not simply a democracy at. we re but something that could actually destroy american democracy, another hour of velshi begins right now. hi begins right now. good morning, it is sunday january the 8th. i am ellen kevin mccarthy s new election as the speaker of the house, it was a historic one if not exactly for the best reasons. the first time for a speakership was divot sided on a multiple, ballots are where occurrence in the scope of all american history. mccarthy s bid this year was only the 15th time that has happened, it was 15 ballots but it was only the 15th time that it is happened. there were only four other instances when the volker shut went on for longer, all of which were in the 1800s, which was an era in which political parties were influx and factions were ideologically split over the issue of slavery. take the 16th congress as an example. henry clay was initially elected as the speaker at the start of the term and 1819 but, he opted to step down in the midd
congress. after 12 ballots, he was ousted from the position and replaced by philipp barber, a slave owner from virginia. and then in the years leading up to the civil war, the fight over slavery would become even more of a central issue in the contest for speaker. the three other times when the contest for speaker took longer were 1855, 1849, and 1859. those were the years when the rancor over the issue of slavery was reaching its peak, and as a consequence, bitterly divided congress even those who were even in the same party. obviously this is a very different situation from what we witnessed in the house last week as far as anyone could tell, matt gates and his troop of mccarthy hard-liners didn t appear to be ideologically opposed to mccarthy s agenda or that of the rest of the party, but they used the opportunity to broker some sort of deal that you are not entirely sure of yet, for more power and influence for a chance to drag the republican party further to the right. and that is