Cheney sees cratering support in House GOP as McCarthy says she isn’t ‘carrying out the message’

[pppolitics]

(CNN) — 
Rep. Liz Cheney’s days as the No. 3 in House GOP leadership appear to be numbered, with speculation growing about her replacement and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy contending she has failed to do her job in driving the party’s message to take back the majority.

Cheney has grown increasingly isolated within her conference amid her feud with former President Donald Trump, a battle that intensified after she was one of just 10 Republicans who backed his impeachment on a charge of inciting the January 6 insurrection and as she’s called out his lie that he actually won the 2020 election.

But on Tuesday, McCarthy claimed her impeachment vote wouldn’t cost her the job. Instead, he said that she has not done enough to keep the party unified behind a singular message to win back the majority next year, the clearest sign yet that he might seek to oust her as soon as next week.

“I have heard from members, concerned about her ability to carry out the job as conference chair, to carry out the message,” McCarthy told Fox News on Tuesday morning. “We all need to be working as one, if we’re able to win the majority. Remember, majorities are not given, they are earned, and that’s about the message about going forward.”

[...]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/04/politics/cheney-kevin-mccarthy-gop-leadership-fight/index.html

[pppolitics]

I guess it's clear going forward that GOP has no room for anyone that doesn't worship the Donald God.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1389597527717076993

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Pubs in disarray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!1!!1!!!

[Calthrina950]

It's interesting how hypocritical and sanctimonious most Congressional Republicans have become, and how they're trying to make us forget that the last four years have happened. They're attacking Biden for not being bipartisan, leaning upon the words "socialism" and "big government" to assail his proposals-words which they've used for decades now, and claiming that it is the Democrats, not they, who are the extremists who are out to destroy democracy.

[Crumpets]

They're cancelling her because of her conservative beliefs.

[Torie]

I hope that as she is deposed she leaves as much Pub blood (metaphorically speaking of course) on the floor as possible. The Pubs should pay a price for what they are doing, and their craven approach to dealing with the pathological narcissist, the "virus" that infects them against which there is no vaccine.

And from Politico, here is some unsubstantiated speculation as to a possible backstory of the drama. Yes, I want McCarthy to recount under oath that particular phone call that he had with Trump, word for word - all of it!

"— The other theory is a bit more interesting: You might have missed it, but last week Cheney seemed to endorse the idea of a 9/11-style commission to investigate Jan. 6. Her move came after Speaker NANCY PELOSI agreed to give equal subpoena power and representation to both parties. McCarthy has been notably holding out on making a deal, pushing Pelosi to expand the probe to include extremism on the left, too.

'The reality is that any bipartisan commission on Jan. 6 would almost certainly include a subpoena of McCarthy, whose call with Trump will become a central focus of any investigation. That would put McCarthy in a tough spot, forced to recount on record things Trump may not want out there. Some Republicans believe Cheney’s endorsement of the commission — undercutting McCarthy’s position — put him over the edge."

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

McCarthy's weak and inept responses remind me of the drawn-out dethroning of Theresa May. It seems he can neither defend or move against Cheney, and he's doing a pretty poor job of smoothing over tensions to boot. This reflects badly on his competency as a caucus leader and even if I were in ideological harmony with the guy, I'd be itching to have him replaced.

[Calthrina950]

McCarthy's weak and inept responses remind me of the drawn-out dethroning of Theresa May. It seems he can neither defend or move against Cheney, and he's doing a pretty poor job of smoothing over tensions to boot. This reflects badly on his competency as a caucus leader and even if I were in ideological harmony with the guy, I'd be itching to have him replaced.

This whole saga also helps to demonstrate why he was passed over as Speaker back in 2015 in favor of Paul Ryan. The Republican caucus has never had a great amount of confidence in his abilities.

[Bootes Void]

McCarthy's weak and inept responses remind me of the drawn-out dethroning of Theresa May. It seems he can neither defend or move against Cheney, and he's doing a pretty poor job of smoothing over tensions to boot. This reflects badly on his competency as a caucus leader and even if I were in ideological harmony with the guy, I'd be itching to have him replaced.

This whole saga also helps to demonstrate why he was passed over as Speaker back in 2015 in favor of Paul Ryan. The Republican caucus has never had a great amount of confidence in his abilities.

I mean sure but back in 2015 he also accidentally slipped out that the whole Benghazi probe was to damage Hillary Clinton's polling numbers, and so the GOP cause he can't always stick to message

[MasterJedi]

Republican cancel culture of full display!

[pbrower2a]

The 'message' is that Donald Trump is wonderful, and that he could lose only as the result of electoral fraud. People who should not have voted did, and that is why we do not have the Great and Infallible Leader that we had in Donald Trump.

Truth be told, Trump came much closer to winning than most people not in the Trump Cult  (which is full of people who generally see nobody who supports anyone other than Trump, or whose Trump-despising relatives and co-workers know enough to say nothing derogatory about him in their presence.

