Terry H. Schwadron
April 22, 2024
Something remarkable happened this weekend that resulted in military and humanitarian aid to pass overwhelmingly through Congress: Republican Speaker Mike Johnson stopped spewing partisan nonsense and changed his public posturing on the issue, deciding to turn for help to Democrats to get the measures passed.
There are various explanations being offered for Johnson’s thinking, a decision being framed as personal courage because it puts his job at risk to a small, but growing number of the right-wing’s most extreme members. In retrospect, given the huge margins of the votes involved, we can wonder why it took so long for Johnson, whose job is supposed to include vote-counting, to come about in his outlook.
Indeed, journalistic accounts variously suggest that the lobbying by non-isolationists in his own party swayed hm, that Joe Biden successfully persuaded him of the national security needs of the country, or that his own fervent religiosity righted his thinking because Christians were under attack in Ukraine and evangelicals demand support for a non-Muslim dominant Middle East.
The most significant suggestion was from Johnson himself about receiving intelligence information behind secure doors that persuaded him that it is better to be spending money towards arming Ukrainians than to face the more likely, if not inevitable, conclusion that an aggressive Russia won’t stop and will require meeting NATO troops, including Americans like his own son who is entering the U.S. Naval Academy.
The remarkable thing, then, is that it was information that changed Johnson’s months-long stand against allowing a vote on Ukraine and Israel aid, not a trip to Mar-a-Lago for a Donald Trump blessing, not adherence to right-wing insistence on America First or on pushing an end to immigration above all other issues.
How radical, how refreshing for information to settle a partisan political issue.
And for that sin, now three right-wingers, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., say they want to bring the speaker down, and cast the House into leaderless chaos.
Political Manipulation
Some of the delay in getting to the vote, even after Johnson agreed to do so, was based on procedural manipulation to out-maneuver the House right-wing, of which Johnson usually is a member.
Johnson and allies came up with four different bills to separate the would-be coalitions for Ukraine and Israel another bill that includes a measure that could result in a nationwide ban of TikTok and new sanctions on Iran. and then to stich them back together in a way that the Senate could easily endorse it. The idea, explained The New York Times, was to gain support for various pieces worth $95 billion without allowing opposition to any one element defeat the whole thing.
The key was reliance on Democratic votes, something the right-wingers objected to for that reason alone.
Johnson talked about why aid for Ukraine was “critically important,” adding, “I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten.” Susan Glaser in The New Yorker explained that this was yet another heresy for many Republicans, who, following Trump, have spent years tearing down the truthfulness and reliability of America’s intelligence agencies.
Apart from all else, it puts Johnson at odds with Trump, who takes a decidedly pro-Vladimir Putin view of Ukraine and who demeans U.S. intelligence at every turn.
Jonathan Last in The Bulwark gives credit to Joe Biden for working with Johnson behind the scenes to lead his thinking to support for the foreign aid package. Politico added that the “White House strategy focused on slowly courting Johnson behind the scenes while letting him find his own path to a solution — even if it meant weathering frequent setbacks and building frustration within its own party.”
Who Benefits
Of course, belatedly, the real beneficiaries are soldiers running out of ammunition in foxholes facing waves of Russian attack, and Israelis and Gazans who will receive humanitarian aid as well as the endless supply of more weapons. In truth, most of the money goes to American weapons manufacturers who are resupplying U.S. stockpiles.
The cash will benefit jobs in many Republican-represented congressional districts, particularly in the South, according to a Washington Post analysis. The Pentagon says it plans to mobilize “within days” to transfer weapon stockpiles that have been sitting in Europe for months.
The media focus, as always, is on the personalization of the Speakers battle, as if standing for months on slogans without addressing the issues at hand had been a profile in courage or that a change of heart to recognize that politics requires compromise is a mark of bravery.
Ukrainians on the line or starving, displaced Gazans, or Israelis still seeking to regain their hostage family members would hardly see it that way.
So, we wait now for the MAGA backlash against a Speaker who dared use information to abridge a MAGA principle that fails to recognize international realities.
At the same time, House Democrats will have to decide whether to keep Johnson as an opposition Speaker as a just reward for doing what a majority of members on both sides of the aisle expected to have been done months ago.
It seems a crazy way to run a country.
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TerryHSchwadron 