• 0 Posts
  • 17 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 11th, 2023

help-circle
















  • The thing that is different about Congress is that Reps and Senators are free to vote with or against the rest of their party without any repercussions. We don’t have three line whips or anything like that here, so the party system isn’t as powerful. This is why Manchin could go against the Democratic Party agenda so frequently and the Democratic leadership couldn’t do anything about it.

    So in theory these Reps could stay Republican and vote with the Democrats, or go independent/libertarian/etc if they really want to make a break with the Republican label. Staying or changing parties really doesn’t matter except in how it defines the majority party in each house, and also practically as to what legislation is likely to get brought to a vote per the Hastert Rule or the Standing Rules of the Senate.

    So this all can go to explain why they’re not changing parties or who they caucus with. It still leaves the question of why they’re choosing to leave rather than remain and affect change from within. Answer: They don’t care about the country or the party. They were here for power, the lobbying money, the post politics sinecures, etc. Now that all of that is gone, they have decided to cut and run. They are abandoning ship now in the hopes that they can get the best life raft.