There are a lot of momentous things going on in the political world this week -- including Donald Trump sitting inside a courtroom facing a lawsuit -- but what is going on in the House of Representatives right now somehow seems more important than watching this particular episode of "The Trump Show." Because we may see a move this week that hasn't been made in over 110 years, and (win or lose) it is going to shift the power structure in the House from this point on in some way or another, even if nobody's got a clue which direction it will shift in.

The "motion to vacate the chair" (or as some have now dubbed it: the "M.T.V.") has only been used once in the House's existence. It was created by and first used against Speaker Joseph Cannon, in 1910 (he's now got a House office building named after him, since he was a very powerful and historic speaker). The situation at the time wasn't a perfect parallel to what's going on now, but there were indeed similarities.

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Welcome back once again to the Shutdown Follies! Today's entertainment will be provided by the House Republicans, who will all be driving clown cars in a demolition derby, for your enjoyment.

That's what it feels like, at any rate. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Jellyfish) is caught in a vortex of political posturing, from which there is no apparent escape. No escape for the country, as we all get sucked into a completely pointless government shutdown in its wake, and no escape for Kevin McCarthy, whose only way out is to commit political hara-kiri (or, if you prefer, seppuku). The "Chaos Caucus" of MAGA lunatics is in full control of the House now, and they are content to head the ship of state at full speed directly into a gigantic (and eminently avoidable) iceberg. And there's nothing anyone can do but sit back and watch the disaster unfold, it seems.

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Last night, at the Republican shrine of Saint Ronald of Reagan, seven Republican presidential candidates appeared on the same stage to debate each other. Of course, the real winner of the debate was the candidate who didn't show up: Donald Trump. Even the moderator, at the very start, had to get a little snarky about this, beginning with: "Let's meet the candidates who have qualified -- and chosen -- to be on the stage tonight...."

Not too surprisingly, the second debate shared one glaring similarity with the first: utter chaos. The networks hosting these debates have a hard choice to make -- they can either cut off (or heavily dial the volume down) the microphones of all the candidates who did not just get asked a question, or they can just succumb to the fact that Donald Trump has changed debate rules forever (by not having a shred of decorum or respect for the rules). This was made obvious once again, last night.

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I realize it is incredibly early to make such a statement, but it truly seems like the 2024 general election campaign for president is kicking off this week. Sure, we're still something like 100 days away from even the first of the primaries, but at this point -- barring any political earthquake -- both parties seem to have all but settled on their nominees. This isn't too unusual for the Democrats, since they've got a sitting incumbent president in the White House, but it is extremely unusual for the Republicans. However, Donald Trump's continued strength in the polls means the chances are far more likely than not that America will see a rematch of the 2020 contest between Trump and President Joe Biden.

Both candidates have realized this, in their own way. Biden has never wavered from his intention to run with Kamala Harris as his running mate. Biden can afford to ignore calls for debates from his Democratic rivals, both of whom are the fringiest of fringe candidates. He likely won't pay any political price for doing so, being the incumbent. If he were to be challenged by a serious and prominent Democrat, he might not have been able to get away with this, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Trump also has the luxury of (so far, at least) ignoring the Republican debates. He's got a point, too: why should he subject himself to attacks from candidates that are polling in the low single digits? He has such a commanding lead in the polls that he has had no really serious challengers to worry about for months. So why bother with the small fry? Skipping the first debate didn't hurt him -- his poll numbers have actually gone up a few points since then, to where they are now nearing the stratospheric level of 60 percent. Trump is, in essence, running as an "incumbent" in his own party, since he still operates under the delusion that he won the 2020 election. And the GOP base voters seem to agree. At least to the extent that taking on Trump at this point seems to be just as hard as taking on an incumbent president for the nomination.

