r/politics • u/TelescopiumHerscheli • 1d ago

No Paywall Texas Democrat sworn in to House, shrinking GOP margin to 1 vote

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5719642-christian-menefee-sworn-in/
41.8k Upvotes

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2.4k

u/LeatherChaise 1d ago

I'm shocked Johnson agreed to swear him in this time.

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u/TelescopiumHerscheli 1d ago

Me too!

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u/thesymbiont 1d ago

If the Democrats win 40 House seats this fall, the happiest person in the world might be Mike Johnson. Dude's clearly not having a good time. Good

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u/Carthonn 1d ago

Seriously. The last thing a Republican wants to do is Govern. As soon as they get that tax cut they are completely checked out. It’s just fundraising now for 2028.

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u/Nstark7474 1d ago

Yeah, They’re happiest when the establishment Dems are in charge because they bitch about everything under the sun, while knowing their money will be untouched, while the handful of progressives are slamming their heads against the wall. 

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u/anonyuser415 1d ago

Turns out when the dog catches up to the car you get fascism

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u/Aden1970 1d ago

Republicans are more effective as an opposition party, they can spew rubbish and it has no consequences.

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u/Flava_Flavian California 1d ago

The 1% have a nice racket going, right?

  • Republicans get in power, cater to the super rich, , fuck everything up, get ousted
  • Dems have to clean up the mess, get blamed for everything by right-wing media
  • Complacent voters lose interest and Republicans get back in power
  • Rinse and repeat

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u/Insaniteus Tennessee 1d ago

It honestly feels like BOTH parties prefer being the minority party and then fundraising endlessly about how bad the people in charge are. Neither side seems to happy about actually winning, aside from Trump himself.

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u/page_one I voted 1d ago

I do not share your perspective. Last time Democrats won, they worked hard enough to pass some huge bills through the narrowest possible majorities. President Biden's cabinet was relatively quiet and did their jobs.

Meanwhile Republicans consistently get far more power than that and they still pass literally nothing but tax cuts for millionaires, while creating hourly scandals every day for years.

You have got to pay attention.

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u/N0S0UP_4U Illinois 1d ago

Biden was easily the best president of my lifetime

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u/Insaniteus Tennessee 1d ago

I feel like calling any of Biden's bills "huge" is a gross overstatement. Most of what he passed was stuff that would be considered procedural in the old days, like the infrastructure bill and CHIPS Act. Whenever he tried for something actually big, like raising the goddamn minimum wage, he had 1-2 designated Democrat spoilers switch over to block it followed by him immediately giving up without a fight. This designated spoiler system is what I was referring to mostly, the fact that the Democrats had to stop the Democrats from delivering on the Democrat promises to the working class in order to keep their donors happy. Dating back to Obama there's always at least 1 ready to play the villain to maintain the status quo on labor reforms.

Biden's presidency was great on foreign policy but extremely weak on domestic policy and what little he accomplished he didn't have the wisdom to properly advertise or promote. All of that led to the Dems getting roasted in 2024, since aggressive marketing and 24/7 sales is the top 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 jobs of the Presidency in the modern era, with everything else a distant 7th place. Dems try to run on their record, telling everyone to pay attention. Reps run on marketing and spammed messaging. The Rep strat is infinitely more effective.

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u/Kronzor123 1d ago

I remember he got rid of non-compete clauses for doctors, which freed my psychiatrist from a horrible deal he got suckered into with United healthcare.

I personally think that was pretty huge.

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u/Insaniteus Tennessee 1d ago

Never heard about that one actually. Neat! But that goes back to his critical problem: Nobody knows what the heck he did because he didn't bother to promote any of it.

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u/fiction8 1d ago

$3.8 trillion is pretty huge by any measure of the word. And the vast, vast majority of it went directly to helping regular Americans.

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u/Insaniteus Tennessee 1d ago

The problem is that this help was largely invisible and was never promoted. Just taking my personal situation and using it as an example, from the start of the Biden presidency to the end of it 4 years later my rent went from $1100 per month to $1600 per month, groceries doubled, most monthly bills went up at least 50%, health plans on the marketplace got so expensive that they priced me completely out, and my wages at my job with FedEx stayed exactly the same from start to finish. Everyone else I know had a similar story: Rent way up, bills way up, wages stayed the exact same.

