The whole speaker situation is the first time in a while I've seen Democrats effectively use game theory principles. Michelle Obama famously said "when they go low, we go high". This, sometime called bipartisanship, is provably a losing proposition in repeated games, like politics. One of the best strategies in the iterated prisoner's dilemma is tit-for-tat, which translates to "when they go low, we go low. when they go high, we go high". The downside of this strategy though, is that you can get trapped in a suboptimal state, where both sides continually fight against each other. The best strategy is probably something like a tit-for-tat with a rare, occasional olive branch. "When they go low, we go low, but every once in a while, we'll go high to see if the offer is reciprocated".
If the democrats had the wisdom to do so, they'd have backed McCarthy. Was he perfect (if you're a democrat)? No. Was he willing to at least keep the government from shutting down? Yes. You'd think that would be table stakes for speaker, but I digress.
It's a no brainer, they'd have him McCarty the balls, Matt Gaetz looks like a jackass, and they can use the leverage they have to keep the house doing its job.
Instead, we have pandemonium, no speaker, no plan to ensure the government doesn't shut down in a month, and Gaetz has something to crow about. Do the republicans look like a clown show? Sure. Is that a better overall outcome for the country than having a (barely, semi) functioning House? No (even if you're a democrat).
The whole goddamn lot of the house ought to be ineligible for reelection for failing to govern.
>"In the end, they all voted to remove McCarthy. Many people wondered afterwards why McCarthy did not offer the Democrats a bargain in order to sustain him. The answer is that the logic of the procedural coalition wouldn’t allow it. As with the Speakership vote in January, McCarthy didn’t need one vote, one time. He needed an ongoing procedural coalition. Unless the Democrats were going to form a permanent alliance with him, saving him on the vacate vote wouldn’t have done any good. In fact, it would have simply turned more Republicans against him, as whatever concessions he gave the Democrats would have certainly moved policy to the left."
So it either had to be a fully negotiated, lasting alliance for the rest of this Congress, or nothing. McCarthy did not make any moves towards such a thing, completely contrary to your assertion that they'd "have him by the balls". On the contrary right after the vote for the CR he immediately went on TV Sunday to try to backstab Democrats and (preposterously) say they were at fault.
There are multiple 'games' being played. The article is about the game within the Republican party, between leadership and the Freedom Caucus. The Democrats are playing a different game with the Republican leadership, which isn't the core focus of this article.
In the game between Democrats and Republican leadership, McCarthy promised to work with the Democrats on several issues and then back tracked multiple times. McCarthy then assumed that the Democrats would simply support him since the alternative was the chaos we have now. Democrats intentionally adopted tit-for-tat, and 'went low', which is why McCarthy is now no longer speaker.
By playing hardball, the Democrats have increased the chances that the next speaker will be a moderate willing to have some semblance of bipartisanship.
Besides the fact that this argument is addressed in the article, consider the calculus from the Democrats' POV: They'd prop McCarthy up for the sake of continuity but with absolutely zero guarantees that he would come through on promises, and zero chance they'd get any credit for it from Republicans. At the next election Republicans would blame the Democrats for anything that went wrong, and their base voters would also blame them for letting the GOP get away with stuff.
It might seem unfair of me to say that Republicans would just be complete hypocrites like this, but consider the phenomenon of politicians taking credit for public works projects or similar even when they voted against the law that appropriated the funding for them.
I think the Democratic leadership has enough wisdom to see that the best long term outcome is probably for the clown show to be on full display so that maybe next cycle the voters will elect fewer clowns and more people who are at least capable of keeping the lights on.
At the end of the day McCarthy chose to do the right thing by keeping the government open and doing a bipartisan bill with the Democrats.
The reality of it is that parties are not in the United States Constitution, and our enshrinement of them is becoming an increasing problem.
