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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Chaos agents still run the Republican House [1]
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Date: 2023-10-16
Aaron Blake/Washington Post:
The bipartisan speaker fantasy It remains very unlikely, but certain Republicans appear intent on tempting their colleagues The effort appears to have been injected with some urgency thanks to Republicans now having nominated Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the hard-right Freedom Caucus founder, after Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) bowed out Thursday night.
Maybe it’s unlikely, but it’s more likely each successive day we don’t have a speaker. It won’t be Hakeem Jeffries but it might be a less radical Republican.
x Extreme MAGA Republicans have paralyzed Congress.
We need to break the mold and form a bipartisan unity coalition. — Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) October 15, 2023
So there’s an offer on the table. It’s not ripe until/unless Jim Jordan’s bid fails and that won’t be until midweek.
x BTW -- My reporting with @bresreports over this weekend is that Jordan is VERY far from getting the votes necessary. As we noted in PM edition Fri -- HASC/Approps has a coalition aimed at blocking Jordan.
https://t.co/q9DNAhs84W — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 15, 2023
Paul Kane/Washington Post:
Some House Republicans try to change the rules so losers become winners Once obsessed with the ‘majority of the majority,’ the House GOP is now ruled by small minority factions House Republicans live in a world where math is upside down. In this fantasy land, five can be as powerful as 217; eight as big as 433; and, in a new twist this past week, 99 out of 223 can somehow be turned into a strong majority... Before Friday’s new vote, Jordan’s allies, including McCarthy, who was deposed earlier this month, hyped his candidacy enough that expectations were set for him to blow past Scalise’s initial tally. Instead, a last-minute entrant, Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), a backbencher focused on national security issues who never sought a leadership post, embarrassed Jordan with a strong second-place showing. Jordan received only 124 votes, claiming about 10 of the protest votes from Wednesday that went to write-in candidates or simply stated “present.” He flipped only about 15 of Scalise’s initial supporters. In a second secret ballot that asked Republicans how they would vote in the required public roll call for speaker, 55 doubled down and said they would not support Jordan. This sets up the same conundrum that felled McCarthy and prompted Scalise to abandon the race: With 221 on their side, Republicans have just four votes to spare if all 212 Democrats vote the other way.
Jordan will bully half of them via primary threats, but we’ll see if he can get the last score of votes.
New York Times:
Jordan Activates Right-Wing Pressure Campaign in Push to Win Speakership Allies of the Ohio Republican, who must persuade scores of his colleagues to support his bid for speaker, are threatening right-wing retribution to any G.O.P. lawmakers who dare oppose him. It is also an approach that helped propel the House G.O.P. into its current leadership crisis. Republicans last year fielded several extreme-right congressional candidates who were popular with the base but ultimately could not win general elections in competitive districts, leaving them with a razor-thin majority in the House. A new generation of hard-liners has been able to exploit the tiny governing margin, dethroning one speaker and scuttling the bid of his heir apparent. Mr. Jordan’s closeness with the former president has given him unparalleled cachet with the party base, and his backers were counting on that to help him prevail in a vote that could come as early as Tuesday.
x As for whether Jordan's conduct = participating in an insurrection, here's the framework from conservative scholars Baude and Paulsen: The leadup to 1/6 was a coordinated plot to significantly disrupt governmental authority with the goal of sabotaging the transfer of power. pic.twitter.com/BZHsF1HEaf — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 14, 2023
Adam Bass/Ordinary Times:
An Anxious Man’s Advice to Dems: Don’t Psych Yourself Out I have suffered from generalized anxiety my entire life. It affects how I organize my day and how I write stories when I try to take in information and even when I try to brush my teeth. Whatever the situation, my brain will go to DEFCON 1 and say, “you see this event happening right in front of you? That event is going to end in catastrophe and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I am very open with my diagnosis, as talking about it helps mitigate its effects. On top of that, if I can be honest about my anxiety, so can everyone else. Maybe then we can all eliminate the little anxiety gremlins in our stomachs preventing us from achieving our goals. Why do I bring up my disorder? Well, it seems that the Democratic Party is having the same anxiety gremlins that I am having, only this anxiety is based on one person: President Joe Biden.
