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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I understand what you say, but in this particular instance I'd like to live with the view that both semantics holds, due to the following criterion on my side.
The perception by some newspaper I read outside the US was that Gaetz & co. was a small minority rightwing and everybody didn't want to play his childish game.
You say it was predictable that Dems would vote against a Republican Speaker, and that indeed turned out to be the case. However, at the same time Dems essentially voted together with Gaetz and that was a bit surprising to me and that newspaper.
Ah, that last paragraph really helps explain your viewpoint. While you could argue that Dems voted "with" Gaetz against McCarthy, they certainly didn't vote for the same people for speaker. The real problem here is that while US, by law (as in laws officially recognize a two party system), is a two party system this situation is best understood from a 3 party perspective (Maga, Republicans, democrats).
The Republicans need the Maga votes to form a coalition to elect a speaker, democrats would prefer their coalition gets to elect a speaker. When you understand all of the chaos is the republicans and Maga Republicans fighting over power in their "coalition" it's easier to understand everyone's behavior.
With that context none of this has been surprising and many people were expecting a Maga republican to call the speaker vote at some point. It also reinforces the concept that this is more about republican infighting rather than anything going on with the democrats.
Just like in parliamentary systems, one coalition isn't going to vote for the other without some concessions. Republicans weren't willing to concede anything to democrats and thus had to cater to the Maga Republicans (which is why most wouldn't put blame on democrats in this scenario).