So let’s set the record straight, it was not Republicans that provided 95% of the votes to punish McCarthy. It was democrats. And when they’re looking at President Trump‘s second term in January 2025, this will be on them. There was a moment to showcase good government and defy extremists, and they chose what was electorally better for them but worse for the country. like they did the same when they started giving money to the most insane MAGA clowns, because they would be easier to beat in a general election. When the government is shut down because moderates were purged by the companies and parties reveal their moral and ideological corruption like this it plays into populist hands.
The parties are cancer on America. They will kill the democracy.
> Do the republicans look like a clown show? Sure. Is that a better overall outcome for the country than having a (barely, semi) functioning House? No (even if you're a democrat).
This presupposes that the Democrats prefer "a better overall outcome for the country" over "the Republicans look like a clown show". It seems like the predominating political theory of the day is that any bad thing is actually good, as long as you can convincingly blame the other party for it.
I don’t know how anyone can lead a house GOP with a faction that opposes any compromise, demands the ability to remove the speaker at a whim, and seems to have little interest in governance generally.
Seems like an impossible position.
The obvious path of forming a coalition with the other party seems like the only functional way forward.
I sure hope so. I absolutely loathe the phrase 'two party system'; it's not a system or an institution, it's just an emergent outcome of our voting mechanisms that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy while having absolutely no basis in law, statutory or precedential.
Unfortunately it's become embedded in American life as to become a thought-terminating cliche (though not as used here!): mentioning it typically produced a murmur of recognitional agreement, which then serves to drain the energy out of discussing problematic or perverse electoral and legislative outcomes. This has been exploited by politicians of all stripes to evade any sort of electoral accountability and shut down any new entrants into political markets.
Much of the US's governance relies on politeness, the assumption of good faith, and adherence to norms. It was a system destined to fail as soon as defectors realize the power they stand to gain by deliberately bringing the system to its needs (and then blaming their opponents for it, trusting that their own constituents are too gormless to realize or care).
In contrast, here's how the old Venetians elected the Doge, in a process so complex that it was presumably impossible to game to anyone's advantage:
"First, thirty members of the Great Council were chosen at random. Then nine of those thirty were chosen, again randomly. Those nine members picked the next set: forty people from the Great Council. And those forty? Twelve, randomly picked from their number, moved on to the next step. Those twelve chose twenty-five; those twenty-five were randomly pared down to just nine. Having fun yet? This set of nine members chose forty-five more; eleven were picked – again at random – from those forty-five. The eleven chose forty-one members. Those forty-one (finally!) voted for the doge. There were some additional checks against skulduggery. Each noble family couldn’t have more than one member in each group, and members couldn’t vote for their own relatives. Every time a set of members voted for the next group, more than a simple majority was required: around three quarters of the voting group had to agree. (For the final election, just 25 of the 41 had to agree.)"
> In contrast, here's how the old Venetians elected the Doge, in a process so complex that it was presumably impossible to game to anyone's advantage:
It's not particularly complex. The numbers may seem arbitrary (there's actually a deep logic to them, although they may have been found by trial and error) but you don't need to understand the numbers to understand the process: each jury elects a set of people for its successor, and then a random subset of the elected people are picked to actually form the next jury, and there are several rounds of this until the final jury elects the Doge himself.
It's not immune to negotiation and horse-trading, but it makes it harder; probabilistic systems aren't vulnerable to Arrow's theorem, so tactical voting is much rarer. In practice it diffused power from any individual or jury, and acted to preserve a stable oligopoly; it ensured there were enough noble families to fill out a jury, but not much more than that (and getting functioning government from them absolutely relied on politeness and good faith and all that). Whether that's better or worse than a two-party system is open to debate.
Yes, the point is not to advocate for Venetian rules themselves, but rather to demonstrate a set of rules that seem to have been at least somewhat designed for the properly adversarial context that is politics.
> Much of the US's governance relies on politeness, the assumption of good faith, and adherence to norms
This is more a post-War (or post-New Deal) problem. If the federal government shuts down, towns and states still function.
The problem is so much more, today, is interstate and global. As a result, the tendency towards gridlock absent consensus, previously more a feature than a nuisance, is now careening towards something existential.
It's worth considering how old the US version of democracy is, and how many systems came after.
