‘My Kevin’ Should’ve Listened to the Never Trumpers
He thought becoming a Trump lapdog was the only way to lead the House GOP. Mike Johnson showed there’s another way.
WHILE KEVIN MCCARTHY WAS ON PANEL DISCUSSIONS pathetically whining about how Matt Gaetz stole his lunch money, pompously lecturing about how it’s really the Democrats who have undermined democracy, absurdly floating himself for vice president, and petulantly attacking the former colleagues who defenestrated him, his successor—whom McCarthy and his allies have consistently mocked—secured the critical legislation that led to the end of McCarthy’s career.
Tough week for smug, blow-dried phonies who think they know better than everyone.
On Saturday afternoon, over the course of one hour, the House of Representatives passed the package of four separate bills to send funding to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and ban (or at least force the sale of) TikTok.
After months of delay, this was achieved because Speaker Mike Johnson came to recognize the seriousness of the threat facing Ukraine and decided that he was willing to play ball with the Democrats to address it.
This is not some example of great moral courage that will reverberate through the generations. Comparisons to Churchill are laughably overwrought. It was simply a decision to take one’s job seriously and to live with the consequences. This was a choice that was available to Kevin McCarthy, as well. He could have chosen not to fly down to Mar-a-Lago to rehabilitate the defeated President Trump in 2021. And last year, he could’ve chosen to break bread with Abigail Spanberger and Jared Moskowitz and Mikie Sherrill and Jake Auchincloss and cut a deal on Ukraine that would’ve protected his speakership from the Gaetz coup.
This is not some West Wing fantasy. You know how I know? Mike Johnson just did it.
Some will argue that the context is different. That Democrats were jonesing for a scalp after being horrified by the manner in which House Republicans conducted themselves after the assault on the Capitol. And there’s some truth to that.
But McCarthy had agency here, too. He could’ve acted in a manner that didn’t make them so bloodthirsty, while still maintaining his supposed “conservative” principles.
Time and again the MAGA enablers in the right-wing commentariat and consultant class and the remaining pre-MAGA GOP politicians rationalize their complicity by arguing that they have no choice but to go along with Trump. In this worldview, the only way to maintain power is to act as if Democrats are enemies of the people who must be opposed at all costs and Trump is an unstable nuisance that must be constantly appeased.
Anyone who challenges this MAGAventional wisdom is dismissed as an out-of-touch cuck with TDS.
This misdiagnosis has led Republicans time and again to make choices that are bad for both their party and the country. During the McCarthy saga, prominent conservatives absolved Kevin for refusing to even consider modulating his posture, even as they lambasted Democrats and Never Trumpers for not bailing out the unrepentant Trump toady.
“At every turn Democrats have chosen to assist the arsonists out of a belief that it ultimately helps them politically,” wrote the editor of National Review Online.
The reality? Democrats just weren’t willing to help an arsonist in a tuxedo defeat an arsonist in overalls. But they have been happy to work with Republicans who treated them as counterparties in a democracy as opposed to cockroaches that needed to be stamped out.
The recent deals cut by James Lankford and Mike Johnson prove that this whole time, there was another more responsible approach Republican politicians could take. A middle ground, not conceding to Democrats but working with them. So far, the results indicate this was the better approach.
Sure, maybe in getting this Do Nothingest of Houses to pass these four bills, Johnson signed his death warrant this weekend. Maybe he’ll soon find himself in the ex-speaker graveyard alongside John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Trump’s Kevin. But 1) he will have something to show for it in his obit, and 2) he bought himself a lot of time with the trust he has gained from Democrats.
Now Johnson is largely protected from a motion to vacate during this Congress. Of course, this trust could be lost if Johnson tries to help Trump with another coup, or if he attempts to mandate that all members join his Covenant Eyes polycule, or some other nonsense, but for the time being he’s straight (so to speak).
Let’s imagine the worst-case scenario for Johnson in the anticipated motion-to-vacate fracas. You could envision all 55 members who opposed the rule that brought this aid package to the floor signing on to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate. That’s 55 votes. Let’s also throw the Squad and a couple of Democrats who just can’t bring themselves to back Johnson on there and give it another 15. In this scenario, Johnson would still have around 340 votes. A buffer of well over 100 members.
Compare that to Kevin’s strategy. Groveling before Trump only to be hung out to dry. Insulting the Democrats whose votes he needed. And then sitting in the House chamber with a dumb grin on his face while the world watched him get humiliated over and over again on national TV.
Seems like Mike got the best of that one.
Who knows what the long game has in store for Johnson. Certainly he won’t be in the ideal situation for a speaker, at least as the speakership has long been configured. In normal times Johnson would want to have enough people from his own party to retain power.
But we aren’t in normal times. The “normal” Republicans are dropping like flies. The party’s standard bearer is spending his days snoozing in a freezing cold courtroom. The last speaker got shivved by his own putative allies.
So maybe, just maybe, these times call for doing something totally crazy.
Governing in a bipartisan, responsible matter and letting your unemployed predecessor worry about how Mr. Trump likes to have his shoes shined.
Good luck, Mr. Speaker, I hope it works out (at least until November).