One Party Government

In the United States there is only one political party – the welfare-warfare party.  Sure, they all pretend otherwise, and on peripheral, meaningless issues there may be differences.  But on the whole, the US government is about as divided as the Communist Party was under Stalin.

This could never be admitted, never stated publicly.  But now that is changing – the issue is the difficulty republicans are having in electing a speaker of the house:

The problem for Republicans is that they need a speaker candidate who can attract at least 218 votes -- the majority needed when the full House votes for a leader.

There are 247 Republicans in the House, but Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) abandoned his bid when it was clear he couldn’t get enough of them to reach the magic number, because several dozen members of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus wouldn’t back him.

“At this point, it’s almost any leader that you put in in our conference is going to have the same difficulties with the makeup of our conference,” said Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.)

This isn’t a problem if you accept the reality that there is only one party:

And that has some Republicans looking to Democrats. There are 435 members of the House, and 188 belong to the minority party. Democrats get to vote for speaker, too.

Why not?  A more compliant democrat is better than nothing.

"We have to do whatever it takes to elect a speaker," said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.).

Conservatives in the GOP caucus would adamantly oppose such an arrangement, and it would spark a serious rift in the Republican Party.

It isn’t just that republicans might start looking for democratic votes for a mainstream republican speaker – it is even possible that republicans would accept a democrat as speaker:

"I hope not. I hope not,” said Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), though she allowed it may be possible for Republicans to reach across the aisle for a leader if their own process becomes intractably mired in infighting. ”It depends how long it takes,” she said.

"We Democrats are unified in that we will certainly accept their support of the next speaker -- Nancy Pelosi,” Hoyer said.

Nancy Pelosi as speaker of a republican-controlled congress.  Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

One party.  Stalin would be proud.