There really needs to be some way for the minority party to step in and do the work if the majority cannot function.
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2026
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They can oust the speaker with a very small number of defections that would achieve a majority. There's no motivation for the minority factions within the majority to do so though - the only chance they have of passing their hardline agenda is by refusing to give the majority the ability to do anything. This isn't a problem if you have a much larger majority but they're barely holding onto the title right now.
Unfortunately, the rebels are on the far right. They may vote to oust Johnson, but they’ll never vote to give Jeffries or any other Democrat the speakership. We’d be back in the endless cycle of Speaker votes that brought Johnson into power.
Are there any examples of the majority party electing a Speaker from the opposing party?
Seems like a given that they wouldn't vote for Jeffries
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Exactly. Even if it's just a couple of republicans, there are enough who don't like Johnson that it could happen...
Then 12 or 15 votes later, the rpublicans look like morons...again.
Too bad establishment republicans have neither the spine, or the moral fortitude to not roll over and assume the position.
Republicans are conservatives, authoritarians, the most important thing for them is adherence to the group. If they valued anything else more, they wouldn't be Republicans.
In Canada we call an election.
The problem is that the American system isn't parliamentary. There isn't a button to push to reset Congress.
Well, you might say that is one of the problems.
Like in a bowling alley, when the ball doesn't trip the sensor and the pins don't reset...canada has that for government?
I want one!
It's called a "confidence vote". It's not every bill, and I forget what makes it confidential, but if budgets and big things don't get passed parliament has no confidence in the government and an election happens. The two states of governance are A: a majority government where the ruling party has enough votes to pass anything they like. And B: a minority government that would have to make concessions and entice the other parties to vote with them. Minority governments are better IMO because they theoretically represent more people.
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The moment a bill doesnt pass it instantly triggers our government dissolving and a new election, up here.
canada chucks another ball down the lane?
(is joke i know you press the button and wait for the employee to walk down the gutters and kick the pin resetter and then run away because kicking pin resetters has killed a lot of people but it's how you get them to work)
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There is. They can find enough willing defectors from the majority faction to become the majority themselves, vacate the chair and install someone else as speaker. If you're talking about a way for the minority to seize control of the chamber against the will of the majority, well, I challenge you to find a way to describe the rules for how that should work in a way that isn't easily gameable.
The problem is that would be extremely short lived, even if it succeeds. And it won’t succeed because from the perspective of most of the minority republicans, democrats are far, far, worse.
The Democrats could help put someone like Cassidy into the speakership. (But, you know, from the house.)
Someone who doesn't say they're running the protection program. Someone who will exercise the power of Congress as a co-equal branch of government. Someone who will stop ceding congressional power to Trump. Hell, maybe even someone who would help restore the independence of independent executive agencies.
Likely would be someone on the way out, but good enough for now. I feel like all that isn't asking for much, just the basic duty of the job.
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Honestly... Well regulated state militias were supposed to exist for a reason. The founding fathers weren't able to see the technology of the future but they were able to see the oppression of the future. They wrote the Constitution with their terms at their time. Modern politicians have chosen to abandon most aspects of the Constitution. But they were in there for a reason.
The founding fathers envisioned that every state, every community, any brotherhood or fellowship of men and or women would have a standing army that they could summon anytime to stop federal overreach, as well as the overreach of the corrupt and shiftless. that is the entire purpose of the second amendment.
The founders were, by a majority, against elections and wanted Presidents to be appointed by Congress. Americans care far too much about what those slave-owning shits intended. It was after all a quarter of a millennium ago.
The founders ... wanted Presidents to be appointed by Congress.
So, like a... prime congressman? All the ~~ministers~~ congressmen vote in a Prime ~~Minister~~ Congressman to form the executive?
I agree with them entirely. The US is currently paralysed by a system where you need both a president and congress to agree before you can do anything, so if you have one opposed to the other then the entire government is basically useless and unable to reform anything until the president/balance of congress changes.
