The Washington Post has some fascinating reporting:
Rep. Thomas Massie ... stood up and called on Johnson to resign after announcing that he signed on to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s plan to depose him, known as a
motion to vacate....
If Democrats choose not to rescue Johnson, Republicans would need just a simple majority to oust their second speaker in six months, causing the House to descend further into chaos during an election year when their slender grasp on the majority is at stake....
"The motion is going to get called, okay? Does anybody doubt that? The motion will get called, and then he’s going to lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy," Massie said.
It — radicalism, revolutionism, extremism — never fails. The purges go on, seeking greater and greater purity for The Cause, until, at last, purgation is all that's left. It becomes The Cause.
I almost sympathize with Johnson; he seems to have latched onto reality at some point. Now he's reduced to teaching Government 101 to grown men and women serving in the United States House of Representatives, "insist[ing] repeatedly that House Republicans can only do so much with one lever of power."
But radicals, revolutionaries and extremists are ineducable, as that incorrigible breed is wont to be. And Johnson hasn't much helped himself, what with proposing a flurry of bills already passed as one by the Senate (which Democrats would help him pass in the House), then adding another. The man can't get a resolution honoring motherhood passed, and so he proposes four major bills?
Blood is in the water. "The gamesmanship behind the scenes has begun among members and their allies as people start to position themselves should the speakers’ chair become vacant," writes The Post. And if Rep. Marge moves to oust Johnson next week, she already has the votes. Mike Gallagher is gettin' the hell out of Deadwood on Friday. He's had enough.
Rumor on the Hill has it that yet more House Republicans are planning to split. Indeed we could have Democratic Speaker Hakeem Jeffries before year's end if not much sooner — and our long national nightmare of this GOP House would be over.