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This has been a notable week for Labor. President Joe Biden today visited an autoworkers' Union picket line in Detroit, in what is being described as "the first time ever" for a sitting president (nobody seems to have any definitive word on whether Biden truly is the first or not, but then again nobody has yet come up with another example from American history either). The week started out with the news that the Hollywood writers appear to have come to a deal with the studios to end their strike. And I have to say that while I applauded seeing Biden visit a Union picket line, I really cheered the news from Hollywood, as I have been seriously missing late-night television comics in my life. I look at politics all day, every day, and it is almost necessary (for my sanity) for me to decompress with some good political humor at the end of the day (or, for Saturday Night Live, at the end of the week). But that hasn't been an option for months now. The good news is that late-night will be the first part of the industry to recover, so we could start seeing new shows within days of the agreement being finalized.

What will the comics talk about? Well, they've certainly got plenty of material to work with. A lot of Trump's legal developments happened after the strike began, just for starters. Just within the world of politics, there have been plenty of juicy stories just ripe for ridicule over the summer. But at some point they'll also pick up on the most current events; the most current easy low-hanging targets for political ridicule. Which, in a very roundabout way, leads me to the subject of this article: Senator Robert Menendez needs to resign his seat -- and for his own sake, he should do it before Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers and all the rest of them get back to work. He might spare himself a boatload of ridicule by doing so. Admittedly, that's a rather strange angle to see it all from, but it's what popped into my mind when the scandal broke almost simultaneously with the writers striking a deal.

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It's almost time for the second Republican debate, although we're still waiting to hear who exactly will be allowed on the stage Wednesday night. Just as in the first debate, frontrunner Donald Trump will not be on the stage, not through being disqualified in some way but because he has decided (once again) to stage his own event in an effort to "counterprogram" the Fox debate. Trump has a big problem with the Ronald Reagan presidential library where the debate will be held, but even without that dynamic he still likely would have skipped this one as well. He is -- quite accurately -- figuring that there isn't a whole lot of upside for him showing up, since he is already so dominant in the polling at the moment. So once again we're going to see all the candidates who have yet to truly challenge Trump's standing with Republican voters bickering among themselves.

Even though this is only the second debate, one has to wonder whether anything is going to change as a result. No candidate had a true "breakout moment" in the first debate (no matter what various pundits had to say about it at the time) as shown in the polling. Some marginal changes happened, but there were no giant spikes upwards or downwards. It's impossible to say whether that will hold true again or not, but it does seem to be the most plausible outcome at this point.

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Program Note: As I mentioned last week, I am playing hooky today. So I went looking for a column to re-run and came across this one, from almost exactly eight years ago. It's stunning in the sense of plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, since it wouldn't take much more than changing a few names to be almost perfectly relevant today. It was written the week that John Boehner announced he was stepping down from being speaker and retiring from politics. At the time (as you'll see), Kevin McCarthy's name was being bandied about as a replacement, but ultimately Paul Ryan was chosen as a sort of sacrificial lamb instead.

Eight years, and not much has changed. We're still in the midst of a shutdown battle, the GOP hardliners still have no idea what they're fighting for (other than nihilism), Republicans are still completely consumed with completely meaningless battles between themselves over bills which will never pass the Senate or become law, and we could easily have a new speaker by Hallowe'en. So here is a snapshot from the past showing that while the names do change, not much of anything else ever does in Washington.

Originally published September 25th, 2015

Every so often, when preparing to write these weekly wrap-up columns, I wake up Friday morning and a political bombshell has happened which pretty much wipes out all the political news from the entire rest of the week. Obviously, today was one of those days, as we all learned this morning that Speaker of the House John Boehner will be a private citizen again by Hallowe'en. He'll step down not only from his speakership, but also from his House seat itself, more than a year before the end of his current term. So it looks like the Republicans are going to need a new cat-herder to (attempt to) lead them in the House.