Americans have a deep reverence for their personal brand, but it's worth considering they don't install their government model on countries they conquer. Japan, Iraq, Germany, etc are all Parliamentary.
This often had more to do with adopting a system that has some familiarity to the conquered country. In the example of Japan, allowing an emperor as a more permanent figurehead.
The fundamental asymmetry in power is that the far-right group does not care if the government is functional, they're there to destroy government as much as they can, so they have leverage over anybody that does care.
Having no speaker is also a successful situation if you don't want the government to do anything, which seems to be the preference of some Republicans.
My take is that the Republican Party is in such a great position of power now that splits are inevitable. To date, the famous Republican lock-step unity has been in everyone’s interest because otherwise they lose to Democrats. But if you have an insuperable advantage in most areas of government, maybe it’s time to actually argue about what you’re for.
Whether they’ve chosen their moment to have this split correctly, however, is up for debate.
My snarky take is that the whole thing is a farce and the House hasn't been more than theater (in an Article I of the Constitution sense) in quite a while.
There hasn't been any proper budgeting since Bush43. Among the unmet demands leading to McCarthy's ouster was lack of regular budgeting order.
The House has had copious resources to do investigations out the wazoo, but it's actual, Constitutional job? No' so much.
MODEST PROPOSAL: if a Congress fails to do its basic job, then none of the jackwagons sworn into that Congress (either chamber) get to run for their existing seat when next up for election. Do you Monkey Fighting job, or get some people who will.
The judicial branch seems like a good candidate for this job by virtue of being a system designed to test the relationship between facts and laws. I imagine the relevant laws would have to be specified via constitutional amendment.
Readit News
It's a no brainer, they'd have him McCarty the balls, Matt Gaetz looks like a jackass, and they can use the leverage they have to keep the house doing its job.
Instead, we have pandemonium, no speaker, no plan to ensure the government doesn't shut down in a month, and Gaetz has something to crow about. Do the republicans look like a clown show? Sure. Is that a better overall outcome for the country than having a (barely, semi) functioning House? No (even if you're a democrat).
The whole goddamn lot of the house ought to be ineligible for reelection for failing to govern.
>"In the end, they all voted to remove McCarthy. Many people wondered afterwards why McCarthy did not offer the Democrats a bargain in order to sustain him. The answer is that the logic of the procedural coalition wouldn’t allow it. As with the Speakership vote in January, McCarthy didn’t need one vote, one time. He needed an ongoing procedural coalition. Unless the Democrats were going to form a permanent alliance with him, saving him on the vacate vote wouldn’t have done any good. In fact, it would have simply turned more Republicans against him, as whatever concessions he gave the Democrats would have certainly moved policy to the left."
So it either had to be a fully negotiated, lasting alliance for the rest of this Congress, or nothing. McCarthy did not make any moves towards such a thing, completely contrary to your assertion that they'd "have him by the balls". On the contrary right after the vote for the CR he immediately went on TV Sunday to try to backstab Democrats and (preposterously) say they were at fault.
In the game between Democrats and Republican leadership, McCarthy promised to work with the Democrats on several issues and then back tracked multiple times. McCarthy then assumed that the Democrats would simply support him since the alternative was the chaos we have now. Democrats intentionally adopted tit-for-tat, and 'went low', which is why McCarthy is now no longer speaker.
By playing hardball, the Democrats have increased the chances that the next speaker will be a moderate willing to have some semblance of bipartisanship.
This is a longer video but here AOC gets into the politics a bit more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahEgoH8UfLU
It might seem unfair of me to say that Republicans would just be complete hypocrites like this, but consider the phenomenon of politicians taking credit for public works projects or similar even when they voted against the law that appropriated the funding for them.
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The reality of it is that parties are not in the United States Constitution, and our enshrinement of them is becoming an increasing problem.
