist extremist reactionary fascism. It's so far off the chart its on an entirely separate piece of paper.

Jeffries needs to just accept this fact and ~~walk across the floor~~. Liberals are now Conservatives, and Conservatives are now Nazis.

Edit: Misread that Jeffries was a Republican, the fact he's a Democrat changes the context a bit. He's absolutely right but he's basically just talking about what I re-iterated above, but its the republican "traditionals" that need to walk across the floor and stop associating with Nazis if they dont wanna go down with that ship.

The extremists they are associating with are just going to Crabs in the Bucket them, clawing them down with them when things go under. If they were smart they'd drop the screaming children and walk over to where all the adults have gone.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (7 children)

What do you mean by walk across the floor?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sitting for too long is a problem for everyone. It's good to get up and walk around at least every hour.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I think he means that Jeffries needs to stop pleading with the extremists (and walk back to his side of the house and stop even trying)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I love how a hot take from someone who didn't even know Hakeem Jeffries is a Democrat has 100+ up votes. Lemmy is so ridiculously uneducated.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency 88 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It is absolutely wild to me that most major news organizations are completely ignoring the fact that the guy the GOP was trying to put into the speakership until a day or two ago is an overt white supremacist. Like… news anchors are straight up omitting that entire point. It’s not even being mentioned in passing comments.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

he guy the GOP was trying to put into the speakership until a day or two ago is an overt white supremacist

Bruh I'm gonna need you to be more specific.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Scalise

Although I think your larger point is well made.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

MSNBC reported that a few house members wouldn’t vote for Scalise because of the white nationalist bit. So it isn’t totally ignored, but then again MSNBC would never miss an opportunity like that.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I also haven't seen much coverage of the fact that the other front runner for speaker, Jim Jordan, turned a blind eye to and likely helped cover up the sexual abuse of college athletes.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/06/politics/jordan-osu-wrestlers-strauss-invs/index.html

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Goes to show what a problem Jim Jordan would be. I'd rather have the racist piece of shit

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Zero shot. But it's a nice thought.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Liz Cheney was probably the last “traditional Republican” they had and they made an example of her. Kevin picked country over party and that led to his ousting. Who’s going to side with the Democrats now?

[–] rhombus 67 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The craziest part about McCarthy is that (I would argue) he still choose party over country but the crazy members of the party couldn’t see that. He knew a shutdown would have been devastating for their image, but all the extremists could see was working with the enemy.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good points. McCarthy thought he was picking party and country, but his insane coalition wouldn’t see that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

The crazies prefer hurting the other party to both party and country.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

Exactly. They made Liz fucking Cheney persona non grata in the Republican party. The patients are running the asylum now. There's no one behind the wheel of that clown car.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

It's not hard to find five Republicans from a moderate district full of Never Trumpers. They would secure their seat voting for Jeffries and see their own legislation get pushed through.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

If the moderates voted in the primary, perhaps.

They should, but I don't think they do.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I would personally love to see that happen, but I think it's unlikely. It would probably be more likely to get a more conservative compromise Democrat as speaker of the house, but only after the Republican party festers for another week or two.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I get the cynicism but I could see an outcome where Democrats provide support to a moderate (or Jeffries with 5 Republicans) in exchange for passing a few things with broad support. And then the speaker resigns and Republicans go back to beclowning themselves.

Something like a deal to elect a speaker for enough time to pass aid to Ukraine and Israel and another continuing resolution to keep the government open beyond the 45 days. Something like that. Then back to where we are now.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Jeffries needs 5 more votes to win.

A Republican nomination needs 217.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The sad part of all of this is that traditional Republicans have handed the party reigns over to extremists for the illusion of maintaining power. Had they told their crazies to go pound sand and fallen behind Democrats they would likely be capable of course correcting to retain some level of competition with liberals. Instead they gave power to nut-bags who have pretty much ensured their eventual, permanent demise.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Instead they gave power to nut-bags who have pretty much ensured their eventual, permanent demise.

Which is what we can hope for, and it would be quite OK if it happens.

The only danger of a destruction of the GOP would be that the Democrats would eventually stay in power too long for their own good. This is not something against the Democrats, it is just pointing out human nature. Power simply corrupts, each and every time.

So one of the things the Democrats should do if they have sufficient pull is to get the voting system in order. Drop FPTP. Drop the way the president is elected and replace it by a more realistic one, one that actually represents the population. Remove the stupid "two senators per state" rule and replace it by one that actually represents the country - in the senate, a citizen from a flyover state has way more influence than those from the states with higher populace.

