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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   24759 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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have an internal party vote and then everyone is bound to vote for the winner on the floor of Congress or they get expelled from the party.

I was under the impression that this was a specific trait of Leninist parties, which might contain the answer as to why the US Republicans don't do it.

No, this is how political parties work in many countries. In the UK, MPs can be expelled from their party for voting against the whip.

Precisely - the whole point of a party caucus is that everyone is expected to vote in line with the majority of the caucus, at least on important procedural votes like Speaker elections. You accept a degree of party discipline in order to get the benefits of being the majority. The details are different in Parliamentary systems, but the principle that anyone who votes against their party on a confidence motion (or who fails to show up for the vote without a good excuse) is kicked out of the caucus ("has the whip withdrawn") is utterly mundane. The last time this happened in the UK was to pro-European rebels against Johnson, and the time before that was to Eurosceptic rebels in the Major era. In both cases rebels were kicked out even though it left the government without a majority.

Right now there is no majority caucus in the House, because the Republicans lack the party discipline to be a real caucus, and neither the mainstream nor the MAGA factions are anywhere close to 218. The reason why this has become a clown show is that the Republicans are still acting like they are in the majority, even though they are not.

It's incredibly normal in parties on both the left and right around the world. Eg in 2018 the (right wing) Australian Liberal party changed PM following a 40-45 split in a leadership contest while they had a one-seat majority.

I just don't see how you can expect to control the floor in a finely balanced legislature unless you enforce some party discipline.

Or you could just have no say when you get whipped in the House of Commons in the UK.

Getting whipped in the house actually has a very different meaning in thr U.K. due to the English moral traditions.

The British sex scandal anthology series on Amazon is currently in production on season three, AFAIK.

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