So let’s set the record straight, it was not Republicans that provided 95% of the votes to punish McCarthy. It was democrats. And when they’re looking at President Trump‘s second term in January 2025, this will be on them. There was a moment to showcase good government and defy extremists, and they chose what was electorally better for them but worse for the country. like they did the same when they started giving money to the most insane MAGA clowns, because they would be easier to beat in a general election. When the government is shut down because moderates were purged by the companies and parties reveal their moral and ideological corruption like this it plays into populist hands.
The parties are cancer on America. They will kill the democracy.
This presupposes that the Democrats prefer "a better overall outcome for the country" over "the Republicans look like a clown show". It seems like the predominating political theory of the day is that any bad thing is actually good, as long as you can convincingly blame the other party for it.
I don’t know how anyone can lead a house GOP with a faction that opposes any compromise, demands the ability to remove the speaker at a whim, and seems to have little interest in governance generally.
Seems like an impossible position.
The obvious path of forming a coalition with the other party seems like the only functional way forward.
By leading the House, not the House GOP. Perhaps we're seeing seismic activity in our two-party system's alignment.
Unfortunately it's become embedded in American life as to become a thought-terminating cliche (though not as used here!): mentioning it typically produced a murmur of recognitional agreement, which then serves to drain the energy out of discussing problematic or perverse electoral and legislative outcomes. This has been exploited by politicians of all stripes to evade any sort of electoral accountability and shut down any new entrants into political markets.
Although that will break the illusion of team red vs. team blue that has maintained power for 30+ years.
In contrast, here's how the old Venetians elected the Doge, in a process so complex that it was presumably impossible to game to anyone's advantage:
"First, thirty members of the Great Council were chosen at random. Then nine of those thirty were chosen, again randomly. Those nine members picked the next set: forty people from the Great Council. And those forty? Twelve, randomly picked from their number, moved on to the next step. Those twelve chose twenty-five; those twenty-five were randomly pared down to just nine. Having fun yet? This set of nine members chose forty-five more; eleven were picked – again at random – from those forty-five. The eleven chose forty-one members. Those forty-one (finally!) voted for the doge. There were some additional checks against skulduggery. Each noble family couldn’t have more than one member in each group, and members couldn’t vote for their own relatives. Every time a set of members voted for the next group, more than a simple majority was required: around three quarters of the voting group had to agree. (For the final election, just 25 of the 41 had to agree.)"
https://generalist.academy/2020/11/06/the-election-of-the-do...
It's not particularly complex. The numbers may seem arbitrary (there's actually a deep logic to them, although they may have been found by trial and error) but you don't need to understand the numbers to understand the process: each jury elects a set of people for its successor, and then a random subset of the elected people are picked to actually form the next jury, and there are several rounds of this until the final jury elects the Doge himself.
It's not immune to negotiation and horse-trading, but it makes it harder; probabilistic systems aren't vulnerable to Arrow's theorem, so tactical voting is much rarer. In practice it diffused power from any individual or jury, and acted to preserve a stable oligopoly; it ensured there were enough noble families to fill out a jury, but not much more than that (and getting functioning government from them absolutely relied on politeness and good faith and all that). Whether that's better or worse than a two-party system is open to debate.
This is more a post-War (or post-New Deal) problem. If the federal government shuts down, towns and states still function.
The problem is so much more, today, is interstate and global. As a result, the tendency towards gridlock absent consensus, previously more a feature than a nuisance, is now careening towards something existential.
Americans have a deep reverence for their personal brand, but it's worth considering they don't install their government model on countries they conquer. Japan, Iraq, Germany, etc are all Parliamentary.
Not relevant. The House behaves like a parliament. It's currently hung.
Whether they’ve chosen their moment to have this split correctly, however, is up for debate.
There hasn't been any proper budgeting since Bush43. Among the unmet demands leading to McCarthy's ouster was lack of regular budgeting order.
The House has had copious resources to do investigations out the wazoo, but it's actual, Constitutional job? No' so much.
MODEST PROPOSAL: if a Congress fails to do its basic job, then none of the jackwagons sworn into that Congress (either chamber) get to run for their existing seat when next up for election. Do you Monkey Fighting job, or get some people who will.