Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Yes, we have all accepted the horrific results of the November election, But that doesn’t mean January 6th won’t be a shitshow. The following was tweeted by right wing reporter Chad Pergram:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Failing to Elect a House Speaker Quickly

The problem has been percolating for a while.

It’s been subterranean. Lurking underneath the surface. Not necessarily perceptible.

Except to those who follow Congress closely.

But the issue gurgled to the top since the House stumbled badly trying to avert a government shutdown last week.

To wit:

Congress spasmed between a staggering, 1,500-page spending bill. Then defeated a narrow, 116-page bill – which President-elect Trump endorsed. Things got worse when the House only commandeered a scant 174 yeas for the Trump-supported bill and 38 Republicans voted nay. Circumstances grew even more dire when the House actually voted to avert a holiday government shutdown – but passed the bill with more Democrats (196) than Republicans (170). 34 GOPers voted nay.

It was long likely that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., might face a problem winning the Speaker’s gavel immediately when the new Congress convenes at noon et on January 3. Congressional experts knew that Johnson could be in trouble once the contours of the reed-thin House majority came into focus weeks after the November election. This could blossom into a full-blown crisis for Johnson – and House Republicans –when the Speaker’s vote commences a little after 1 pm et next Friday. 

 Johnson emerges bruised from last week’s government funding donnybrook. Anywhere from four to ten Republicans could oppose Johnson in the Speaker’s race.

Here’s the math:

The House clocks in at 434 members with one vacancy. That’s thanks to former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. He resigned his position for this Congress a few weeks ago. Even though Gaetz won re-election in November, his resignation letter – read on the floor of the House – signaled he did not plan to serve in the new Congress which begins in January.

This is the breakdown when the Congress starts: 219 Republicans to 214 Democrats.

President-elect Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor, Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., remains in the House for now. So does Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. Mr. Trump tapped her to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. That’s pending Senate confirmation – perhaps in late January or early February. Once Waltz and Stefanik resign, the GOP majority dwindles to 217-214.

But the Speaker’s election on January 3 poses a special challenge. Here’s the bar for Johnson – or any one else: The Speaker of the House must win an outright majority of all Members casting ballots for someone by name. In other words, the person with the most votes does not win. That’s what happened repeatedly to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., when he routinely outpolled House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., for Speaker to begin this Congress in January 2023. But it took days for McCarthy to cross the proper threshold.

More on that in a moment. 

So let’s crunch the math for Mike Johnson. If there are 219 Republicans and four vote for someone besides him – and all Democrats cast ballots for Jeffries, the tally is 215-214. But there’s no Speaker. No one attained an outright majority of all Members casting ballots for someone by name. 218 is the magic number if all 434 Members vote.

By rule, this paralyzes the House. The House absolutely, unequivocally, cannot do anything until it elects a Speaker. Period.

The House can’t swear-in Members. Technically, they’re still Representatives-elect. Only after the House chooses its Speaker does he or she in turn swear-in the membership.

The House certainly can’t pass legislation. It can’t form committees. It’s frozen in a parliamentary paralysis until it elects a Speaker.

Now, I hope you’re sitting down for the next part.

This also means that the House cannot certify the results of the Electoral College, making President-elect Trump the 47th President of the United States on January 6.

The failure to elect a Speaker compels the House to vote over and over….

And over.. and.. over..

Until it finally taps someone.

McCarthy’s election incinerated 15 ballots over five days two years ago.

The House settled into a Congressional cryogenic freeze for three weeks after Members ousted McCarthy in October of 2023. It burned through two Speaker candidates off the floor – House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., – and one candidate on the floor: Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

So you see the problem. 

Consider for a moment that prior to last year, the House never went to a second ballot to select a Speaker since Speaker Frederick Gillett, R-Mass., in 1923.

It took 63 ballots before the House finally settled on Speaker Howell Cobb, D-Ga., in 1849.

But that’s nothing. The longest Speaker’s election consumed two months before the House elected Speaker Nathaniel Banks, R-Mass., in 1856 – on the 133rd ballot.

So anything which elongates this into a collision with January 6th- the statutory day to certify the election results and now one of the most ignominious days in American history – is dangerous.

To be clear: there is no dispute that President-elect Trump won the election. There is no anticipation of a repeat of a riot at the Capitol like four years ago. But a failure to certify the Electoral College on the day it’s supposed to be completed – especially after the 2021 experience – is playing with fire. Such a scenario would again reveal another, never-before-considered vulnerability in the fragile American political system. 

On January 6, the House and Senate are supposed to meet in a Joint Session of Congress to tabulate and certify the electoral votes. Any disputes over a state’s slate of electoral votes compels the House and Senate to then debate and vote separately on those results. The election is not final until the Joint Session concludes and the Vice President – in this case Vice President Harris in her capacity as President of the Senate – announces a victor.

