I really don't want McCarthy as speaker either, but...

the difference between winning & losing in politics is often about unity

So the reality is that the GOP caucus (ahead of the speaker vote) held a separate vote within the Party to determine who should lead it. Kevin McCarthy won that vote with nearly 190 votes versus just over 30 votes for other people. That means that McCarthy got six times as many votes to lead the Party as all other candidates combined.

So when the people opposing say that McCarthy does not have the votes, that becomes sort of a misnomer of sorts. He has the votes to lead the Party. In fact he now has over 200 votes versus only 20 for the opposition. That means that technically many of the Party who originally voted against McCarthy have accepted the original Party vote and placed their allegiance to him.

Well maybe not to McCarthy himself. But they place their allegiance to the Party favorite and the Party norms.

At this point, by continuing to vote against McCarthy, they are in fact not acknowledging the fact that their bid to have the Party choose someone else has already lost. Moreover, it wasn't even close. They had a chance to make a case back when it mattered and they didn't. It failed miserably. Now they are doing little more than throwing a fit. Perhaps they believe that the fit they are throwing is justified. Certainly I am not a true believer in McCarthy. But it is a still just throwing a fit, no matter how strongly they believe in their reasoning.

Did every Democrat agree upfront that Jeffries should run their Party? Doubtful. I am sure there were some who wanted someone else. But once Jeffries was the chosen leader, they went to the full floor unified.

Does everyone agree that a certain person should be coach of a football team? Probably not. But once the coach is chosen, do the players who wanted someone else work against the new coach? Does that help anyone? How about a starting Quarterback. Do players have the right to play against the Quarterback if they personally wanted someone else?

Again...not saying I like McCarthy as the choice. But he was the guy that the caucus choose when it was time for the caucus to choose. Sometimes when you lose, you have to suck it up and deal with it. Certainly if you win (in the overwhelming fashion that McCarthy and his supporters did) you are not the side that needs to be giving in and tossing in the towel just because the original losers refuse to accept their defeat. And let's be clear. The 20 holdouts were the losers. Allowing this plays against every issue of fairness we know.