Creatures of Capitol Hill

McCarthy wants it too bad.

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As the House enters a third day of its parade of pettiness, Sarah, Steve, and Jonah discuss Kevin McCarthy’s slow, tortuous slug of concessions towards becoming a speaker in name only. Also on the agenda: Biden’s 2024 vision, Mayor Pete’s carpetbagging, and the online right’s grotesque response to Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest.

Out of context: “That is a trifecta of wrongness.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Simon J. Dodd

    I take Jonah's point about 2016 as a contest between the two least popular politicians in the country. In our current climate, however, the nominees of the two major parties will ipso facto become the least popular politicians in the country, no matter who was before, no matter who they were before, and, Stay-Puft Marshmallow-Man-like, no matter how anodyne, safe, and fluffy they were before. You can already see online Democrats pivoting from "Trump is a sui generis evil, a deranged narcissist uniquely unfitted for office" to "Ron DeSantis is worse than Trump." And it goes without saying that the Republican griftosphere and trumpet base will turn literally anyone into the worst Democrat ever; if Lauren Boebert won the 2024 Democratic nomination, they would savage her as a progressive.

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    1. Tom Johnson

      "In our current climate, however, the nominees of the two major parties will ipso facto become the least popular politicians in the country, no matter who was before, no matter who they were before, and, Stay-Puft Marshmallow-Man-like, no matter how anodyne, safe, and fluffy they were before."

      While I love that metaphor (or simile, I guess), I disagree that such low popularity is a given. With hard-core partisan voters, sure, merely being the other side's presidential candidate will provoke their wrath. Yet it doesn't automatically generate as much same-side admiration, suggesting that even entrenched voters are discriminating. It seemed in particular that much support for Biden in 2020 was grudging; he was simply the only vehicle for firing Trump. (Thanks, two-party system!)

      I believe most Americans--40% of whom have no affiliation--are capable despite their preferences of regarding both the Democratic and the Republican candidate somewhat positively, provided that both a) are of high caliber with minimal baggage and b) did not appear to win their respective nominations through shady deal-making or DNC/RNC favoritism at the expense of representation. (Recall that Trump had Republican challengers in 2020 but the party machine shut down primaries in key states.)

      All that said, most candidates will have their image tarnished at least to some degree by the intense scrutiny and opposition research that comes with a presidential run.

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  2. Tom Johnson

    "A big part of the problem this country has is weak parties." - Jonah

    Remove the word "weak" and I'll agree. As would George Washington et al.

    For one thing, the two major parties have way more power than is healthy. It's why Marjorie Taylor Greene basically ran unopposed in the 2020 general election. Her Democratic opponent--who, as such, had a snowball's chance of winning anyway--threw in the towel several weeks before Election Day. Because the D/R duopoly has so effectively and comprehensively boxed out Libertarians as well as independents (non-incumbent), she faced no other rivals.

    As for the Republican Party's lack of commanding authority over all the disparate factions and entities under its vaunted "big tent": To the extent it used to have such control, it was never really sustainable. Parties by their nature impose an artificial solidarity, and sooner or later the collective consciousness yields to the sub-collective (or even, God forbid, the individual) and splits beyond repair. In any case, the more tentacles the GOP grows, the harder it will be to avoid getting tangled up. (In red?)

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    Ben Connelly

    Sarah, to your question, while I’m sure there are people who will tell their friends crazy theories about vaccines killing individuals who have heart attacks, I think it’s very predominately an online thing. I’ve never met a person in real life who used some random person’s death as an opportunity to score cheap points about COVID vaccines. And that includes people I know who arent vaccinated.

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    Medhistprof

    You are well on the way to an institution, keep laying bricks

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    Dave in Houston

    Great show as always! Sorry to hear about your friend, Sarah. What’s going on on Twitter is indeed vile.

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  6. Sarah

    Epoch times almost daily updates on the various harms of the vaccines and makes long "documentaries" about the ways they are harming us - cancer, heart attacks, autoimmune diseases etc. It's everywhere in that world, every day. If you just read their daily e-mail top news story headlines you quickly see how prevalent vaccine fear is in those folks.

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  7. Aaron H Frank

    What if... McCarthy pulled the 21 into a conference room and said, "I will caucus with the Dems and bring enough Republicans with me and we will kick each and everyone of you out of the House."

    It's hard to remove a representative and it is too late to do this now. But it would be fun to watch.

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  8. Stormer93

    Steve Scalise says that he's David Duke without the baggage? I guess that means that Scalise is just a ghost?

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    Pastorfbt

    Great stuff as usual. Would just note that the overall audio level was a tad low.

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    Nate Dunlevy

    South Bend, IN is part of a general region known as Michiana. I know plenty of people that live in Michigan and work or have family in South Bend.

    Buttigieg apparently moved to Travers City which is much further north, but I'm guessing in this case it won't be seen as much of a carpet bag. South Bend is much more Chicago and Michigan aligned than Indiana-aligned. It's just a weird town.

    I say it doesn't hurt him at all, nor is it seen as weird. He's from "the area".

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