So the House just approved more foreign aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan without any provisions securing the border, and Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) position is hanging by the edge of an atom. The criticism is rightly warranted.
Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) have already signaled they are ready to get on with the motion to vacate and replace Speaker Johnson with someone else.
Yet ironically, Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the same guy who led the charge to vacate former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, has maintained that getting rid of Johnson with such a slim Republican majority, one that could be lost by members resigning in disgust like Rep. Mike Gallagher, would all but guarantee we’ll be seeing a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries as soon as Johnson is shown the door.
On his podcast “Firebrand” with Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), Gaetz said the situation now is too perilous for Republicans to consider getting rid of the speaker, even if he has caved to the Democrats.
Would a motion to vacate @SpeakerJohnson result in a Democrat Speaker?
I regret to inform the country that, in a one-seat majority, there could be 1-3 of my GOP colleagues who would take a BRIBE in order to deprive the Republicans of our majority. pic.twitter.com/sUbn5hRjsb
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) April 19, 2024
Why?
Because if Jeffries becomes speaker, not only will the already razor-thin Republican majority be pointless, but “their lead-off hitter will be declaring Donald Trump an insurrectionist and setting up a barrier to him being able to become president of the United States if he is lawfully and legally elected,” Gaetz said.
After that, the Democrats would be able to implement every policy they want without any real opposition, such as packing the Supreme Court.
Of course, Republicans are particularly talented at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory precisely because infighting costs them their ability to focus on the long game.
Democrats are all-in on almost everything they do and are terrifyingly patient in achieving their goals. But why not support getting rid of Johnson? If there is even a single vote that can disrupt their plans, they will wait until they retake the House in November (and let’s hope they don’t).
So, for now, they are content to keep Johnson around because he has at least caved on doing some of what they want.
I am not going to assume Johnson’s motive for doing so, because it is easy to call him a coward, a sellout, a fraud, or assume the Democrats have serious dirt on him. It is also easy to say Republicans are the Stupid Party that wastes a majority in one of the chambers of Congress unless a Republican president is in the White House.
Still, for the sake of discussion, the most benign reason I can think of for why Johnson has seemingly betrayed his trust is simply because of external circumstances.
The White House and the Senate are controlled by Democrats, meaning if you can prevent some bad policies from being unleashed on the American public, any good ones will sit collecting dust on Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) desk, like H.R. 2 and the Israel aid package offsetting IRS funds have been doing. And even if those get through the Senate, Biden’s handlers will veto it anyway.
Biden’s same handlers are also setting the world on fire with their foreign policy, and every new development needs to be met quickly, or else the fire will spread.
So even if you want to fight back against a bad policy like foreign aid without any provisions for America, your slim majority in the House won’t guarantee it will pass. All acts of resistance will be effectively symbolic.
I’m not saying you should feel bad for Johnson, far from it. He did let this pass without any border security provisions and rightly deserves criticism.
But as angry as we might be, a tiny majority can be expanded in November, and if we are lucky, we could regain the White House and Senate. Losing the House now means losing America completely.