A parliamentary system avoids that problem by design - if the PM can't get enough votes from the parliament, then he doesn't have enough to "form a government" (I.e. become PM) in the first place. And if he ever loses majority support in parliament and thus can't pass any bills, then parliament can kick him out via a No Confidence vote with simple majority support, so that someone who does have majority support (or gains it via negotiating support from independents/minor parties) can become PM themselves and the government is able to function.
Switching to a parliamentary system would be the quickest and easiest method of preventing another situation like Obama's uselessness for most of his presidency because of a Republican-controlled senate.
I swear he does this biweekly
He was picked precisely because he's a spineless, vulnerable back bencher.
He doesn't fundraise well enough to threaten party members with money. He doesn't have a large popular base of support within the public. And he doesn't even play well with the billionaire class to get Elon Musk to yell at people for him.
The only reason he hasn't been tossed out like Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy is because there's nobody to replace him.
They work six months out of the year for six figures and they get to go home early, what a country
America has voted to allow this for decades. Too late to bitch about it now.
No, it hasn't voted to allow it. That's not on the provided ballots, unfortunately... and none of the options on the ballot will change this.
And it's never too late to bitch, we are allowed to bitch until we die whether you like it or not.
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i suppose this is when the bipartisan housing bill that dipshit refused to sign gets vetoed.
Too bad they got the master surveillance and internet censorship bipartisan Bill through before this happened
Priorities, naturally. And the very very very first thing they ever did was a tax cut for billionaires...
Absolute scumbags.
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Could be the whole plan. An unsigned bill becomes law if Congress remains in session, or gets the "pocket veto" if they leave, isn't that the rules?
The worst Speaker in a generation, at least.
agreed, and that's a hard record to beat what with Hastert still being alive
GOP have really shown us how well they don’t know how to govern effectively.
It isn’t as much as not knowing how to govern as much as they just don’t want to. They are managing a power shift away from those that do. Only there to grab power and if they can also fit some grift in they will.
CNN was purchased by the Ellison family (along with CBS), you think they are still a trusted news source?
What are your specific concerns about the article?
Being aware of bias and potential concerns about accuracy is good, but it's not just some catch-all thing where you dismiss something entirely because it may be biased or because you have this broad notion that it's untrustworthy. That just leads to either a) total hypocrisy or b) being forced to dismiss everything, because everything is biased. And trust is something that you always have to test and reaffirm. Sources are trustworthy because they continue to pass those tests.
Noting the bias of the source is just step one. If you're not willing to do the rest of the steps then you're not actually contributing anything.
I'm expecting that CNN is going through or will go through an overhaul that shifts their editorial stance to the right similar to what happened at CBS. Right after the acquisition CBS cancelled their segment on El Salvador's CECOT prison and then fired the correspondent responsible for it. Bari Weiss has no broadcast journalism experience and is firing correspondents including Scott Pelley and dozens of others. They shuttered their radio division. The Ellisons are not just involved in business and media. They are supplying Israel with computer systems that are being used against Gaza and Lebanon- they are using an AI targeting system to kill people and destroy vital infrastructure like hospitals and schools.
All of the playbooks to take over and control a society involve controlling the media. This isn't a trivial matter and it's happening. So yeah I asked if people see any changes happening at CNN yet.
I'm expecting exactly the same thing. But we don't assume that reality conforms to our expectations. We assess. We judge. We use fact based examinations of empirical evidence
Dismissing the validity of a piece of reporting because you have a vague feeling about the source is how MAGA got where they are. We can do better than that.
Even a source like Fox News can produce good - or at least useful - reporting from time to time.
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I keep forgetting that Johnson isn't even the most extreme of them. He's still a giant weasel.
His job is just to have a haircut that makes it seem sensible to do whatever it is that they want to do.
When Trump refused to sign the Housing Bill, a lot of people expected Johnson to adjourn the house to avoid it becoming law. This is on-brand for him.
Reminds me of Eric Cartman. "Screw you guys. I'm going home."
If democrats were smart...they'd take advantage of republican disunity and move to vacate the speaker's seat...
Jeffries may not be my favorite democrat, but he did manage to keep the party together for how many votes last time?
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The Most Fabulous Squeaker of the House, Mikey ‘Mouse’ Johnson, ladies & gentlemen!
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