volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@SrRochardBunson

Why would you change followers to boosters? They follow. They're followers.

@alaric

Yep.

It was either that or keep the House shut down forever.

With the way Democrats have chosen to vote, the fringe gets to call these shots.

@fevzi

There is blame to go around, but YES, without Democrat's active choice to vote as they did, this would have been resolved right away with the extremists sent packing.

The vote would have been something ~200 to 20, and the twenty left behind, had Democrats not chosen to actively throw their votes in with the extremists against McCarthy.

@fevzi

You might be missing that this isn't just about the individual but also about the rules by which the House is to operate.

With the Democrats' votes as they are, the fringe Republicans have been able to change the rules of the chamber in the ways they want, ensuring that this small group of clowns will have far outsized power that they absolutely would not have had otherwise.

The rules could have left them isolated and powerless, but the Democratic strategy put them not only front and center now, but also dug into the rules that will effectively give them a veto over Democrat input going forward.

@benda @fevzi

I think I'm just more aware of the House rules and procedures than you are. It's not so much about politics as it is about the ways the rules function.

Because Republicans have a majority, slim as it may be, for Jeffries to be speaker would lead to non-stop issues as he needs majority votes that he wouldn't be able to get.

Remember, the Speaker can't pass legislation on his own. Heck, he can barely even get legislation to the floor on his own.

Jeffries would not be able to operate the House committee processes so it would be messes like this every single day until the end of the session.

@fevzi

In return they would get a functional House that can pass legislation in support of their members especially as that would further isolate and disempower the fringe Republicans gumming up the works.

The razor thin majority really incentivizes Republicans to give Democrats what they want legislatively if nothing else to avoid having to deal with those clowns.

But that's a legislative process that can't start so long as Democrats are holding this line and forcing Republicans to listen to and agree to the fringe terms, which in the end harms Democrats in the long term since it will make it harder for their priorities to be reflected in legislation.

@MollyNYC

I doubt either would have been particularly successful.

More and more these days we are seeing very well-funded campaigns end up losing, so that doesn't assure too much tipping of the scales, and also I think the type of people who vote for the circus acts don't even know what a committee assignment is or else they would probably not vote that way in the first place.

And heck, at this point those members are gaining so much influence in this game that their constituents back home might be cheering them on!

I really think the strategy should have been to push them out to the corner so that their voters are more likely to get bored with them going into the future rather than directly fighting them.

That's the mud wrestling they thrive on.

@retrohondajunki @rbreich

All of that is beside the point. I don't really care if Republicans would or wouldn't do the same thing, I would say the exact same thing about them if they did.

Like I said, you might agree with this strategy and that's fine but let's be clear about what's going on, that Democrats are choosing to vote in a way that magnifies the influence of fringe Republicans, setting them up to have far more power in the upcoming session.

I think that's a bad thing. You might disagree.

If Democrats want to talk to a leader all they have to do is get out of the way, and within 1 hour there can be a leader for them to talk to.

@mnutty

That's right, there are a couple of different branches of libertarianism, and there are definitely a couple of branches that I would describe as outright anarchism.

On the mainstream, and in particular the right leaning branches, yeah they definitely accept taxation as a necessary evil, but that still doesn't mean they are eager to have governments take more money than necessary to divert it towards military spending, in contrast to what I hear from many conservatives who flat out blindly want to spend that way.

I'll have to refresh my memory about Charles Koch's public positions.

@mnutty @StevenBeschloss @kgarrahan

Yep, and hopefully every member's constituents will be accurately informed about the member's actions and hold them accountable in the next election.

(I won't hold my breath about that)

Anyway, one thing to keep in mind is that the Speaker doesn't work for the general public, the vast majority of which has no idea how the work of the speaker goes at all. He works for the members of the House, which is why they elect him and why we don't.

And they are in a position to hold the speaker much more accountable than we will tend to hold our own representatives accountable, sadly enough.

@retrohondajunki @rbreich

Well we can't vote these representatives out because we aren't their voters. They were chosen by their constituents, and it's up to them who they want representing them.

So since the representative system is stuck with them, IMO we should take away their power by not playing these games with them.

Instead, by playing this game, Democrats have boosted them into a position where they are having major influence on how this session is going to go.

Thanks, Democrats. Hope the game was worth it.

@retrohondajunki @rbreich

Yes it is the game of politics, but that's exactly the shenanigans that I'm saying Democrats are promoting here.

Democrats don't actually need Republican cooperation to allow the House to begin its work. They can merely answer absent during the vote, at which point the fringe Republicans will be outvoted easily and lose their influence altogether.

But as you say, Democrats are playing this game that keeps the House closed, empowering that fringe group, and if you want to say that's all for the best that's fine, but we need to be clear that that's what's happening.

@mnutty

But don't forget where military funding comes from: taking people's property through taxation 🙂

Do you have any particular figures in mind who's perspective you're thinking of?

@kingsley

That's not how the debt limit works, though.
The US Treasury has plenty of revenue incoming to cover debts as they come due. It is absolutely not in question that the US will pay off its debts and not default regardless of anything Congress might do.

No change to the debt ceiling impacts that.

@shakespearenut

And to be clear, this rule isn't something I have verified, I haven't heard about it from anybody else, but this was directly from one of the Republican representatives so it's worth considering.

He said that these votes amount to spectacle because until that 72-hour waiting period is up the votes won't change. He said the proper thing to do would be to immediately adjourn at the beginning of each session, not to have more votes until the agreement was finalized.

Buuuuuut since we don't know what's going on in people's heads, we don't know if maybe these votes are taking place as a negotiating strategy even though they aren't going to change.

@shakespearenut

One congressperson said that by Republican party internal rules, any compromise agreement has to be drafted and circulated for 72 hours before it can be adopted.

If he's right then should an agreement be reached today it will still take until, what, Monday to resolve the voting.

@ZhiZhu

I mean, opposition is the core political strategy of all politicians in a system structured on top of checks and balances.

Heck, in the present case the Democrats are unanimously voting to obstruct while there is a Republican or two answering "present" to allow the process to proceed.

@wjmaggos

I'd say it makes a big difference here in how the decisions are made.

Publishers need to keep in mind that their readers might not bother subscribing if they're on a platform that the users don't think is worth it. That's solid motivation for a publisher to choose a different platform.

On the other hand, if a publisher feels like they can lock readers in as you framed it, meh, the publisher doesn't have nearly the practice incentive to change.

The publisher can't lock in users. That's exactly why they might choose a better platform.

@sparseMatrix

Hmmm, I could see #wikipedia setting up an instance that would be focused on just discussing ongoing edits and conversation.

I'd subscribe to that instance!