The House Republicans are definitely living up to their “Stupid Party” moniker at the moment.

The Republican House caucus meeting this morning could easily be described as a train wreck. We have known that this was coming for days, and we also knew that the GOP holdouts did not have the numbers to actually nominate someone who could gain a plurality of votes. What did the holdouts want? Apparently, chaos.

Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., said the House Republican meeting was “hostile,” and that McCarthy’s attempt to persuade hard-line Republicans to vote for him fell flat.”

“The meeting was very hostile and I don’t think it did anything to persuade those who are inclined to vote against Kevin McCarthy,” Good told Fox News. Good is one of five Republicans who have said they cannot vote for McCarthy.”

This was ridiculous. While McCarthy gets no one’s hearts racing, the idea that Andy Biggs would get enough votes to make this an actual challenge was a joke. And that is what the first round of voting became – a joke. The sense that this was going to go badly began when Paul Gosar nominated Andy Biggs as a candidate for Speaker.

And then the roll call vote – in alphabetical order – began. The chaos train began when Dan Bishop of North Carolina, who had already said that he could not support McCarthy, voted for Biggs. Then Biggs voted for himself (surprise). And then Lauren Boebert – who is shockingly snotty for someone who nearly lost her election – voted for Jim Jordan, who was not a nominated candidate. With that, the Republicans went for the gold in self-owns, while the Democrats smugly rubbed it in as they voted in lockstep for Hakeem Jeffries after loudly touting their “unity.”

I don’t like McCarthy but have to agree with you here. Especially when Boebart voted for Jordan and then Jordan voted for McCarthy.

— Rick Roth (@Killaroth) January 3, 2023

Before we were halfway through the alphabetical roll call, it became painfully apparent that Kevin McCarthy was going to fall short in the first round of the required 218 votes. He could only lose 4 votes. He ended up losing a lot more than 4 votes. He lost 19.

There's your first ballot results pic.twitter.com/Y77FlOdTSu

— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) January 3, 2023

Now, let’s remember that Nancy Pelosi came narrowly close to her own Speaker vote drama during the seating of the 117th Congress. She even broke COVID rules in order to make sure she had all her Speaker votes lined up. But that drama was nothing like what the “GOP boneheads” had cooked up during the first round of voting today.

In the first round of voting, Andy Biggs came away with ten votes, Jim Jordan with six votes, and Byron Donalds, Lee Zeldin, and Jim Banks each got one vote. So, what was the point of this? Is the House Freedom Caucus simply out to rub Kevin McCarthy’s face in the dirt and make him kneel before Zod grovel before them for votes? As McCarthy said this morning to Scott Perry, what more do you want?

Apparently, they chose chaos, and Newt Gingrich warned that this would be a terrible result.

In his first inaugural address in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln warned against the inevitably destructive precedent this behavior sets us.”

As Lincoln put it: “If a minority will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority.”

This idea that any five members of a narrow majority have the moral right to use their practical power in an attempt to coerce more than 200 of their colleagues is inherently destructive and unsustainable.”

The small hardline group needs to find some reasonable requests to allow them to end up supporting the House GOP Conference’s candidate for speaker.”

At the same time, Speaker-designate McCarthy and his team must be flexible enough to find a creative solution that brings the rebels back into the fold without infuriating the rest of the House GOP – and creating a different group compelled to flex their five-vote muscles.”

Well, congratulations to the incredibly stupid members of the GOP, all nineteen of you, who got your moment in the spotlight to vote for non-nominated candidates (seriously, what the hell is that all about?) and for a nominated candidate who got a whopping ten votes. Much impressive, such wow. Now we have to do this all over again. And even if all 19 of you morons vote for Biggs, that STILL won’t be enough to make him Speaker. The likelihood that you peel off a couple more votes? Maybe one or two, but not enough.

The House Freedom Caucus likes to talk about winning. There was no winning here. You don’t win by whining, and you don’t win by losing. You’re proving, once again, that Republicans really are the Stupid Party.

UPDATE 3:08 PM ET
The 19 holdouts have decided to all support one person during the second ballot. And that person was… Jim Jordan, who re-nominated Kevin McCarthy for Speaker. Jordan, who was pointing out that their infighting is not helping.

JORDAN's message to House Rs: I would just say this — the differences we may have the differences between Joyce and Jordan or Biggs and Bacon, they pale in comparison to the differences between us and left now unfortunately in controls of the other party.

— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) January 3, 2023

Matt Gaetz nominated Jim Jordan, and the 19 holdouts fell in line.

AGAIN, 19 HOUSE REPUBLICANS have voted against McCarthy, blocking him from the ballot.

All of them pivoted towards supporting Jim Jordan (after about half named other Rs like Biggs, Donalds, Zeldin, Banks.)

— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) January 3, 2023

What will round three bring???

Featured image: Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), cropped, official photo, public domain