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The Republican Civil War - it will be because we destroyed ourselves

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aggie08
aggie08

Look at you, trying to pretend that your party has any fucking control over Trump. So adorable. Reap what you sow, motherfucker.

Upgrayedd
Upgrayedd
Dnaguy
Dnaguy

My first job was working in the midway at Gattitown making that sweet government salary of 5.15/hr as a 15 year old so this hits close to home…..   But seriously seeing that facade just gave

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RomaVicta

RomaVicta 29907

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1 minute ago, The Dog said:

 

They're good Republicans, they know they can't say out loud that they want to assume full charge of government via a fear-and-hate campaign to protect the greedy, compromised criminal organization they call a political party. Duh.

 

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Ghost of LL

Ghost of LL 15531

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This is incredible.  I just don't have another word for it.  It's not credible.  I never would have guessed three months ago that this outcome was possible so quickly and so publicly.  But here it is, in front of God and everyone--the GQP completely disintegrating into warring factions before they can even swear in their House majority.

Which, I guess, is the point--they don't have a majority.  Because the GQP doesn't look like it's a coherent political party that holds a majority of the seats in the House.  The Republican Party holds about 200 seats.  The other 22 seats (or thereabouts) are held by Independents who call themselves "Republicans" for the sake of campaigns and elections.  But in reality, they're not really members of that Party.

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Dnaguy

Dnaguy 11957

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7 minutes ago, Homercles said:

So is a singularity formed when a leopard eats its own face, or is the face instantly converted to pure energy?

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89659

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19 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

This is incredible.  I just don't have another word for it.  It's not credible.  I never would have guessed three months ago that this outcome was possible so quickly and so publicly.  But here it is, in front of God and everyone--the GQP completely disintegrating into warring factions before they can even swear in their House majority.

Which, I guess, is the point--they don't have a majority.  Because the GQP doesn't look like it's a coherent political party that holds a majority of the seats in the House.  The Republican Party holds about 200 seats.  The other 22 seats (or thereabouts) are held by Independents who call themselves "Republicans" for the sake of campaigns and elections.  But in reality, they're not really members of that Party.

6 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

We're seeing that a fair amount of the House GOP have zero idea how to lead. They only know how to obstruct and/or be a troll. They're happy to let it burn down just how they supported Jan 6th.

They are making the Democrats and Pelosi look extremely competent.

I'm going to tell a few MAGA relatives that this is all by design as the House Freedom Caucus is secretly funded by George Soros to sow dissent among the Republicans.

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Ghost of LL

Ghost of LL 15531

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1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

They are making the Democrats and Pelosi look extremely competent.

I'm going to tell a few MAGA relatives that this is all by design as the House Freedom Caucus is secretly funded by George Soros to sow dissent among the Republicans.

Nancy Pelosi is extremely competent.  She's almost unquestionably the best legislator since Sam Rayburn.  And I'm probably being a bit generous to Rayburn there, given that he presided over a House in which the parties were not nearly as polarized as they are today.

It's impossible to imagine anyone else getting through major pieces of Democratic legislation through narrow majorities, as she did with the ACA, the Infrastructure Bill, and the CHIPS Act.  I still don't know how she got the ACA through.

Pelosi had a small insurgency in 2018, with left-wing members threatening to withhold support and force a floor vote.  What do you know about that today?  Jack shit.  Because she was very capable.  She cut the deals that needed to be cut long before January 3, so that she easily had a majority when it came nut-cutting time.

Kevin McCarthy doesn't deserve to clean Nancy Pelosi's jock strap.

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Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand

Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13585

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"“I didn’t wake up one morning when I was going on the 'Bubba the Love Sponge' show and say I am going to pull a bunch of stuff out of my ass and talk about it,” Tito told the website."

Well, you need to work on that.

https://www.msn.com/en-US/news/politics/maga-alsorans-hurl-witchcraft-rumors-at-newly-elected-florida-republican-she-puts-spells-on-people/ar-AA15XKiT?ocid=sapphireappshare

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54221

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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-vote-gop-trumpism

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Despite his best efforts, the leopards have finally come for Kevin McCarthy’s face. For those not extremely online, I’m referring to a 2015 tweet from YA novelist Adrian Bott: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” 

It’s nearly eight years later and McCarthy is learning this lesson the hard way, as his quixotic quest for the Speakership, which spanned most of that time, is falling apart on C-SPAN. Rumors of an affair (which McCarthy denied) might have derailed McCarthy from taking over the gavel from John Boehner in 2015. And again, in 2018, when McCarthy was set up to be Speaker, Republicans lost the House. Now finally, Republicans have a razor-thin majority, but their party is too dysfunctional to govern. McCarthy is finding it impossible to stop a brakeless freight train driven by morons, making a mess of the 118th Congress before members are even sworn in. 


