I’m writing this shortly after Kevin McCarthy failed for the second time to receive enough votes to become speaker of the House. While I fully expect McCarthy will end the day as speaker of the House, his failures and the concessions the hard right is getting from him demonstrate how weak the squad and the Progressive Caucus have always been.
From committee assignments to rules changes, the hard right is demonstrating how much power a small group of representatives can have if they are willing to exercise their power and exploit their leverage.
On the other hand the so-called squad and the pretend progressive caucus made Pelosi speaker without getting anything useful in exchange for their votes.
While the nonsense over making Jim Jordan speaker is absurd political theater, it is proving effective at pushing the Republican caucus and through it the House agenda to the right. Pelosi’s House, like her, was extremely conservative because those elected to the House pretending to fight for progressive values wound up legislating as Democratic lapdogs.