Who out there picked nine months in the office betting pool for how long Kevin McCarthy would survive as House speaker?

Tuesday, the right-wing extremists made good on their long-dangled threat to depose McCarthy. The “motion to vacate” introduced Monday by Rep. Matt Gaetz wound up passing with the support of eight Republicans and all of the 208 Democrats present.

With no obvious candidate who can win full Republican support, the process promises to be messy. For now, Rep. Patrick McHenry is serving as the interim speaker, thanks to a 2003 rule that, ironically, required McCarthy to designate who his temporary successor would be in the event his chair became vacant. For this and other reasons, McHenry needs to be replaced by a duly elected speaker ASAP.

The House’s chaos is reminiscent of McCarthy’s ordeal in January when he went 15 rounds with his right-wing rebels, until he finally wore them down enough to squeak into power.

House members headed home for the week, with Republicans reportedly looking to hold a forum for speaker candidates Tuesday and, with a little luck, the actual election on Wednesday.

If anything, after all this, Gaetz and his fellow disrupters are going to be more full of themselves than ever.

But if the Republican dysfunction going forward gets bad enough or lasts long enough, maybe Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, should consider wading into the negotiating pool. Provided, of course, that Jeffries’ team gets something substantive in return.

Which raises another fun question: If you were a Democratic lawmaker in a position to help the Republicans dig themselves out of this hole, what would be your price? Would you try to extract policy concessions?

In recent days, ideas from all of these categories were whizzing around Washington. Some of the possibilities were largely policy-focused, such as continued military support for Ukraine — or, say, sticking with the spending levels Republicans agreed to in this summer’s debt-ceiling deal.

Others were overtly political, such as making the speaker promise that the National Republican Congressional Committee wouldn’t spend money against vulnerable Democrats next year.

There was much buzz around pushing for an end to the impeachment investigation of President Joe Biden. And I absolutely get the logic here, seeing as how McCarthy announced the inquiry in a sad attempt to distract his hard-liners from attacking him. That said, the inquiry has so far been such a humiliating flop that it hardly seems worth spending political capital on pulling the plug, which would likely just set the right-wing baying that the investigation would have eventually been a roaring success if only the Democrats hadn’t conspired with establishment Republicans, the Deep State, George Soros and probably Taylor Swift to shut it down.

There was even a smattering of possibilities that fell into the make-the-House-saner, benefit-both-sides category, which are the ones I’d love to see the Dems really squeeze the Republicans on if they get the chance. We’re talking about basic changes to make the institution run better, such as removing one or more of the hard-liners from the Rules Committee and returning the motion to vacate to its pre-Gaetz status, making it impossible for a lone unhinged member to threaten the speaker. And if the Republicans are really in a bind, how about pushing them to abandon their so-called Hastert rule, the counterproductive practice of their speakers not allowing a vote on any bill that lacks the support of “a majority of the majority”?

Would these be tough items for an aspiring speaker to deliver? Absolutely. Are they all long shots? Sure. Then again, until recently who would have thought that Democrats would link arms with Republican extremists to successfully depose a speaker? We are in uncharted territory here, people. Might as well take a few risks.

Of course, the Democrats may ultimately decide it’s not worth getting involved. This dumpster fire is, after all, a Republican problem. But specifically because of that, it may be too much to expect them to fix the situation on their own.

Michelle Cottle is a New York Times columnist.