How Republicans in Congress unraveled isn’t a mystery. There’s a straight line from Newt Gingrich to the Tea Party to Donald Trump to a Colorado congresswoman named Lauren Boebert saying she wants a “single-member motion to vacate.” Such a motion would mean that any member of the House, at any time, could call a new Speaker election. In other words: The Speakership would be held hostage by whichever congressperson was feeling craziest that day. McCarthy has already agreed to a five-member threshold for a motion to vacate, which means that five members can get together and throw sand in the gears whenever they want. Not exactly a recipe for legislative success. 

On Tuesday morning, McCarthy must’ve woken up convinced that he could wear down his fellow Republicans by just holding the vote again and again to get to the 218 votes needed in a quorum of 434. McCarthy lost the first vote, and the second, and the third. Meanwhile, every Democrat voted for Hakeem Jeffries, giving the New York congressman a higher tally than McCarthy, albeit short of 218. Not only were Democrats unified, but they busted out the popcorn to enjoy watching the car crash across the aisle. 

Leading up to his public humiliation, McCarthy had tried everything from threats to appeasement to donations—literally, donating to 17 out of the 20 congresspeople who then prevented him from becoming Speaker. (Well, buying off members of MAGA-world seemed like a good strategy.) You’ll remember that McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago to pose for photos with Trump less than a month after the former president incited the January 6 insurrection. McCarthy did everything he could to placate MAGA, but perhaps because of his close proximity to Trump, or in spite of it, the leopards came for his face anyway. Even Trump’s call on Wednesday morning to back McCarthy didn’t work, as he lost a fourth and fifth vote hours later. 

Sure, there’s some historical precedent for what’s playing out in Congress, though one must stretch back before smartphones, or even the fax machine, to an America comprising 48 states. Indeed, the last time a Speakership ballot went more than one round was 1923, when a group of Republican insurgents prevented Massachusetts congressman Frederick Gillett from becoming Speaker for nine rounds of votes until procedural reforms were considered. In 1923, the group of insurgents wanted something specific; a century later, renegade Republicans don’t appear primarily motivated by policies or appointments. They just don’t seem to want to give McCarthy the job.  

Republicans created a cult of personality around Trump. And now that Trump is off the main stage, the cult no longer has a personality. It’s just a cult with lots of zealotry but no actual tenets or beliefs. And even if McCarthy does eventually prevail, the chaos gripping the House GOP is just a symptom of a larger problem. The Republican Party isn’t really a governing party anymore. It’s an incubator for right-wing celebrities. Republicans didn’t even bother writing a new convention platform in 2020, relying on its reality television host’s demented charisma. And when that didn’t work, and Joe Biden decisively beat Trump, the majority of House Republicans tried overturning the election.

BV Note: Atlanta Braves Baseball GIF by Jomboy Media

It’s not just Trump who Republicans are expected to take marching orders from, but right-wing media figures as well. After McCarthy failed three Speakership contests, Punchbowl’s Max Cohen tweeted, “Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, who’s poised to be chief deputy whip, on what could possibly swing the 19 Jordan voters: “We’ll see what happens when Tucker and Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro start beating up on these guys. Maybe that’ll move it.” Here’s a Republican Party so broken that it needs Tucker Carlson to help them whip votes.

This intrinsic weakness in the GOP allowed the base to run wild, embracing everything from anti-science stupidity to paranoid conspiracy theories. Perhaps, in 2015, Trump led the base. But by 2020, Trump had lost control of the monster he created. The base decided to reward social media stunts with small-dollar donations. Fox News and the right-wing internet ecosystem created a world of mini Trumps, little congressional bomb-throwers like Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz. More motivated by fame than governing, these members seem to want what Real Housewives want: to build their brands. These congressional Kardashians don’t have a governing principle beyond obstruction and attention, of which they’ve all been getting amid this week’s party meltdown.  

Whether or not McCarthy eventually wins the Speakership, this ugly episode is sure to do lasting damage to the party. Republicans are in disarray, and the more they pretend they aren’t, the more clueless they look. Trump and Trumpism have now lost Republicans three elections, but still the party refuses to learn anything from its mistakes. Republicans are scared to take the perhaps short-term political hit to disavow the ash heap of Trumpism. If anything, they seem to be looking for another cult leader to lead them. The party that was once hostage to Trump is now hostage to Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz and his merry band of misfit toys.

