House Republicans are on life support

If today’s non-shutdown seemed familiar, it’s because we already watched this same movie back in May – and it had nearly the same ending. We spent a month hearing about how a shutdown was going to happen no matter what, but House Republicans never did have the votes, and so a shutdown didn’t happen.

So now Kevin McCarthy has twice caved to the vulnerable House Republicans who didn’t want a shutdown, and twice relied on the Democrats to get it done. If the sedition caucus doesn’t remove McCarthy this time, they’re all empty talk.

Of course if they do remove McCarthy, they’ll have a hard time finding the votes to confirm anyone as his replacement. So the most likely outcome of ousting McCarthy would be no Republican Speaker at all. And that vacuum would eventually prompt the House Republicans in vulnerable toss-up seats (the same ones who quietly forced today to happen) to end up working with the Democrats to pick a compromise Speaker. Whatever happens, it’ll be fun to watch.