There’s quite a bit of punditry today suggesting that the Democrats did the wrong thing by failing to bail out McCarthy yesterday. Here is some important context as to why they voted in unity not to do it from a House staffer named Aaron Fritschner:
Pretty evident people don’t understand a key piece of House Dems’ thinking on McCarthy and governance of the House. The idea that we acted out of schadenfreude or pique with no thought to the legislative outlook is, of course, silly nonsense. Here’s what the takes are missing-
On Saturday morning we had no idea what was happening. Scalise told the GOP they were moving bills that signaled imminent shutdown. This is what we expected. Then McCarthy suddenly and unexpectedly did an about face and announced a vote on a CR. We didn’t know what to make of it.
How to interpret this? McCarthy has resisted doing this all along, the wingnuts threatened to kick him out if he did it and he was running every play at their call. My immediate read was he wanted and expected us to vote against the suspension so we would be blamed for a shutdown
I said this then (see below). And our members believed it, in fact without naming names I can say I heard it from multiple members yesterday as they were weighing how to vote, and that was with hindsight about what happened.
So in this moment, you look to McCarthy for signals—
And what signals is McCarthy sending us?
Dems: “We would like to read the $200 billion, 71-page bill we’ve never seen. You promised 72 hours but we’ll settle for 90 minutes.”
McCarthy: GFY
Dems: well we are going to take that time, but we are satisfied, we’ll pass your bill to help you get out of the jam you created for yourself
McCarthy: the Democrats wanted to shut down the government and f*ck the troops
People want us to give the guy credit for stopping a shutdown but it is still not clear to me right now sitting here writing this that he *intended* to do that.
This really matters and not just on an emotional level- the resolution set up not one but two new legislative problems
Now we have to pass an omnibus or face a shutdown again by Thanksgiving AND we have to fund military assistance to Ukraine pretty soon. But we are told McCarthy is going to help us there, he has made an agreement to help Ukraine.
And what does McCarthy say about that? This:
And what is McCarthy signaling to us on funding? He’s going to steer us directly back into the crazy cuts and abortion restrictions, the Freedom Caucus setting the agenda, breaking his deal with Biden, and driving us towards a shutdown in November
x.com/Olivia_Beavers…Ok we are reasonable people, maybe he’s just telling them what they have to hear and he’ll screw them at the last minute. So what’s he saying to us privately? What reason is he giving us to think any of this is going to turn out well if we help him? None.
x.com/JakeSherman/st…The supposed “institutional interest” would have us not only put out Republicans’ many fires for them, it would have us do so based on our specific belief and trust that *McCarthy is lying*. Like, his lying is supposed to be a good thing, and what sells the arrangement for us.
A speakership founded upon Democrats’ trust that McCarthy will lie to his own guys and not to us is not rational, folks! It isn’t sustainable or reasonable and it’s no way to run the House. We needed him to give us any reason to help him and he very intentionally did not do so.
People say “he couldn’t make a deal it would compromise his power” and they’re just wrong, that was a solvable problem. He could’ve publicly or privately given us a sense the CR was good faith and we were going to get through the omnibus, stave off a shutdown, and help Ukraine.
This came down to trust, and that’s the word I saw and heard from House Democrats more than any other word. We did not trust Kevin McCarthy and he gave us no reason to. He could have done so (and I suspect saved his gavel) through fairly simple actions. He chose not to do that.
Even after all that happened – January 6th, the debt limit crisis, his vengeance against our members, breaking his word to the President, impeachment, empowering the right wing – there were Democrats who were imho willing to help McCarthy if he had given them a reason. He didn’t.
It is completely daft to assume that Democrats could have trusted Kevin McCarthy to get us through this mess. He had run out of rope from the Republicans and he no longer had any ability to make a deal and stick to it and he didn’t seem inclined to try. He was incompetent. He never should have allowed that Motion to Vacate with one person to take effect. He put his own gun to his head.
