The Witness Chronicles February 15, 2024

Photo by Sivani Bandaru on Unsplash

Mike Johnson, He’ll Take You Down But He Won’t Prop You Up

A message to the far right in the House

The Republican Party may be Donald Trump, but he is not the Republican Party, not when he loses. When you pledge your souls to the Devil, you will inevitably lose and lose big. It’s a lesson we have seen over and over, yet they keep thinking it will be different this time.

Tom Suozzi won disgraced House member George Santos’ seat yesterday by eight points over his Republican rival. It appears that his win was a reaction to the House right killing the border bill they have been begging for, a bill Trump ordered them to block.

Suozzi’s Long Island district is dealing with the border crisis on a daily basis as Texas floods New York with refugees. The people there, blue collar and split between Dems and the GOP, deal with the reality of the mess down south on a daily basis. It is a very real issue to them.

So is Ukraine and Israel. It is a largely Jewish district, many from Eastern Europe who fled oppression from the Russians and Germans. And they voted against the Trump message of isolationism and intentional failure at the border, failure designed only to give Trump an edge in November.

Speaker Johnson, who at Trump’s bidding killed the bipartisan border bill, refuses to bring the heavily bipartisan Ukraine/Israel aid bill to a vote, having learned nothing about what loyalty really means to Trump.

It means nothing and yet they don’t seem to see that. Trump’s first reaction to Suozzi’s win, which reduces the GOP House majority to nearly zero, was to criticize the Republican in the race as a loser. She was a supporter, a Jewish immigrant who served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). A loyalist.

Now she is scum according to the Devil. Told you so.

But Johnson and the Freedom Caucus still don’t get the message that Trump is not their friend and will turn on them in a minute. His goal is not governing, it is installing himself in a place where he can save his own keister.

The irony of the so-called Freedom Caucus killing support for Ukraine, a country fighting for their freedom against Russia, where freedom is non-existent, is priceless. And that will not be lost on the American people, who heavily support Ukraine.

This first electoral reaction to their killing of the border bill they wanted, just to fulfill their deal with the Devil, should scare the hell out of any Republican whose seat is not ultra solid. There are enough of them for Democrats to take control of the House in November.

We know from the first failed Mayorkas impeachment vote that Johnson cannot reliably count votes in his own Party. Yes, they voted a second time successfully to impeach, with no evidence, but that was another meaningless exercise in kowtowing to Trump. It’s going nowhere in the Senate.

That, btw, is your time and money being burned by a small group of House members for no reason, accomplishing nothing.

It used to be that savvy politicians, even extreme ones, could read the writing on the wall and get the message. But that basic skill seems to have disappeared with the advent of Trump worship and the abandonment of any concern for the future of the country, or freedom.

Here is the reality we are being reminded of daily: if Trump’s policies and orders hurt his own Party they cannot rely on his support now or any time in the future. He demands loyalty but never rewards it. 

The frustrating thing about pointing this out over and over is this utter failure to deal with reality by an entire Party in a two-party system. The emperor has no clothes. You’d think that old tale would serve to remind his followers that there is a reality and it is actually real.

Instead they only see some kind of magician who will miraculously fix everything, even if it is not broken. But the magician is a sideshow act, a career grifter trying to pull his biggest grift on his own people.

Johnson is a weak man who tries to appear strong by doing Trump’s bidding. His Democratic predessor, Nancy Pelosi, was a political powerhouse who knew how to leverage power and yet, Johnson and his ilk learned nothing from her, except to fear her back in the day.

Speaker of the House is a massively powerful role in our government, but only when the Speaker understands the reality of how to exercise that power. Blind obedience to one man, with no conditions, does not make you powerful, it makes you a puppet.

The Republican Party has become a party of puppets. If the man who controls the strings fails, they will find themselves sprawled on the floor, lifeless and powerless.

As they should be.

~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your upgrade to a paid subscription helps make that happen. 

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