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Why Can't Kevin McCarthy Take a Hint and Move On?

Sometimes in life, you try out for something and don't get it. Sometimes, you get up and try again. And maybe even a third time.

But when you fail at something as many times as Kevin McCarthy has failed to get the votes to make him Speaker of the House, doesn't there come a point when you figure out this isn't for you and you should just dust yourself off and move on?

When you fail so many times at being elected to the same position, at what point does a reasonable person acknowledge the constituency doesn't want him? And that even should he win on the 5th or 6th try, he'll never be viewed as a leader or with respect from either side? He'll only be viewed as divisive.

Republicans don't need Kevin McCarthy, and America needs him even less. It's time for him to bow out.

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    Front cover headline on today's Phila Daily News (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by Peter G on Thu Jan 05, 2023 at 10:10:39 AM EST
    "HOUSE BROKEN"

    lol (none / 0) (#3)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Jan 05, 2023 at 10:22:17 AM EST

    Kevin McCarthy Sets Expectations for Today
    January 5, 2023 at 11:24 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

    Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to CNN: "Well I think what you'll see today is the same until we finish everything out."

    He added: "I wouldn't read anything into votes today."



    Parent
    For that matter, why didn't ... (5.00 / 2) (#17)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Jan 06, 2023 at 01:44:33 PM EST
    ... Susan Lucci move on from "All My Children" after losing 18 consecutive Daytime Emmy Award races for best actress? Because it's kinda sorta the same thing, from GOP House Speaker-wannabe Kevin McCarthy's perspective.

    And therein lies the problem, because it is very clearly not the same thing. Kevin McCarthy is no moderate Republican. Kevin McCarthy is a shapeshifting jackwagon who will become whomever Kevin McCarthy needs to be at the moment to get Kevin McCarthy to wherever he ultimately wants to go. That's because Kevin McCarthy has neither core principles nor an ethical compass.

    What we're presently reaping is the inevitable result of a half-century-long Republican effort to dumb down its own electorate with successive waves of base pandering to people's worst fears and visceral instincts, which Democrats have inexplicably continued to tolerate in the name of free speech.

    Further, our mainstream news media has mostly dispensed with hardnosed reporting and information analysis for opinion and emotion, and even that's being eclipsed by so-called social media influencers, many of whom don't know their a$$es from their elbows.

    Altogether, the politics of our governance has been reduced to a tawdry performance art and spectator sport, one in which everybody - participant and spectator alike - is likewise cheapened and diminished for the collective experience.

    Former Vice President Al Gore warned us 15 years ago of the reckless direction we were headed in his book "The Assault on Reason." Far from listening to him and considering what he said, we doubled down on stupid instead.

    And so here we are, dealing with the adverse consequences of a civically illiterate GOP electorate who have long since purged their party's more temperate and moderate elements from their ranks. They now see nothing wrong with electing far-right provocateurs like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and shameless hucksters like Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy, all of whom are openly contemptuous and hostile to the very concept of responsible stewardship.

    This is not my grandfather's Republican Party. Democrats like me may have disagreed significantly with Republicans of yore on matters of socio-economic policy, but at least we could trust them to not just blow everything up into smithereens simply for its own sake.

    You can't say the same of today's GOP, an increasingly vicious white nationalist cabal which is now far less the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant than it is of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest, and which currently presents an existential threat to both our domestic stability and our national security.

    Aloha.

    Well (5.00 / 2) (#24)
    by CaptHowdy on Sat Jan 07, 2023 at 08:38:04 AM EST
    Hakeem Jeffries (5.00 / 3) (#32)
    by KeysDan on Sat Jan 07, 2023 at 10:51:45 AM EST
    speech.  A superb oration that sets the tone for the Democrats strategy.

    If only (none / 0) (#33)
    by jmacWA on Sat Jan 07, 2023 at 01:58:23 PM EST
    they knew there was an alphabet.

    Parent
    I could understand if one is burnt out (none / 0) (#35)
    by leap2 on Sat Jan 07, 2023 at 02:29:29 PM EST
    on the unfolding $h!†$how, but it is a good one, and short. Jeffries has Obama's cadence, but seems that he is more grounded in reality. And he says those words. 'We stand for  "...freedom over fascism..." "...governing over gaslighting..." "...maturity over Mara Lago..."' Heh.

    Parent
    Yes, That Was His best Line (none / 0) (#36)
    by RickyJim on Sat Jan 07, 2023 at 02:51:48 PM EST
    I thought congratulating McCarthy was obligatory but apparently it wasn't.  My take away from this week's spectacle is, just another demonstration of the ineffectiveness of having only two parties vying for the control of a legislature.  While it is a vast improvement over only having one, it is still short of being the best system.

    Parent