1mo ago

Republicans fear Speaker battle means they "can't certify the election"

www.newsweek.com Republicans fear Speaker battle means they "can't certify the election"

Some Republicans are urging President-elect Donald Trump to reaffirm his support for Speaker Mike Johnson.

Summary

House Speaker Mike Johnson faces growing Republican dissent over his handling of government funding, potentially jeopardizing his reelection as speaker on January 3.

Allies are urging Donald Trump to reaffirm his support for Johnson to avoid a prolonged leadership fight, which could delay certification of Trump’s 2024 election victory on January 6.

Johnson’s bipartisan spending bill, criticized by Trump, narrowly averted a government shutdown but failed to include Trump’s core debt-limit demands.

Some Republicans warn that a speakerless House would disrupt critical legislative processes, including election certification.

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I just cannot believe that this country is going to be run by the worst / stupidest people and all because a lot of stupid people think Biden sets the prices of groceries...
- I keep telling people, it's not the darkest timeline we ended up in, but the dumbest one. Reality is always much dumber than you'd expect.
  
  There's still plenty of time for it to be both.
  
  Yea, darkest would probably be everyone surviving H bombs, but leaving us in nuclear winter.
- There's a word for it: Kakistocracy
  
  Thank you, President Camacho.
- I just can't believe that January 6th 2021 ended up meaning absolutely nothing. Zero! Unreal.
  
  J6 proved you can go as far as outright insurrection against the federal government and (if you're white nationalists) a wing of the government will protect you.
  It means quite a bit. If Trump takes office and starts signing pardons for all these guys, it means radicalizing a huge swath of the public. Go ahead and do some crimes. Do some terrorism. Kill some cops if you have to. Trump and his friends will have your back.
  
  We'll be lucky if it ends up meaning absolutely zero...
- It does have precedent though. That's how Reagan won in a landslide. Very similar circumstances - inflation, small military disaster, uninspiring president. Of course Reagan wasn't as depraved and dumb as Trump so he won by a lot more.
  However inflation definitely has a history of short circuiting voters' brains. Maybe it has something to do with how the media doesn't really understand it and does a terrible job explaining it to people. I'd guess at most 5% of voters know that there are multiple inflation measures - some of which were already rising during Trump's term - and that the typically-reported number is over the last 12 months, not right now (meaning the "record low inflation" at the end of Trump's term included the whole start of the pandemic when there was deflation). Republicans are great at filling an information vacuum with their narrative, so they said it was Biden's fault and people fell for that easy explanation.
- Here's a big part of the problem right here:
  
  Yup. Normal Americans are disenfranchised, while flyover country is given more influence. Combine that with dark money being allowed to outright bribe politicians and our democracy is pretty much a joke.

It would be less anger inducing if these idiots didn't fail upwards because others just aren't willing to hold them accountable for anything at all.

They could just choose Musk, Speaker of House does not have to be a member of the house.
So they could just not certify the election and they have (acting) President Musk! 🤡
Edit: Supreme court then rules an "Acting President" doesn't actually need to be a natural born citizen, since he's not technically in office. And also add "This ruling shall only apply to Elon Musk."
- Yeah this is the kind of bs that terrifies me.
  So. 20 Jan; Biden is no longer president. It would pass to the Speaker to be acting President. — and yeah I could see a few yahoos thinking that would be awesome. Ffs
  
  Lol don't worry, trump just joked about how Elon can't be president because he's an immigrant
  
  It legally couldn't pass to Musk, it would pass down to Patty Murray, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
  "Patricia Lynn Murray is an American politician and president pro tempore of the United States Senate since 2023 and the senior United States Senator from Washington since 1993. A member of the Democratic Party, Murray served in the Washington State Senate from 1989 to 1993. She was Washington's first female U.S. senator and is the first woman in American history to hold the position of president pro tempore. Murray is also the youngest senator to occupy the office of president pro tempore in more than five decades. As president pro tempore, Murray is third in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency."
  So yeah... They won't, but if they botched everything spectacularly, it would fall to a Democrat.
  Edit: note it says she is the youngest in 50 years... She's 74 years old!
- Please tell me you're not a writer for this coming season of Orange Turd in the White House.
  Because I couldn't take the stress from the last season.
  
  I'm sorry about that we did decide to slow things down a little this season. Elon should become Speaker in the 2027 Congress and then Trump and Vance are double impeached for corporate treason. We expect Elon's state of emergency to last about a decade before Texas votes to be annexed by Russia.
  -Sincerely, Outside Dev Team

which could delay certification of Trump’s 2024 election victory on January 6.
The MAGA movement, newly emboldened by Trump's election victory, storms the capital again to overthrow the Trump administration and install a more pro-Trump regime.
- Trumpiest regime ever. Some say it's not Trumpy enough but they are losers.
- If the certification of Trump's election is delayed past January 20th, what happens? Would his accession to power be delayed? Could he use this delay to justify postponing the next election?