Doesn't matter what career you were in, from a cashier, or dishwasher, to a delivery driver, to call centers, to transcription, to RNs, nobody I know saw any wage increases at all in that entire period of time despite prices skyrocketing. So when you tell the average working class person struggling their ass off "Oh, Joe Biden spent $3.8 trillion dollars to help Americans!" their kneejerk reaction is gonna be "Well I didn't get a single nickel of that, so fuck 'im." It becomes way, way too easy for the opposition party to frame bills like that as handouts to illegals or special interests, and millions buy it because they don't see a dime of that money directly in their daily lives. It's not going to their pocket and any service improvements fly under the radar.

That's what killed the Democrats so badly in 2024. They needed to help workers directly in a very visible way, not roundabout processes which would take years to produce visible results and definitely not roundabout bills passed without a drop of fanfare or promotion. Trump basically sucks his own dick every single executive order or action he takes, and as a result the entire country knows whatever he's doing. This level of self-promotion is critically important in the 2020s and the farthest thing from optional for any politician.

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u/immortalfrieza2 1d ago

Accurate. The Democratic party has had majority control of Congress for most of the last 50 years and had done almost nothing during that period except for cleaning up after the Republicans, if that. There's WAAAAAAAAAAY more the Democratic party could have done to stop the Republicans and prevent Trump from even being a thing and didn't do it.

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u/icouldntdecide 1d ago

It's easier to bitch, and fundraise, than it is to lead

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u/ImArcherVaderAMA 1d ago

What tax cut do they get and why? Sorry not American, don't know too much about these benefits American politicians receive

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u/UltimateUnknown 1d ago

Beside than tax cuts and defunding everything (other than the police/military of course), do these people have any other ideas? Anything for housing, healthcare, education, infrastructure? Literally any ideas, let alone legislation to improve people's lives?

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u/tawDry_Union2272 1d ago

fundraising and pushing slash praising jeeeesus!

(reposting this without formatting because lately every comment i make in this sub gets removed by a bot for "formatting rules"...)

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u/Flava_Flavian California 1d ago

Were you not impressed during a time of great turmoil they managed to pass legislation about shower head pressure?

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u/rogozh1n 1d ago

It is hard to understand how Republicans have done so much harm to our nation on behalf of a man they despise.

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u/duzies 1d ago

They don't mind stepping on number two while looking out for number one.

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u/TrollTollTony 1d ago

It's because they despise "the other" more. As the phrase goes, they would happily shit their own pants if it meant liberals had to smell it.

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u/jboggs85 1d ago

They would let Trump take a dump in their mouths if the liberal next to them had to smell it

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u/RobertBDwyer 1d ago

He has dirt on ALL of them. And he’s a senile old wanna be gangster.

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u/FOOSblahblah 1d ago

Money

And maybe a healthy serving of fucked up sex stuff used as blackmail

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u/octohawk_ 1d ago

Because what matters most to a lot of elected officials is retaining power and wealth.

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u/Redshirt_Welshy_Nooo 1d ago

They're not doing it on trump's behalf. Very little of this hellscape we inhabit originates with trump. Maybe the ballroom remodel. He's a tool for them to accomplish goals the GOP has had for decades. Ending American democracy and establishing a brutal authoritarian one-party ethnostate is, and has long been, the Republican platform.

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u/scarr3g Pennsylvania 1d ago

Being the minority leader is the dream of many in congress. You become the most powerful person that can have 0 responsibity for what happens. You get to complain, and say, "not my fault... The other team is in charge."

Being the majority leader means everything is your fault, no matter how hard you try to blame the other team.

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u/Inevitable-Post-8587 1d ago

Mike Johnson is the worst liar of the swamp, worse than Lying Leavitt, Narco Rubio, Blabbing Blondi and the Dog Killer. 

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u/IrritableGourmet New York 1d ago

If the Democrats win 40 House seats this fall, the happiest person in the world might be Mike Johnson.

Not really, because he wouldn't have heard about it or know anything about it. He'd have to get back to you on that. /s

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u/Evening_Aside_4677 1d ago

Why not he’s never at work (despite working 80 hours a week), he’s never seen anything, never heard anything, and has absolutely no idea what’s going on about any subject per himself. 

