Can someone tell me how a democrat House would help a single conservative?
Posted on 04/18/2024 9:28:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If the House GOP loses its majority next year, it might well be because Speaker Mike Johnson sold out Republican voters by failing to fund border security while working with Democrats to funnel billions more taxpayer dollars to Ukraine — after he repeatedly said he wouldn’t do precisely that.
Of course, it won’t take much to lose the Republican majority, which will narrow to 217-213 once Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., retires later this month. (Gallagher, whose last day was set for Friday, has said he’ll delay his retirement to help ensure Johnson’s Ukraine funding passes this weekend.)
November is not that far off, and between President Joe Biden’s fragile health and declining mental capacity, and Donald Trump’s legal (lawfare) troubles, the presidential election is very much up in the air. It won’t take much, in one direction or the other, to tip the balance of power in the House.
But the truth is, Johnson and Republican House leaders will deserve to lose their slim majority if they go through with their plan to enact the Biden administration’s agenda and send billions to Ukraine and Israel while refusing to do anything about the ongoing border crisis.
Whatever happens next, by any measure Johnson’s tenure as speaker has been an abject failure, a profile in spinelessness. Under his speakership, the Republican House majority has already dwindled by five (when Johnson was elected speaker, he had a 222-213 majority, nine seats) and will soon dwindle by one more. This shrinking majority is made worse by his and his lieutenants’ feckless leadership and unwillingness to play hardball with Democrats and establishment Republicans. After all, what good is even a slim Republican majority if you’re going to ignore what your voters want and work instead to pass Biden’s priorities?
And make no mistake, this is exactly what Johnson has done. Five months ago, he sent a sternly worded letter to the Biden White House explaining that “supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” and that before more tax dollars were thrown at the Ukraine conflict, the Biden administration needed to answer questions about our objectives, establish accountability for what we’ve already sent there, and define what a victory and “sustainable peace” will look like.
After that, Johnson more or less did nothing, and none of what he demanded came to pass. And yet Johnson is now working very hard to give Biden and the Democrats everything they wanted while getting zero in return — and still nothing has been done about the border. (Less than nothing, actually. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democrats this week disposed of impeachment articles without a trial for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom the House voted to impeach over the border fiasco. Senate Dems, who enjoy an even slimmer majority in their chamber, made it clear there will be no accountability for the Biden administration over the border.)
At one time, not long ago, Johnson talked a big game about the border. It seemed like he cared about it. As my colleague Jordan Boyd noted Wednesday, back in May 2023, before he was speaker, Johnson opposed sending more aid to Ukraine until Congress addressed mounting problems here at home. The U.S., he said, “should not be sending another $40 billion abroad when our own border is in chaos, American mothers are struggling to find baby formula, gas prices are at record highs, and American families are struggling to make ends meet, without sufficient oversight over where the money will go.”
Once he became speaker, Johnson softened his tone on funding foreign wars but still maintained that addressing America’s problems should come first. Even as recently as November, he said additional funding for Ukraine should coincide with “changing our own border policy.” In December he called the border crisis his “top priority,” and in January he actually went and visited the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, a hotspot for mass illegal crossings.
So much for all that. The border no longer appears to be his top priority or really much of a priority at all. It ranks below funding for Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific, which are all set to get funding in an aid package — along with billions for Gaza, which is to say Hamas — that Johnson and other GOP House leaders are working with Democrats to pass over the objections of much of the Republican conference and the vast majority of Republican voters.
And they’re not even trying to make cogent or compelling arguments for what they’re doing. Speaking on Wednesday to CNN’s Jake Tapper (whose viewers, it seems, are Johnson’s actual constituency), Johnson repeated the Democrat and neocon talking point that unless we keep shoveling money into a grinding war of attrition in Ukraine, Putin will march through Europe. I’m not kidding. He said: “We are going to stand for freedom and make sure that Vladimir Putin doesn’t march through Europe.”
The Putin-will-march-through-Europe line was preposterous when it was trotted out over two years ago; today it’s indefensible, a worn-out neocon talking point that no one, not even those robotically repeating it like Johnson is now, really believes. Moscow, which has yet to secure even the areas of eastern Ukraine it claims to have annexed, has no ability to threaten Europe militarily. And even if it did, Russia has a unique strategic interest in Ukraine it does not have in Poland or other NATO member countries, let alone the whole of Europe.
But Johnson isn’t going to let facts on the ground get in the way of his tired establishment narrative — or better yet, Democrat narrative. As Will Chamberlain put it Wednesday on X, “We effectively replaced Kevin McCarthy with Chuck Schumer as speaker of the house.”