When you ignore the whole fucking up democracy and the potential for far reaching effects.
Not able to elect your Speaker from your own party to certify your party’s incoming President is comedy gold.
- It's a power struggle within the party that signifies a split between the business wing and the purely ideological wing.
  You don't see this on the Dem side of the aisle because there's no split. The party is dominated by the business wing of the party and votes in lockstep for the benefit of its financial interests.
  Republicans used to be like this, too. But the miserable economic conditions of red states combined with the more flagrant fascist propaganda in alt-right media has produced a core of Congresspeople who are more invested in white nationalist theory than simply profiting off their constituents.
  Neither of these situations is particularly good. No matter who wins, we lose.

It would be hilarious if the Dems flipped 1 or 2 Republicans and took the majority leader spot for half a second.
Trump would have a full on temper tantrum.
- Start naming MoH recipients, astronauts, and other non-partisan "American Hero" candidates outside the house. There is no requirement that the Speaker be a congressperson.

The GOP wants the election certification to become a murky uncertain process. Trump won the electoral college and will be the next president - that isn't in doubt.
However, if they make confirmation a confused process then in the next election they can subvert the process and steal it.
- More like they created a legal theory that if you're not certified on Jan 6, then there's no process to handle the transition and so it's all up in the air
  Then, they assumed every president would use this "loophole" if only they could
  Everything is projection with them

These guise don’t even know how to win.
- This is also why Project 2025 will only be half implemented. Too many people working at cross purposes while trying to change an unfathomably complex system. They aren't united in purpose; they only look that way on the surface.
  Mind you, the bits that do get rammed through will be terrible enough.
  
  All it takes is one chimpanzee to sling their own shit in the general direction of a complex machine and you risk the shit seeping inside and doing permanent damage. The problem is that it's not just one. Trump has a whole army of chimps with their dicks in one hand and their shit in the other. And all they care about is covering the machine in so much waste that nobody will want to touch it even if it does still appear to work.
  
  True. Things would need to escalate towards some night of the long knives (in minecraft) of the republican party for either Trump or Elmo to gain absolute power.
- Dis guise in dis array.

This feels like such a microcosm of the Republican party: everyone gets elected on a wide array of misinformation, conspiracy, and empty populist rhetoric, but then fight over leadership because no one person can unify the diverse party they cobbled together to win the popular vote.
- The Republicans have been so focused on grabbing power for themselves that they can't even figure out who should have power when it has to be centralized.

So if they fail to elect a speaker and can’t certify before the 20th, in theory Chuck Grassely as president pro tempore of the senate, would assume office at least until such time that the votes would be certified.
That’s assuming they keep with tradition of electing the most senior member of the party in power to the position. In all likelyhood if this were even a remote possibility they’d put some trump loyalist in the position until trump was sworn in. Grassley may be a loyalist, I’m not entirely sure. And of course this is assuming the senate has their shit together. If they don’t, I think the current Secretary of State gets it.
- If you expect any of them to hold to tradition you'll be disappointed
  
  They'll hold to traditional when it suits them. There's no particular reason why they would turn against Chuck.
- If they don't certify on time, it's supposed to go to a contingent election, where the House votes for the President (with 1 vote per State delegation) and the Senate votes for VP. Presumably, the Senate would vote for Vance in short order. But if the House still can't get it's shit together, and there is no contingent election for President, what happens? Would Vance get directly inaugurated as President?
  I am convinced that this was the loophole that Trump was talking about to deny the Presidency to Harris if she won the election. It would be poetic justice if the GOP establishment uses it to screw Trump over.
  
  To clarify:
  A contingent election occurs if Congress will not choose a president. This, theoretically, would only occur in the case of an electoral college tie but can also occur if Congress refuses to certify for whatever reason.
  In the event both Certification and a Contingent election cannot occur by the 20th, we have an Acting President according to the line of succession.
  Without a speaker, they cannot hold a Contingent Election. With a speaker, they would not need to.
  
  Ah good point. In this case Vance could be elected as vice president in the senate, and the assume the office of president until the house gets its shit together
- I mean, the senate could just remove him as senate pres pro-temp on Jan 19, and pick some ~~republican~~ maga loyalist, so he won't ever become acting president.

“Maybe if we wait long enough, someone will kill him and we can try again”

So they've sabotaged their own January 6th now.
That is delightful.

Democrats seriously need to start naming viable speaker candidates from outside of the House.
Former Navy Captain and Astronaut Scott Kelly, brother of Senator Mark Kelly, would make an excellent choice for Speaker. Line up the Democrats behind a true American hero, just to compare them to the quarter-wit that the GOP puts up against them.

Oh I will chuckle if numb nuts can't get certified bcz the Republicans are rekt.

Fuck em! Let em fight!
I want the Republican party split so they never win again!
Let every Republican in congress keel over, it'll be a Christmas miracle.

Fuckem.

It's a Kabuki show to give them an excuse to reject the election results and do something even worse.

If it can be questioned when they get what they want, then it lays the groundwork for it to be questioned when they don't.

Another article that does nothing but let Republicans live rent free in lefties heads
- I bet you didn't even read it.
- Yeah how dare we worry about the futures of the people we care about.
  
  claims to care
  upvotes meaningless article that has nothing to do with preparing for a better future
  Admit it, this is a community of hobbiests at best, not people actually working to improve or dismantle the system

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