 

 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105127

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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-vote-gop-trumpism
Despite his best efforts, the leopards have finally come for Kevin McCarthy’s face. For those not extremely online, I’m referring to a 2015 tweet from YA novelist Adrian Bott: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” 
It’s nearly eight years later and McCarthy is learning this lesson the hard way, as his quixotic quest for the Speakership, which spanned most of that time, is falling apart on C-SPAN. Rumors of an affair (which McCarthy denied) might have derailed McCarthy from taking over the gavel from John Boehner in 2015. And again, in 2018, when McCarthy was set up to be Speaker, Republicans lost the House. Now finally, Republicans have a razor-thin majority, but their party is too dysfunctional to govern. McCarthy is finding it impossible to stop a brakeless freight train driven by morons, making a mess of the 118th Congress before members are even sworn in. 

How Republicans in Congress unraveled isn’t a mystery. There’s a straight line from Newt Gingrich to the Tea Party to Donald Trump to a Colorado congresswoman named Lauren Boebert saying she wants a “single-member motion to vacate.” Such a motion would mean that any member of the House, at any time, could call a new Speaker election. In other words: The Speakership would be held hostage by whichever congressperson was feeling craziest that day. McCarthy has already agreed to a five-member threshold for a motion to vacate, which means that five members can get together and throw sand in the gears whenever they want. Not exactly a recipe for legislative success. 
On Tuesday morning, McCarthy must’ve woken up convinced that he could wear down his fellow Republicans by just holding the vote again and again to get to the 218 votes needed in a quorum of 434. McCarthy lost the first vote, and the second, and the third. Meanwhile, every Democrat voted for Hakeem Jeffries, giving the New York congressman a higher tally than McCarthy, albeit short of 218. Not only were Democrats unified, but they busted out the popcorn to enjoy watching the car crash across the aisle. 
Leading up to his public humiliation, McCarthy had tried everything from threats to appeasement to donations—literally, donating to 17 out of the 20 congresspeople who then prevented him from becoming Speaker. (Well, buying off members of MAGA-world seemed like a good strategy.) You’ll remember that McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago to pose for photos with Trump less than a month after the former president incited the January 6 insurrection. McCarthy did everything he could to placate MAGA, but perhaps because of his close proximity to Trump, or in spite of it, the leopards came for his face anyway. Even Trump’s call on Wednesday morning to back McCarthy didn’t work, as he lost a fourth and fifth vote hours later. 
Sure, there’s some historical precedent for what’s playing out in Congress, though one must stretch back before smartphones, or even the fax machine, to an America comprising 48 states. Indeed, the last time a Speakership ballot went more than one round was 1923, when a group of Republican insurgents prevented Massachusetts congressman Frederick Gillett from becoming Speaker for nine rounds of votes until procedural reforms were considered. In 1923, the group of insurgents wanted something specific; a century later, renegade Republicans don’t appear primarily motivated by policies or appointments. They just don’t seem to want to give McCarthy the job.  
Republicans created a cult of personality around Trump. And now that Trump is off the main stage, the cult no longer has a personality. It’s just a cult with lots of zealotry but no actual tenets or beliefs. And even if McCarthy does eventually prevail, the chaos gripping the House GOP is just a symptom of a larger problem. The Republican Party isn’t really a governing party anymore. It’s an incubator for right-wing celebrities. Republicans didn’t even bother writing a new convention platform in 2020, relying on its reality television host’s demented charisma. And when that didn’t work, and Joe Biden decisively beat Trump, the majority of House Republicans tried overturning the election.
BV Note: 200.gif
It’s not just Trump who Republicans are expected to take marching orders from, but right-wing media figures as well. After McCarthy failed three Speakership contests, Punchbowl’s Max Cohen tweeted, “Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, who’s poised to be chief deputy whip, on what could possibly swing the 19 Jordan voters: “We’ll see what happens when Tucker and Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro start beating up on these guys. Maybe that’ll move it.” Here’s a Republican Party so broken that it needs Tucker Carlson to help them whip votes.
This intrinsic weakness in the GOP allowed the base to run wild, embracing everything from anti-science stupidity to paranoid conspiracy theories. Perhaps, in 2015, Trump led the base. But by 2020, Trump had lost control of the monster he created. The base decided to reward social media stunts with small-dollar donations. Fox News and the right-wing internet ecosystem created a world of mini Trumps, little congressional bomb-throwers like Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz. More motivated by fame than governing, these members seem to want what Real Housewives want: to build their brands. These congressional Kardashians don’t have a governing principle beyond obstruction and attention, of which they’ve all been getting amid this week’s party meltdown.  
Whether or not McCarthy eventually wins the Speakership, this ugly episode is sure to do lasting damage to the party. Republicans are in disarray, and the more they pretend they aren’t, the more clueless they look. Trump and Trumpism have now lost Republicans three elections, but still the party refuses to learn anything from its mistakes. Republicans are scared to take the perhaps short-term political hit to disavow the ash heap of Trumpism. If anything, they seem to be looking for another cult leader to lead them. The party that was once hostage to Trump is now hostage to Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz and his merry band of misfit toys.
 