Congress is not required to certify the Electoral College on the calendar day of January 6. There is actually some leeway to wrap things up. In 2021, the Electoral College wasn’t certified until around 3:52 am et on January 7. It only becomes a major problem if this drags on through noon et on January 20. That’s when the Constitution prescribes that the President-elect take the oath of office.

What happens if the Electoral College isn’t sorted out by January 20? Well, President Biden is done. So he’s gone. The same with Harris. Next in the presidential line of succession is the Speaker of the House. Well, there’s no Speaker. So who becomes President? 

Well, there is at that moment a President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the most senior member of the majority party. He or she is 4th in line to the Presidency. At this moment, the President Pro Tempore is Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. But Republicans claim control of the chamber in early January. And unlike the House if it’s stymied over a Speaker, the Senate is functioning. That means 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, becomes Senate President Tempore. Grassley has served in the Senate since 1981.

If the House is still frittering away time, trying to elect a Speaker on January 20, Grassley likely becomes “Acting President.”

I write “likely” because this gets into some serious, extra-Constitutional turf. These are unprecedented scenarios. Strange lands never visited in the American political experience.

And it all hinges on Mike Johnson – or frankly, someone else – wrapping up the Speaker’s vote with dispatch on January 3. Any interregnum like the past two Speaker’s elections begins establishing challenging historical precedents.

But frankly, it’s unclear if the House can avoid such contretemps.

It’s about the math. And once again, balancing that parliamentary equation is tenuous at best. 

They’ll probably come around, just so that Trump isn’t embarrassed, right? Right?????

I honestly don’t know. These backbenchers are completely nuts. They might not care.

She’s Ba-aack

The Hill this morning:

Former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson on Thursday launched a bid for chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), jumping into a crowded field of candidates vying to rebuild the party after its general election losses last month. 

Well, I do agree with this:

In fact, it’s important that we recognize the psychological and emotional dimensions of Trump’s appeal. We need to understand it to create the energy to counter it. MAGA is a distinctly 21^st century political movement and it will not be defeated by a 20^th century tool kit. Data analysis, fundraising, field organizing, and beefed-up technology – while all are important – will not be enough to prepare the way for Democratic victory in 2024 and beyond.

Ignore for a moment that 2024 is all but over. Williamson is older than I am, and I would never pitch myself as a leader for a new generation. With her campaign record, winning the DNC chair would take a miracle. Maybe a full course in miracles. Turns out she has written a manifesto too.

Policy doesn’t drive voting behavior

There are many changes Democrats might and should undertake going forward. Not because of Donald Trump. Because of Democrats. Among them, replacing their gerontocracy with younger leaders with 21st-century media skills. But we’ve been over that. Another is finding a work-around for conservative media dominance. While Democrats’ branding and message discipline is slowly improving, no amount of narrative brilliance will penetrate the public mind until they’ve addressed their “when a tree falls in the forest” problem.

It is an idée fixe on the left that politics is about kitchen-table issues and policies. So many post-mortem criticisms explain Donald Trump’s November win as Kamala Harris focusing too little on this or too much on that. Focusing too much on this group and not enough on another, as though minor tweaks (more attention to the critic’s complaint) might have changed the outcome.

Typical is a Jacobin article floated yesterday on a lefty listserv: “No, Economic Populism Did Not Lose This Election.” Economic populism works, the authors argue. Populism is popular. Polls show it. Studies show it across “a variety of statistical specifications, and accounting for an array of district characteristics,” etc.

So why did Harris lose? Because her campaign was insufficiently populist. Because she was insufficiently populist. And Joe Biden too. While his Build Back Better plans started out that way, “the policies that ultimately passed — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — while steps in the right direction, were simply not ambitious enough to demonstrate that the party is serious about delivering for the working class.” Etc. And “Biden was simply not capable of connecting with the people to convey his economic vision.”

The critique triggered a memory of something Rick Perlstein observed about conservatives almost 20 years ago while presenting at a Princeton University conference, “The Conservative Movement: Its Past, Present, and Future.” The event featured a roster of conservative luminaries and one liberal turd in their punchbowl: Perlstein. Conservatives, he argued, debate whether this or that figure claiming the mantle is or is not a “real” conservative. He later wrote (emphasis mine):

In conservative intellectual discourse there is no such thing as a bad conservative. Conservatism never fails. It is only failed. One guy will get up, at a conference like this, and say conservatism, in its proper conception, is 33 1/3 percent this, 33 1/3 percent that, 33 1/3 percent the other thing. Another rises to declaim that the proper admixture is 50-25-25.

It is, among other things, a strategy of psychological innocence. If the first guy turns out to be someone you would not care to be associated with, you have an easy, Platonic, out: with his crazy 33-33-33 formula–well, maybe he’s a Republican. Or a neocon, or a paleo. He’s certainly not a conservative. The structure holds whether it’s William Kristol calling out Pat Buchanan, or Pat Buchanan calling out William Kristol.