The statistical evidence against this contention is that if one takes the 2016 Presidential election and adjusts it with the reality that about 1.6% of the electorate dies off every year, almost entirely among people over 55, and that younger voters replace them in the electorate, the replacement of voters typically about 5% more R than D by voters about 20% more D than R explains the difference between 2016 and 2020. Trump may have picked up a little support from people who might have voted for Johnson or McMullen in 2016, but that was not enough.

We all saw the polls of 2020 and they indicated that Trump was not going to win. He could get close, but he was not going to win. He did get close.

It's time for Republicans to start looking for ways to win in 2024. Trump is the wrong vehicle. After his unsupportable attempt to nullify the 2020 election he has lost credibility except among those who really believe that he was cheated. There is far more cause for belief in electoral hanky-panky involving the 2000 Presidential election or even the 2016 Presidential election, but those who suspect something awry in either election lacked adequate proof.

A cult believing that there was no way in which their nominee could lose is not enough. Fervency of a belief is not proof.

Joe Biden won.    

[GP270watch]

This is like when Trump took down Comey, Bolton, and a bunch of Bush neocons. I just hit the shrug cause all these people are awful. GOP is getting what it deserves.

[President Johnson]

Repeating Trump's big lie of a stolen election has become a litmus test in Republican politics these days. They have learned nothing of the insurrection and continue to embrace fascism, nativism and the personality cult. The Republican Party is an utter joke.

[Hermit For Peace]

I guess it's clear going forward that GOP has no room for anyone that doesn't worship the Donald God.

[Hermit For Peace]

Repeating Trump's big lie of a stolen election has become a litmus test in Republican politics these days. They have learned nothing of the insurrection and continue to embrace fascism, nativism and the personality cult. The Republican Party is an utter joke.

"Herd think."

We need herd immunity from them.

[Hermit For Peace]

McCarthy's weak and inept responses remind me of the drawn-out dethroning of Theresa May. It seems he can neither defend or move against Cheney, and he's doing a pretty poor job of smoothing over tensions to boot. This reflects badly on his competency as a caucus leader and even if I were in ideological harmony with the guy, I'd be itching to have him replaced.

This whole saga also helps to demonstrate why he was passed over as Speaker back in 2015 in favor of Paul Ryan. The Republican caucus has never had a great amount of confidence in his abilities.

McCarthy just goes wherever the wind blows him. He is no leader. He's a wannabe leader who doesn't have what it takes to run with the big boys (and Liz Cheney). I think of him as a sleazy person.

[ProudModerate2]

What do you think is McCarthy's definition of "carrying out the (GOP) message"?
Hmmmm.

[GeorgiaModerate]

What do you think is McCarthy's definition of "carrying out the (GOP) message"?
Hmmmm.

"Trump is God."

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Valadao has done less to "carry out the (GOP) message" than Cheney. They should be attacking him with just as much vigor, along with the other 8 pro-impeachment GOP House members.

I get why they won't, but still

[Roll Roons]

Valadao has done less to "carry out the (GOP) message" than Cheney. They should be attacking him with just as much vigor, along with the other 8 pro-impeachment GOP House members.

I get why they won't, but still

Valadao isn't in leadership. He's also from a blue-leaning district that would probably flip if it was open, while Cheney represents the single reddest state in the country.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

What do you think is McCarthy's definition of "carrying out the (GOP) message"?
Hmmmm.

"Trump is God."

Bingo. Technically, he is right - the Republican Party is a death cult, and Donald Trump is their messiah. Lest anyone make Rep. Cheney's mistake of thinking otherwise, here's their "platform":


It's a hollow shell of an institution, just as all too many of its members are hollow shells of human beings. I was hopeful for America's future with President Biden's leadership, and he has spent his first hundred days doing a good, arguably an exceptional, job. But the GOP has made it clear that they are choosing to remain on a path to destruction: ours, America's, and their own.

Republicans, as a party, have not been interested in compromise for years, even before Donald Trump; they have abandoned politics and even the pretense of democracy. Biden's term can serve as a respite for America, but without a wholesale reversion to non-deathcultism by the GOP - something which shows no signs of happening -  we seem headed for an ugly, painful future for the United States and all its inhabitants.

[The Dowager Mod]

Kevin McCarthy is a weak, pathetic man.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Here's the problem in a nutshell:

https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/status/1389660381333757952
I know that some of the Republicans here aren't like this.  To this group: I'm sorry to tell you that the above tweet is correct, and trying to cling to the party of the past and hope that it will recover is essentially hopeless.  I know (as a former Republican myself) that this is painful, but it's necessary to deal with the world as it really is, not as you wish it was.  If you believe in the democratic principles of American government, there is no place for you in the Republican Party anymore.  The party as it once was, is dead.

I also know that there are some people here who actively do support the evolution of the party into an Orban-style antidemocratic movement.  In doing so, this group has put themselves in opposition to the American ideal, and as far as I'm concerned they can go to hell.

[Yoda]

Oh look, the shameless culture war screamers are about to literally cancel someone b/c she refuses to lie and downplay violence.