 

Yes.

And dear god, isn’t it beautiful?
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Dbeasy

Dbeasy 15049

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Not to take anything away from Pelosi, but to the man or woman, she was dealing with highly qualified rational adults in her party, rather than spastic toddlers with the brains of an amoeba that is found throughout the House GOP. 

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bolverk

bolverk 29671

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Interesting analysis from the NYTimes this morning about the GQP being in shambles. With the ongoing chaos on the speaker vote, I hadn't really considered the angle for what it means for Republicans at the state and local levels -- along with how they're going to manage nominating a presidential candidate in 2024.

 

‘Nobody Is in Charge’: A Ragged G.O.P. Stumbles Through the Wilderness
With no unified agenda or clear leadership, Republicans face the prospect that the anti-establishment fervor that has powered the party in recent years could now devour it.

After two days of chaos and confusion on the House floor, Republicans have made it abundantly clear who is leading their party: absolutely no one.

From the halls of Congress to the Ohio Statehouse to the back-room dealings of the Republican National Committee, the party is confronting an identity crisis unseen in decades. With no unified legislative agenda, clear leadership or shared vision for the country, Republicans find themselves mired in intraparty warfare, defined by a fringe element that seems more eager to tear down the House than to rebuild the foundation of a political party that has faced disappointment in the past three national elections.

Even as Donald J. Trump rarely leaves his Florida home in what so far appears to be little more than a Potemkin presidential campaign, Republicans have failed to quell the anti-establishment fervor that accompanied his rise to power. Instead, those tumultuous political forces now threaten to devour the entire party.

Nowhere was that on more vivid display than the House floor, where 20 Republicans on Wednesday stymied their party from taking control for a second day by refusing to support Representative Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker.

The uncertainty continued into the evening on Wednesday. After Mr. McCarthy failed on his sixth attempt to win the leadership position, the House — by a two-vote margin — agreed to adjourn until noon Thursday, a result greeted by hoots and hollers by Democrats hoping to extend his misery late into the night.

“Nobody is in charge,” John Fredericks, a syndicated right-wing radio host and former chairman of Mr. Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns in Virginia, said in an interview. “Embrace the chaos. Our movement is embracing the chaos.”

Spoiler

That ideology of destruction defies characterization by traditional political labels like moderate or conservative. Instead, the party has created its own complicated taxonomy of America First, MAGA and anti-Trump — descriptions that are more about political style and personal vendettas than policy disagreements.

This iteration of the Grand Old Party, with its narrow majority in the House empowering conservative dissidents, represents a striking reversal of the classic political maxim that Democrats need to fall in love while Republicans just fall in line.

“The members who began this have little interest in legislating, but are most interested in burning down the existing Republican leadership structure,” said Karl Rove, the Republican strategist who embodies the party’s pre-Trump era. “Their behavior shows the absence of power corrupts just as absolutely as power does.”

Mr. Fredericks, who is typically one of the most aggressive pro-Trump voices in the conservative news media, said that even the former president’s renewed endorsement of Mr. McCarthy on Wednesday would do little to shore up the would-be speaker’s support.

Indeed, none of Mr. McCarthy’s opponents reversed course after receiving calls from Mr. Trump encouraging them to do so. Rather, Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado took to the floor to urge her “favorite president” to change his view and tell Mr. McCarthy to withdraw his bid.

“The movement has eclipsed its Trump leadership,” Mr. Fredericks said on Wednesday. “We found 20 new leaders.”

That’s a very different definition of a leader from the traditional image of a legislator muscling policy through Congress and reshaping American life. In the new conservative ecosystem, leaders are born of the outrage that drives news coverage on the right and fuels online fund-raising.