The fun thing here is that the US already had fixed these problems decades ago. Just not in their own country. When the Federal Republic of Germany (i.e. West Germany) was founded, they implemented a bicameral system and voting methods based on the known problems of the US voting system (and others, but primarily the US). Now the German system has it's issues, too, but they are known, and a known problem usually can be fixed.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"Traditional" meaning Republicans that feel the same way as the "extremists", but with the common sense to not say it blatantly and bluntly.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Poor old Republicans can't even compromise with themselves

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Maybe they should shut down the Republican party for a while to get their way.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Why would they compromise with a bunch of traitorous fascists?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Correct. Their extreme wing, the Chaos Caucus, has become too extreme even for them. Unfortunately for Republicans their majority in the House relies on the same bozos who are acting like an opposition party. So while Republicans have a technical majority they do not have a functional majority.

What's crazy is that since the Freedumb Caucus is in such opposition to the wider body of Republicans that they've handed the Democrats a functional majority on several issues, including the Speakership.

The pack of idiots led by Matt Gaetz cut off their own nose (McCarthy) in order to spite their face so now the Speaker situation can only end with a candidate that has enough Bi-Partisan support to overcome them and after that happens the House is going to advance legislation that's far more liberal than anything that would have been done under McCarthy.

Edit: It has begun.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The challenge is finding 5 house GOP who actually care about the American people. My guess is there aren't 5.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Well there's Nebraska's 2nd representative, and famous coward Don Bacon. Let it be known that when the time calls for a man to stand up for what's right, Don Bacon will bravely turn tail and run back to whatever teet is drip feeding him table scraps.

Yup. Famous coward Don Bacon, ready to let you down.

I'm sorry what was the question?

Don Bacon is a coward

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is a little misleading. Famous coward Don Bacon? C'mon. Sure he is only known for being a spineless coward. But he isn't that well known.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"But but ... but then the Libs might win"

Better than being associated with those extremist white taliban, is it not?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Isn't the point of the republican party to dismantle and shut down the government? Why would they "get their act together" when the literally platform on shutting down as much of the government down? This whole thing is going exactly the way republicans dream of. They have stopped any governing from happening which is the republican dream

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

They are ALL FOR big government. I don’t know where you are seeing them wanting the government shut down. They just don’t want a government that supports freedom for its citizens, but they’re all about ensuring governmental control.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called for Republicans to “get their act together” and elect the next speaker while slamming the “extremists” within their party.

Jeffries joined PBS News Hour inside the Capitol Thursday night after Speaker-designate Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.)

“I know there are traditional Republicans who are good women and men who want to see government function, but they are unable to do it within the ranks of their own conference, which is dominated by the extremist wing,” Jeffries said.

Several far-right members who helped initiate former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ousting have continued to oppose solutions offered by the party.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), for example, said she voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the secret ballot, saying she likes Scalise but wants to see him focus on defeating cancer, which he announced as “very treatable” in August.

Democrats may nominate Jeffries as their pick for speaker, potentially placing him in a race to 217 votes against whoever the GOP ultimately decides to send to the House floor.


The original article contains 321 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

What world is he living in. There are none. This is the Republican Party now.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

While I don't hold out any hope for it, a splintering of one of the two parties would likely be a good thing regardless. We need more viable parties.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

We need more viable parties.

Well, the only way to get there is to fix the US voting and representation systems. FPTP has to go, and all important points in the US legislative need to have proper, democratic representation instead of this "Two Senators per state, regardless how many they represent". And while they are at it, make Gerrymandering impossible by removing the power to redrad the district maps at will. You will need an algorithmically method to draw district maps without any influence from race or political affiliation, simply based on the address of a person.

That will be a chance to stop the reduction of numbers of parties, as they suddenly get a voice for their concerns even when they "only" have e.g. 20% or just 5% of the voters. And this will also teach the parties the need to work together in a reliable way. Coalitions and stuff.

Look how other countries do it, learn what is good and what is bad with their voting systems, and implement the best solution that is acceptable.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That’s not how we’d get more parties with our voting system. If the GOP fractured because of this then there might be chaos for brief period of time, but sooner than later everything would get settled back to two parties. Our system is set up so that it just plain suboptimal to do otherwise.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

The time to do this was ages ago, it comes too late. The normal Republicans are the extremists, they took over the party.

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