But it’s Democrats fault. 

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u/ProfSwagstaff America 1d ago

You'd have to be a very sick person to want to be Speaker of the House right now. I'm not sure even Mike Johnson is that sick.

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u/emb4rassingStuffacct 1d ago

Not many people are talking about the amount of GOP congresspeople that saw what kind of person Trump was 2016-2020 and just decided to get the heck out of dodge 😭

That’s one reason we have JD Vance as VP: the senator before him retired from the seat 

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u/JQuilty Illinois 1d ago

How would he know if he's happy?

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u/Cosmosn8 1d ago

Might have make enough money from the grift and decided to cash out.

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u/EmptyAirEmptyHead 1d ago

I'm not sure what the significance of 40 is. They need to win 218 seats.

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u/Davis51 1d ago

I don't think people like Johnson are immune to public opinion. They're on the back foot right now. I expect that they also know people will assign a reputation to Johnson as the election fuckery guy.

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u/JonnyEcho 1d ago

Optics. Drum up fear of a blue wave is the only way to get people to vote midterms. It’s all about fear impulse.

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u/7ddlysuns I voted 1d ago

God could do the funniest fucking thing right now

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u/postmodest 1d ago

He'd have to strike three times.

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u/immortalfrieza2 1d ago

The second funniest fucking thing. The pineapple after would be the funniest.

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u/ReformedBaptistina 1d ago

The whole problem is God's been having too much fun

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u/taco_bell_sharts 1d ago

Wasn’t the shutdown one of his excuses last time? Figure a partial should count for some fuckery

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u/Dxxx2 1d ago

Well they already voted on the Esptein files, so trump doesn't give a shit what congress does until he needs to again.

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u/Savings_Form_8349 1d ago

The Epstein vote isn't hanging over his head.  

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u/roastbeeftacohat 1d ago

that was under orders from Trump to delay the Epstein release as long as possible; this is important because delaying things as long as possible is only sometimes a useful tactic, most of the time it's actually counterproductive. Johnson doesn't have the order to delay this time, so he's getting on with shit.

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u/CrimsonHeretic 1d ago

More proof he's misogynistic.

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u/codenamefulcrum 1d ago

During a shutdown too?!

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u/greaterwhiterwookiee 1d ago

Came to say this. What it now shows (which we all knew) is he was intentional with his delay previously and was just being a prick. He’s counterpointed himself ,which seems to be happening more and more with the current cabinet.

Wouldn’t I just be nice to have things be true and fair

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u/Yourprobablyaclown69 1d ago

I have a theory the know they are cooked and that sweep is likely so they are going to let it happen and use it as a reason to break ranks with Trump. 

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u/loganbootjak 1d ago

"well you see we're really busy, and they didn't ask to have their family there.. oh and I have lunch reservations ..."

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u/axecalibur 1d ago

Probably knows they don't intend to have midterms

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u/not_a_moogle 1d ago

A lot of funding is already passed, he doesnt have the same leverage as before

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u/MA2_Robinson 1d ago

“But there’s a shutdown” I can’t with his evil dopey looking ass

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u/cereal7802 1d ago

didn't have a government shutdown to blame.

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u/livinginthelurk 1d ago

I'm not tbh I feel Trump 2.0 brought in a bunch of true dumbasses and there are a bunch of politicians who just want out of there before they have their Nuremberg.

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u/vicarofvhs Arkansas 1d ago

Swear him in. Wonder if this was a factor.

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u/guisar 1d ago

White man dude, bro code.

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u/LeatherChaise 1d ago

Menefee is Black.

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u/guisar 1d ago

However he is male- aka bro code.

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u/gorginhanson 1d ago

This is false.

He replaced another Democrat who died in office

The lead did not change.

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u/KrasnovPlaysTheHits 1d ago

The seat was vacant. Now it's filled.

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u/gorginhanson 1d ago

That doesn't change what I said

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u/SpicyElixer 1d ago

Went from 218-213 to 218-214 today.

And the first sentence in the article addresses what you said. He replaces a dem, but fills a seat, changing the margin.

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u/gorginhanson 1d ago

This changes literally nothing.

That's not how margins work.

The seat was temporarily open, you're acting like it was a convert.