Here’s an ironic game theory unicorn scenario that I’m going to hope for:
The extremist caucus can’t win, all they can do is try to pressure McCarthy to give them more concessions. They’ve made their point. But if they continue to vote for Jordan/another R as concessions are negotiated, they are only signaling that their votes can’t be bought which means there is no incentive to give them concessions.
Since speaker is determined by majority of present votes, and Jeffries has the plurality, there is only one way to increase the pressure for more/bigger concessions:
At each vote, have more of the extremist caucus abstain.
If those 20 abstain it would be 212-202 and Jeffries would become speaker (they actually only need 11 of them to make this happen). Then the pressure is really on McCarthy because the writing on the wall is that *”if you don’t act, we can and will allow a democrat to become speaker.”
It would be unprecedented, hilarious, and ironic, but not going to happen. A man can dream though, can’t he?