The new political dynamics distinguish this class of Republican agitators from the self-styled revolutionaries who took control under former Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1994 or the Tea Party lawmakers who clashed with Speaker John Boehner after the party’s 2010 triumph. Those insurgent movements aspired to change the vision of the party. This group of House lawmakers, their Republican critics say, are focused far more on their personal power.

“There’s been a growing tolerance of people who do not act in good faith who consistently diminish the institution for their personal gain and advancement,” said former Representative Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who was in the House for the first two years of the Trump administration. “This is the most dramatic manifestation of that toxic culture.”

While few voters are likely to be following every twist in the arcane congressional procedure, several Republicans acknowledged that the party’s infighting in the House could saddle it with an enduring perception of dysfunction.

Matt Brooks, the executive director of the powerful Republican Jewish Coalition, called for the “infidels” to pay a “real price” for their opposition, adding, “There are elements of us looking like the Keystone Kops.”

At least a few Republicans worried that the drama could have long-term effects, as the party heads into what increasingly looks like a contentious battle for the 2024 presidential nomination.

“We have to get this speakership settled and we have to go forward if we want to be successful in 2024 as a united party,” Ronna McDaniel, who faces a stiff challenge this month to her leadership of the Republican National Committee, said on Fox News on Tuesday. Pleading for lawmakers to unify behind Mr. McCarthy, she said, “This Republican-on-Republican infighting is only hurting one thing: our party.”

The uproar on the House floor even prompted some Republicans to praise a Democrat who has for years been one of their most reviled figures.

“Nancy Pelosi is the most effective speaker this country has ever had,” said former Representative Billy Long of Missouri, who claims to have coined the phrase “Trump Train” in 2015. “She never missed. She would get her people. She’d get the votes by hook or by crook.”

For their part, Democrats largely declined to comment on the spectacle. They didn’t need to: The images from President Biden’s appearance on Wednesday in Kentucky — where he shook hands with Senator Mitch McConnell in front of a bridge project funded by their bipartisan legislation — cut a sharp contrast with the arguments and pained glances on the House floor.

“It’s a little embarrassing it’s taking so long, and the way they are dealing with one another,” Mr. Biden said of House Republicans on Wednesday as he left the White House. “What I am focused on is getting things done.”

The Republican unrest has trickled down to places like the Ohio Statehouse, where State Representative Jason Stephens, a moderate Republican, joined with Democrats this week to snatch the speakership from State Representative Derek Merrin, who has co-sponsored some of the chamber’s most conservative legislation. The surprising outcome reflected the Republican caucus’s inability to unify behind a single candidate despite holding a two-thirds majority.

The Republican National Committee is also facing questions over Ms. McDaniel’s leadership. Like Mr. McCarthy, she predicted sweeping victories before the November election, and she is now being challenged by Harmeet Dhillon of California, an R.N.C. member who has argued that there must be consequences for the party’s failure to meet expectations.

Both Republican conflicts have split the conservative news media, with Tucker Carlson of Fox News backing the insurgencies while his prime-time colleagues have urged Republicans to coalesce behind Mr. McCarthy.

As in the House, the R.N.C. fight isn’t about conservative bona fides or fund-raising prowess or even fealty to Mr. Trump. Ms. Dhillon’s case against Ms. McDaniel is that the party didn’t perform strongly enough in November — and that if more Republicans had won in competitive House races, Mr. McCarthy would not be beholden to the members who have held hostage his bid to be speaker.

For House Republicans on either side of the speaker’s drama, one big question is how their constituents react. Representative Darin LaHood, a McCarthy supporter who represents a conservative district in central and Northern Illinois, said there was “no support in my district for what these guys are doing.”

Martha Zoller, a conservative talk radio host in northeast Georgia, said she had heard this week from several local party organizations that are upset with Representative Andrew Clyde, the area’s Republican congressman, over his opposition to Mr. McCarthy.

Yet while Ms. Zoller said she was partial to Mr. McCarthy as a House Republican leader, she said she and others in her corner of Georgia would like to see Republicans move on from Ms. McDaniel, whom she blamed for the party’s poor midterm showing.

“She orchestrated a lot of losses,” Ms. Zoller said. “It’s kind of like being a head football coach. When you lose, sometimes you’ve got to take the hit, even when it wasn’t your fault, and you’ve got to move on.”

In Washington, Republicans aligned with Mr. McCarthy found themselves increasingly agitated at a turn of events that had left their party paralyzed.

“I don’t blame the public if they take a negative view,” said Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, who labeled the anti-McCarthy cadre “the Taliban 19” before its numbers grew. “This is dysfunctional, and I hate it myself. I can understand if the public does, too.”

 

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