2023-10-24 16:12:00
Tom Emmer leaving a meeting of Republicans to find new candidates for speaker of the House of Representatives. NATHAN HOWARD | REUTERS
Internal divisions and pressure from the ultra wing led by Trump lengthen the political vacuum that prevents the White House from governing
24 oct 2023 . Updated at 4:12 p.m.
Have passed three weeks since Kevin McCarthy was defenestrated by the ultra wing of his own party, which punished him for having carried out with Democratic votes an allocation of funds to avoid the closure of the Government until next November 17. This Tuesday there will be a new attempt to name a replacementthe third in three weeks.
The man who goes up to the voting screen with helmet and spear has to be elected in a closed-door vote among members of the Republican party in the Lower House, before being subjected to a vote in which Democrats will also participate. This Monday night he offered each of the nine proposed candidates two minutes to introduce themselves, followed by an hour and a half of questions and answers and, finally, a golden minute each with which to close this kind of electoral debate as a campaign. The night was tense. He reigned anxiety in the game. Everyone is aware that the spectacle that has ended death threats against those who did not vote for Jim Jordan It has been embarrassing. The Freedom Caucus, which includes the most radical representatives and supporters of Donald Trump, said this Monday that it had been a mistake to let the conference dissolve and the deputies go home for the weekend. Now the slogan is that no one will leave Washington until there is a speaker. Without it, the US is paralyzed. Joe Biden’s speeches promising millions in national security aid for Ukraine, Israel and the border are a dead letter as long as there is no leader of the Lower House who can direct the negotiations and put them to a vote.
That explains that the democrats be the first interested in ending the regrettable spectacle of the opposition. Biden’s party was willing to grant special powers to the interim president, Patrick McHenry, until January, so that Jordan would have time to work on the support he lacked to be elected in three failed votes. However, the Freedom Caucus, which had imposed him by force against the original candidate, Steve Scalise – who had to withdraw under pressure without being voted on in the plenary session – does not want to prolong the ordeal and has decided to sacrifice him.
It is unknown if he will support whoever is elected from that closed-door party meeting. Nebraska Congressman Mike Flood was trying to get his co-religionists to sign a pledge to support whoever the party chose, but it was unknown if the most radical would adhere to him. On the horizon you could see a inconvenient to achieve the desired unity: Trump.
Disloyalty
And it is that two of the nine strongest candidatesconsidered moderates, —the number two congressman, Tom Emmer, and Florida representative Byron Donalds—, Votoron in January 2021 in favor of the certification of the electoral results that gave victory to Joe Biden. A capital sin of disloyalty that the former president will not forgive them. If either of the two were elected with the support of the ultra wing, it would mean the first schism between it and its de facto leader.
Emmer started with an advantage by having the support of the defenestrated House leader whom he is trying to replace, McCarthy, “who has urged his coreligionists to end this internal war and concentrate on the people’s affairs.” He also has the support of other prominent Republicans, such as Buddy Carter, Pete Stauber and Brad Finstad, while Donalds has his fellow Florida members, such as Mario Díaz Balart and Cori Mills, as well as a quartet of representatives from Michigan. These supports are, in themselves, proof of how the party has moved towards the extreme right, to the point of turning someone like the Cuban-American Díaz Balart into a moderate. They are the last ones who can keep the party afloat before it shipwrecks into populism.
Filed under: Joe Biden Donald Trump White House
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