The obvious reality is that Speaker Johnson is a pathetic tool of the Washington uniparty, and the sooner he loses his gavel, the better off the country will be — even if it means Democrats regain a House majority. I’d rather have a coherent and unified opposition party than a complicit, compliant, and totally compromised GOP majority under Johnson. Especially if impeaching Biden is off the table, as it clearly is, then what exactly is the point of continuing to do business this way?
So yes, if Republicans lose their House majority in November, it’s Johnson’s fault. And in the long run, he’ll be doing us all a favor.
“If the House GOP loses its majority next year, it might well be because Speaker Mike Johnson sold out Republican voters by failing to fund border security while working with Democrats to funnel billions more taxpayer dollars to Ukraine — after he repeatedly said he wouldn’t do precisely that. “
The base is going to completely abandon congressional Republicans if those bills hit the floor. They’ll certainly lose the House, and take hits in the Senate.
And if Trump continues to side with them, he’ll lose too.
I’m in complete agreement with you.
It will be Matt Gaetz’s fault for creating the problem to begin with. And Getz used to be my favorite Congressman, as my posting history clearly shows.
If Gaetz wants to avoid the blame, he could try another motion to vacate and hope to get someone better. The fact he won’t indicates he knows how bad he messed up last time.
Why can’t they just throw him out as speaker then throw him out of the Republican party? That way he can’t remain speaker for the house as he would no longer be a member of the majority. He is obviously not a Republican....so he shouldn’t be able to call himself one.
And Senator Lindsey Graham’s fault for proposing a federal abortion ban and bringing out the “Death to America’s babies” vote.
D+35 is baked in.
Any more idiotic abortion activism, could go higher.
It is not just Johnson, it will be on Trump and the Republicans in the House. Trump endorsed him and Ukraine funding just days ago. No one is making a privileged motion to vacate the chair, so they are just venting, all talk, nothing more. Even here on FR, look at the comments over the past several days since Trump appeared with Johnson, many are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to keep up with Trump—Johnson okay, aid to Ukraine without aid to our border is okay, abortion is now okay, and so one. Enjoy the ride.
If Johnson and the Republicans keep p*ssing off their base, this upcoming election will be a disaster also. I am sure Biden and the democrats are ecstatic by Johnson’s total capitulation on border security.
Biden said he would not sign separate bills. Johnson caved and Biden won big time—at the continued expense of drugs, crime and an unconscionable massive invasion on our southern border,
Thank you, Mr. Speaker!
You’re an idiot, mccarthy would be even worse. I am tired of reading your stupidity online. We need a block function.
What a load of crap. McCarthy was every bit as bad as Johnson.
The Republican Party has largely been transformed over the past 8 or so years to what we want it to be, yet we are still more than unhappy.
desanctomonious would be openly supporting this BS. Thank God we dodged that bullet.
Some people enjoy getting their butts kicked.
Who are you talking about? Or just taking an opportunity to throw out insults.
No, McCarthy was not THIS bad. He was on course to break up the Omnibus packaged spending and have independent spending bills, which Johnson immediately abandoned. That should have been the #1 priority for this congress, along with stopping the invasion at the border. McCarthy was actually talking about shutting the government down over the border issue, which Johnson has never even mentioned as an option. You simply don’t remember what was going on at the time. Go back and look a few articles up.
McCarthy Says Biden Must Tighten Border to Avert US Government Shutdown
McCarthy vows end to massive ‘Omnibus’ spending bills
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mccarthy-vows-end-massive-omnibus-spending-bills-not-going-happen
Can someone tell me how a democrat House would help a single conservative?
I know next to nothing about Speaker Johnson but...
it must be difficult to get anything good passed when the DemoNaziCommie contingent votes as a solid hardcore leftist block while the GOP representatives scatter all over the place from conservatives to libertarians to country-clubbers to UniParty enablers of the commieNazi agenda.
relying on Republican politicians to support anything useful or good is like trying to herd cats
Having said all that “in defense” of Johnson, his failure to at least keep GOP representatives IN the House has Tragedy written all over it. Why? Because the House is not only the Constitutional source for impeachments. The House also will SELECT THE NEXT PRESIDENT in case the DNC Election Theft Machine doesn’t quite get the job done in the several states. (See Constitution Amendment 12). Then Senator Schumer’s Senate gets to choose the Veep.
Not to be TOO conspiratorially-minded about this but the timing of the GOP decline in the House speaks loudly that it is likely being orchestrated by the Puppetmeisters controlling the DNC. It is at least possible and it would fit perfectly into their Agenda.
The Republicans need to elect a Speaker with some ballz - Marjorie Taylor Green!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.