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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) moved to force a vote on ousting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday, a momentous move that is all but certain to fail amid opposition from Democrats and conservative Republicans.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4652274-greene-moves-to-oust-speaker-johnson/

@Free_Press how about a vote to oust her?

@Rasta we just all need to keep in mind that a person like her is completely powerless without the backing of large numbers of other representatives willing to support her actions.

The rules of the House are particularly disempowering of individuals with nutty ideas. That was intentional because with so many representatives the chamber risked grinding to a halt.

The solution is to just ignore her, let her fail, let her look like a fool over and over who has no influence in the chamber, and if the good people of her district want such a loser to represent them, well that’s really up to them.

It’s only by treating MTG like she has power that she gains the influence to muck things up, and we really need to call out representatives who back her.

@Free_Press

@volkris @Free_Press like everyone, remember Kony? They said, make him famous. In Maga Marge world, they need to not talk about her ever. You're right, and thanks for reminding me that I shouldn't even forward or discuss the story. It would be swell if ethical editors did a sober second thought before making it news

@Rasta a problem is that we have so many other representatives who are enabling her, and I think they need to be held accountable for that.

The important thing isn’t what MTG is doing. She’s a nobody on her own, and that’s between her and her voters.

BUT if my representative is enabling her, I need to know that as I consider reelecting my rep.

The story isn’t what MTG is doing; it’s this is what MTG is doing and your representative might be giving her backing.

To just ignore the whole thing lets these misbehaving reps off the hook.

@Free_Press

@volkris @Free_Press point taken. I was just listening to something like 101 bills debated or passed about books, and not one about infrastructure, taxes, wealth tax, gun laws, traffic safety, child playground safety, no parking, driving restrictions, lights, helmets, or seat belt safety. Pardon my sensible approach, but WTF is the job of Congress? To ban books never read, or serve the public? And they are all seniors doing nothing for their whole career

@Rasta

Well, I’d grind my own ax some more here :)

The job of Congress is for 530+ individual members to show up and represent concerns of their own voters and build compromise and consensus about what the US government should be doing, whatever concerns those may be.

BUT all too often people are ignoring their own representatives and voting for people who are doing the opposite of what they’d have them do.

Whether voters want their congressperson to be talking about infrastructure or books, well it’s up to them, but they need to make sure their empowered person is doing what they want.

The job of Congress is to represent the concerns of the country, whether those are my concerns or your concerns or not.

@Free_Press

I was listening to a representative who had a show talking about how you get up there, and instead of representing the people who voted for you, you're expected to vote the way some expert in the capitol says you should vote.

But the capitol has its representatives. Let them vote the way the experts in the capitol say to!

@sj_zero but in the end, no matter how or why a representative votes the way he might, his voters that probably reelected him are affirming that yes, he did right, he deserves to go back and keep doing what he’s doing.

We must not get lost in the drama to the point that we forget that we vote for our reps. We empower whatever it is they’re doing.

@Rasta @Free_Press

And not just that, depending on which system you work under, you have some degree of control over who you end up voting for in the first place.

In the us, especially in deep blue or deep red areas, election day is the primary, not the election, and so the die is cast long before the election takes place.

@sj_zero that ignores that voters have a say in it all

@Rasta @Free_Press

How so?

You vote in the primary and then you vote in the general for the candidate who won the primary.

@sj_zero I certainly don’t.

If a primary chooses a bad candidate then I don’t vote for them.

@Rasta @Free_Press

I don't follow.

If you choose not to vote in a primary, it was still the people who did vote who chose the candidate. Meaning I'm not ignoring the role of voters...

@volkris @sj_zero @Rasta @Free_Press Insert Princeton study that says voter will has basically zero impact on representative positions here

@BowsacNoodle Right, and then immediately insert all of the reasons why that study was dumb, had a methodology that didn’t actually prove its conclusion, and call out people citing that study on social media as bias confirming even though it didn’t actually confirm their biases.

Every single representative was elected by the people. We should stop electing people we don’t want to actually represent us.
But it’s up to us.
It’s so important to recognize that we are choosing these people.
We should not act like we don’t have power, because we are the ones using our power to elect these people.
And if we don’t like these people, we should stop voting for them.

@Rasta @Free_Press @sj_zero

@sj_zero

No, I was talking about the other half of your statement.

I don’t vote for bad candidates.

And it’s important to emphasize that because primary voters need to keep in mind that if the primary elects a bad candidate, they will lose votes.

Republicans chose Trump, and Democrats chose Biden, and I will not vote for either of them, so it needs to be emphasized, Republicans and Democrats, you’ll get more votes if you nominate better candidates.

@Rasta @Free_Press

I don't think anything I wrote disputes any of that, in fact the whole message is about the fact that you can help choose the candidates even if it's a "deep blue" or "deep red" area through the primary process, so there's no such thing as a fully foregone conclusion.
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