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I should begin by clarifying terms. Perhaps the headline should read: "...save McCarthy's speakership," because I am not talking about whether Democrats will either step in to avert a government shutdown or eventually offer House Speaker Kevin McCarthy a path to ending such a shutdown, because at this point one of those is almost inevitable. There will eventually be a short-term deal, it will pass the House, and it will pass with mostly Democratic votes. The Senate will then pass it as well and President Joe Biden will sign it. I'm not talking about saving McCarthy from the shutdown nonsense (which may happen or not), instead I'm talking about what might happen afterwards... or even "during."

The radical (read: lunatic) fringe of the House Republicans -- let's call them the Chaos Caucus -- are going to be completely incensed by this eventual deal. Not the deal itself so much as the fact that Kevin McCarthy didn't have a magic wand or some fairy dust which would -- hey presto! -- make them the ultimate arbiters of the federal budget. It's pretty obvious that for some of the crazies the only acceptable answer is for them to magically gain the power to somehow jam their own budget down the throats of the Democratic Senate and a Democratic president. Which McCarthy simply cannot provide (because McCarthy, unlike them, must make occasional forays outward from Republican Fantasyland into actual reality).

If any one of the lunatics gets incensed enough, he or she can file a "motion to vacate the chair." This is a sort of no-confidence vote in the House. If a majority of those present vote for it, then McCarthy will no longer be speaker. Since the House will be speakerless, their only order of business at that point would be to try to elect a new speaker. Which could lead (remember January?) to endless votes that all fail to provide a majority to any candidate. This would grind Washington to an absolute halt, for the most part.

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It wasn't supposed to be like this. We were told that, a while back, when Republicans took over control of the House of Representatives. Things were going to be different! Republicans were going to show us all how Congress is supposed to work. The 12 appropriations bills that make up the federal budget were going to go through "regular order" and be voted on one by one instead of all being swept into a giant "omnibus" bill or just largely ignored by the use of a "continuing resolution" (C.R.). That was all going to be a thing of the past, as Congress returned to regular order and appropriated funding the correct and proper way. Washington would bask in the sunshine of regular order and the citizenry would reward the staunch Republicans who had shown Congress the way out of the darkness. That was the way it was supposed to be!

Obviously, things aren't exactly working out according to this plan. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who in all likelihood had to make specific promises to his members about following regular order (we don't know, since all these promises were given behind closed doors and remain secret) in order to get elected to the speaker's chair, is now running out of time and running out of options. And strictly following regular order simply isn't one of them, given the time remaining.

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President Joe Biden needs to go to Michigan, and he needs to do it soon. Biden needs to go within days, in fact -- and certainly before next Wednesday. Because if he either waits that long or doesn't go at all, he will have failed an important pop quiz in Politics 101. Here is how such a quiz might be framed:

You have billed yourself as the most Union-friendly president in the history. The United Auto Workers goes on strike. You should:

• (a) Adopt a hands-off approach -- send White House mediators in and then state that you refuse to "play politics" with the negotiations.
• (b) Put out a few statements supporting the right of the workers to strike and largely agree that their demands have merit, send in your negotiators, and then sit back and stay out of it.
• (c) Travel to Michigan and set up a photo-op walking a picket line with the workers, in solidarity.
• (d) (Other: fill in the blank.)

So far, Biden has chosen (b). He has stated his support for the workers' position, but he hasn't really been leaning into the issue either. Choosing (c) would be a dramatic gesture -- the first president to actually walk a picket line in a very long time. But photo-ops can go badly for all sorts of reasons, and it would mean a security challenge for the Secret Service. So perhaps (d) is the way for Biden to go. He should travel to Michigan, perhaps drive his motorcade past the picket line (and give them a big thumbs-up or tell the driver to honk the horn loudly), and then give a speech to an audience of U.A.W. members somewhere nearby. Biden could also hold a meeting with a select few of them -- perhaps some Union leaders as well as a representative selection of line workers as well. He could listen to their stories and empathize with them and their situation (Biden can indeed empathize well with blue-collar workers, due to his own childhood experience).

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