Or a critic at Jacobin or The New Republic or The Nation calling out Harris and Biden for not being a real populist or a real progressive. As Digby once observed, “‘Conservative’ is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives’ good graces. Until they aren’t. At which point they are liberals.” Per the horseshoe theory of politics, the same dynamic explains how the left accounts for its own failures and defends its political dogmas.

Read the room, people. Look who a majority of Americans just elected president again knowing all they know about him. Yet it is an idée fixe on the left that politics is about kitchen-table issues and pet policies. On TikTok, @legaldad confronted the notion directly: All the policy stances MAGA says it cares about, it doesn’t really care about. They’re not what drives voting behavior. Deeper urges do. Yes, some of them are economically tinged.

The same day, the Washington Post ran a story that Latino men flocked to Trump’s puffed-up image of success driven by the prosperity gospel:

“Kamala said, ‘Trump is for the rich, I fight for the poor.’ But I don’t want to be low-class — I hope that’s not a bad way to say it. But I don’t want to be there,” said Christian Pion, 31, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. He became a U.S. citizen last year, a decade after coming to the United States from the Dominican Republic, and cast his first presidential ballot for Trump. “God doesn’t want you to be poor.”

[…]

In the past half-century, driven by larger-than-life pastors, it has overtaken other more traditional theologies centered on God’s priority being poor and disenfranchised people, some experts said. This belief system, they said, helps explain what exit polls showed was a significant shift among Latino Christian voters to Trump, who they see as an uber-successful, strong and God-focused striver.

Policies that deliver tangible results matter. They instill confidence that government can be a force for good in people’s lives. But these days, policies don’t drive voter behavior as liberal intellectuals think they should. When Covid relief checks landed in people’s mailboxes with Trump’s name on them, voters credited Trump with delivering money that Congress appropriated. It wasn’t the policy that won him support so much as the marketing.

Do Democrats need to win back more of the working class? Sure. But in an identitarian era more than ever, nobody wants to be seen as poor. Populism may be popular in polling, but voting behavior is not economic policy-driven, if ever it was. So long as the left fails to question its political dogmas and address grittier structural issues and voters’ psychological drives, we’ll be seeing the same critiques Perlstein saw again and again, only on the left.

Merry Christmas from your once and future president. He’s just trying to bring us all together:

He takes every disgusting, imbecilic thing he does, anything that makes the decent half of the country sick to its stomach, and doubles down on it to own the libs.

Don’t ever let this become normal.

Update —

He reposted this. They just love this stuff.

🎄 Take a moment to watch this heartwarming Christmas video from President Biden.

A beautiful reminder of the normalcy, kindness, and decency his administration has brought.

We’re truly going to miss him. pic.twitter.com/Vn8ncxVadj

— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) December 25, 2024

I usually put the original up on Christmas Day but I thought this was well done.

War is never over, unfortunately. But it could be…

The show was sponsored by @CocaCola who after seeing Charlie Brown on the 1965 cover of Time, asked about the possibility of sponsoring an hour-long animated holiday special. CBS and Coke only gave them $76,000. pic.twitter.com/goanheEMoc

— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) December 9, 2024

Peanuts and MAD magazine formed me. I think it explains a lot …

Is it still there?

Thanks to Brian Klaas at The Garden of Forking Paths for the story of the Gävle, Sweden’s Christmas Goat:

The Gävle Goat is currently being protected by 24-hour guards who patrol the perimeter nonstop, two security fences, CCTV, and the constant vigilance of volunteers around the world who watch a streaming image of it to detect and deter any malfeasance.

“While the town of Gävle diligently tries to protect its magnificent Goat, it rarely succeeds. In the last 57 years, the Goat has survived intact until New Year’s just 19 times.”

From the goat’s own website:

From the first Sunday of Advent, the thirteen-meter-tall Gävle Goat lights up Rådhusesplanaden in Gävle – a beloved landmark and symbol of our Christmas tradition. With its central location, the goat becomes a natural gathering spot along the bustling holiday walkways, inviting people to explore Söder’s cozy shopping district. Be sure to visit Agnes Cultural House as well, welcoming Gävle locals and visitors with inspiration and culture from December 6.

If you can’t access Klaas’s more colorful account, there’s some history here, including the town’s efforts to keep vandals from burning down the goat, part of an unsanctioned local tradtion of destroying the symbol of Christmas. Check and see if it’s still there via the goat-cam.

Happy Hollandaise!

Enjoy

This charming song and arresting video by local artist Lord Stryrofoam (Robert Henderson) is a holiday tradition in our household. Notice the sun traverse at 1:35.

It seems His Lordship survived the hurricane (Nov. 6): “All I can do is try to be compassionate and truthful, even though those things are now completely out of fashion.”

Eyes get misty.

A couple more tuneful cuts here including a snappy Kate Bush cover.

Merry Christmas!