x Smart column from @EJDionne
***
Opinion | Empathy for Palestinians cannot mean sympathy for Hamas
- The Washington Post
https://t.co/8DpFZ2Zi1D — Timothy McBride 🇺🇦🕊️ (@mcbridetd) October 15, 2023
Ruth Ben-Ghiat/”Lucid” on Substack:
What Will Be the Destiny of Netanyahu? The tragic Hamas attacks on Israel prompt reflections on the strongman model of leadership In December 2022, Netanyahu thought he had won the autocrat's lottery, having been re-elected despite charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, and a corruption trial ongoing. He promptly initiated a "judicial reform" that would limit the Israeli Supreme Court's authority and clear the way for him to realize the strongman dream: becoming personally untouchable by the law. Instead, this authoritarian overreach led to the largest protests in Israeli history —protests that united grassroots activists and elites and included refusals by Army and Air Force personnel to perform military service. But Netanyahu did not back down. Propelled by a desire for self-preservation, and unencumbered by any moral code, strongmen with legal troubles that threaten their power become laser-focused on making those troubles go away for good. Netanyahu fits this model. The Hamas attacks thus came at a moment of deep fissures within Israeli society The sense of a vacuum of leadership that privileges collective welfare increased when the Prime Minister and his Likud party did not communicate promptly with the public after the attack, and when state military, law enforcement, and emergency personnel did not reach civilians under fire quickly (leading to lone-wolf heroic rescues of civilians by retired Generals and others). This "total system failure on Israel's part," in former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk's words, has prompted civilian and military calls for Netanyahu to resign. Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon pointed out, for example, that Bibi cannot be an effective wartime leader because many Israelis do not trust him.
x Worth remembering how large swaths of Israel and Gaza feel pic.twitter.com/syejZ1l6gO — Matt Lieberman (@social_brains) October 14, 2023
David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:
The War’s Just Started, But Benjamin Netanyahu Has Already Lost No matter what happens following Israel’s siege of Gaza, the Israeli prime minister’s political ambitions are likely damaged beyond repair. The crisis triggered by Hamas’ savage attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 is at a very delicate stage. As Gaza awaits a full-scale Israeli invasion, Iran and its proxies are dialing up their threatening rhetoric, and the U.S. is moving another carrier battle group into the region, major questions loom about the nature, scope, and consequences of the war the terrorists triggered. It is not too early, however, to draw certain conclusions about the consequences unleashed by Hamas’ brutality. One is that it is highly unlikely the Iranian-funded terror group will survive this war. Another is that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also almost certain to be brought down and many of his highest priorities dashed due to the widespread perception among the Israeli public that it was Netanyahu’s leadership failures that put the public at risk of the attack, an assault that resulted in the greatest single day loss of Israeli lives in that country’s history.
Alexander Burns/Politico:
The Future of Pro-Israel Politics is at Stake in Gaza Support ticks up in wake of Hamas attacks, but could erode again with military invasion of Gaza. [Mark] Mellman, a veteran Democratic strategist who has worked extensively in Israeli politics, did not sugarcoat the results. The advocacy group he leads, Democratic Majority for Israel, had denounced the Israeli far right during the election as unfit to govern. Still, Mellman stressed to the collection of allies and donors that they should be wary of an open breach: American disagreements with Israeli leaders, he said, were better handled behind closed doors so that they could not be exploited by provocateurs in both countries. It was not a reassuring message. For many American friends of Israel, an agonizing political balancing act was ahead. Eleven months later, the political situation appears both clearer and far more anguished. The barbaric attack on Israel by Hamas militants last weekend summoned an outpouring of sympathy for Israel from across the American political spectrum. Democratic angst about the Netanyahu government seemed to disappear — and, suddenly, the composition of Israel’s leadership changed as the opposition politician Benny Gantz joined Netanyahu in an emergency war government. What is not clear is how long this spirit of pulling together might last in America’s varied and strained pro-Israel community.
x Louisiana has a new Governor, and if you’re just waking up — here’s the jist: he is an arch-conservative who tried get the 2020 election overturned, targeted LGBT rights, gone after NoLa in many ways, & his campaign was one big dog whistle. A big profile:
https://t.co/VzCBNq1GQz — Taniel (@Taniel) October 15, 2023
Nicholas Kristof/New York Times:
What Does Destroying Gaza Solve? Israel may now be poised to undertake a ground invasion of Gaza in ways that I fear would layer another humanitarian catastrophe onto the existing one — and instead of uprooting extremists would buttress the Hamas narrative of hatred and amplify the venom these boys expressed. Israel’s demand that more than one million people leave their homes in northern Gaza, when they have nowhere to go, could constitute the war crime of forced removal, according to Jan Egeland, the much respected secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. There are fears that Israel will treat all those who are unable to flee as combatants to be wiped out. Israel has tactical superiority, but what’s the strategy? Who will govern the rubble afterward? And how will the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians possibly lead to harmony with Israel afterward? Yet it’s also true that Israel faces a serious conundrum when it has a neighbor led by terrorists and inhabited by teenage soccer players who applaud terrorism. Where does that anger come from, that openness to butcher even high school girls?
[END]
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