Quote (FlowingOakTree @ Oct 4 2023 11:25am)

At least Gaets and company are actual opposition to the mainstream Republicans, as opposed to AOC and squad who preach opposition but always vote with the Democrats.

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There were 8 republicans that were fed up. there were dozens more who would have voted for this, but didn't need to. they didn't need to stick their necks out.

Quote (thesnipa @ Oct 4 2023 12:42pm)

Gaetz, MTG, Boobert, etc say "none of that stuff matters, we need to combat jewish space lasers and 5g wireless towers, nothing else matters".

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 4 2023 09:00am)

Pelosi had a far bigger margin in 2018, the squaddies didn't have the votes to out her. Many of the less belligerent progressives were also put in line by their much greater hatred for Trump, the incumbent president at the time, whom they didn't want to give any wins.

Pelosi then had a similar margin to McCarthy's from 2020, but that's when their party had trifecta control and the ability to actually get something done, which imho had a disciplining effect on the far-left fringe of her caucus since they didn't want to threaten their short window of opportunity.

McCarthy is in a much more difficult position since he had a similarly razor-thin margin, but no chance of actually getting any Republican legislative priorities passed. He had neither a stick nor a carrot to make Gaetz and his posse fall in line.


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On a broader note, this difference in leadership difficulty/caucus cohesion between Democrats and Republicans is caused by a fundamental asymmetry between the two parties: Democrats have a large set of shared ideological positions, virtually all of them agree on the general direction in which they want to steer the country. Their disagreement largely comes down to how far and how quick they want to go down this path. Republicans, on the other hand, have much deeper ideological divisions within their ranks, the direction Trump or Gaetz want is very different from the direction a Romney or a McConnell want.

Additionally, Republicans generally want to reduce the scope of (the federal) government, so they're rather happy with obstruction and gridlock. By contrast, Democrats want to proactively pass legislation, want the government to shape and change the status quo. This shared goal means that neither mainstream liberals nor hardcore progressives have an interest in obstruction.

Quote (thesnipa @ Oct 4 2023 11:42am)

the progressives in the left wing are for the same things Nanci forwards as policy, they just want even more done for far more progressive things.

the MAGA right wingers are NOT for the things the McCarthy RINOs are for, they want an entirely different policy scope.

AOC says "ok thats fine, but we want x, y, and z too."

Gaetz, MTG, Boobert, etc say "none of that stuff matters, we need to combat jewish space lasers and 5g wireless towers, nothing else matters".

Quote (thesnipa @ Oct 4 2023 09:12am)

really this leads me back to saying she should have been burned, because when given the chance to at least try and appease the progressive wing she did nothing. we can say its to maintain unity in the caucus, and I'm sure that plays a part, but its also self serving. she could have pushed something minor like term limits, increased scrutiny on trading, etc. but that would hurt her personally.

Quote (YeeHaw @ Oct 4 2023 12:51pm)

Gates’s big thing lately has been single issue spending bills..

Quote (Sioux @ 4 Oct 2023 19:48)

my bad, pelosi had an identical margin in 2020. 222 seat majority.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 4 2023 11:09am)

Np, but like I said: progressives wanted to get something done while they could with their trifecta in 2020, so they had an incentive to fall in line and not obstruct or revolt against Pelosi too much. The rebels on the Republican side since 2022 don't have this incentive.

Quote (Crunkt @ Oct 4 2023 07:25am)

Republican party is in complete shambles bro

Quote (HeLiCaL @ Oct 4 2023 07:29am)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJzKVngyVck

Quote (thesnipa @ Oct 4 2023 07:34am)

the DNC is held together by trading good PR for actual progressive action. same goes for the GOP and conservative action, or more recently batshit crazy space lasers.

one would have hoped that Pelosi could have pushed through, ummmmmmm, something with Biden in office. but so far its been the party of status quo keeping status quo while Biden undoes a few executive orders and tried, and failed, to make action on student loans. i do like the plan b for student loans tho, if that works out. something beats nothing.

there's just a lot of reasonable goals on the table imo and they didnt really get it done, Ukraine has some bearing on that as did Jan 6th, but we didnt get much.

Quote (Sioux @ Oct 4 2023 07:46am)

I dunno where you get your news from but the Dem majorities were quite legislatively productive from 2020-2022. Compare it to the last few trifectas in 2016 or 2008