I wrote over two months ago about how Donald Trump and the “burn it all down” faction from the GOP in the House of Representatives sought to derail any foreign aid measures to Ukraine. For weeks and weeks I would go to Google and type in “House vote for Ukraine,” and it seemed nothing was happening. Why not? Were legislators asleep at the wheel? The Ukrainians are running out of money and weapons in their valiant fight against Putin’s Russia. Trump and his MAGA-allied Republicans seemed to be keeping the aid hostage. Because of razor thin majorities in the House, just a handful of ultra-conservative Republicans could hold the vote hostage, even as large majorities of the rest of the House (and the Senate) were in favor of the bill. The bill had overwhelming support in the House, and had already passed in the Senate; what was the problem? It was immensely frustrating. As the government faced a dilemma in confronting a rogue dictator – would we go the Winston Churchill route? or the Neville Chamberlain one? – nobody did anything.
That bill also had aid for Israel, and I was in favor of that also. But I don’t care much about Israel and that part of the world, to be honest. The Middle East is sunk in intractable ethno-religious hatred going back time out of mind, as I see it, and nothing good will come from there. Try to limit the damage and control the violence, I say, and expect nothing much good. Of course we should support democratic Israel and oppose Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, but beyond that the place is like a corked bottle full of scorpions perpetually trying to sting each other. Seek to lessen American exposure there, that is what I say. I remember before the 1990s when there were almost no American soldiers in the Middle East. Let’s try and return to that place.
Ukraine, and Russia, are different. More important, in my opinion. Iran is like an overgrown teenager able to perform mild mischief, like a vandal. And Hamas are just terrorists not unlike ISIS or Al Qaeda: they deserve the same fate. But Russia is bigger and more dangerous. Russia with the aggrieved despot Vladimir Putin at its head determined to correct past injustices and re-write the map of Eastern Europe is a real threat. If the Russian Army marches into Kyiv in 2025 and stomps out any hope of an independent democratic Ukraine, and if they do so because domestic American politics got in the way of financial and military support for Ukraine, that will be something hard for me to swallow. It will be harshly judged by history, in my opinion. Since the invasion in 2022 the Ukrainians have remarkably fought a larger and better armed Russia to a draw. The Ukrainians seem to have guts and fortitude in spades. American legislators much less so. So that is what I cared about.
But legislators in the House of Representatives lately seemed to have found their spine. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson got a foreign aid bill through the Rules Committee today and onto the floor by embracing Democratic Party support to circumvent “Freedom Caucus” members who would not pass anything. This had been a huge problem for weeks, if not months. I had been scratching my head all that time. “Why cannot moderate Democrats join with most Republicans in the House to pass this bill which has broad bipartisan support in Congress and amidst the American population in general?” Compromise is always how legislation passes through a divided American government. Isn’t getting half a loaf of bread better than no loaf at all?
Apparently not. The “Freedom Caucus” faction had been allowed to hold up almost all legislation. This is the very definition of legislative malpractice. “Burn it all down,” the far right House members argued. The far left would have much the same argument.
But Democrats and Republicans of a more moderate ilk appear ready to come together in a bipartisan vote to pass the foreign aid bill. Isn’t this how the system is supposed to work? The inability to pass any legislation at all, in my opinion, was a symptom of culture war deadlocks, ideological polarization, and a resulting political dysfunction. Will successful bipartisanship continue on Capitol Hill? Similar bills passing through both houses of Congress before being signed into law by the President? I hope so.
I have heard those extreme voices from Left and Right gnashing their teeth over the passage of this bill. “The whole system is corrupt!” “This is the world of the ‘uniparty’ without any real difference between Republicans and Democrats!” Maybe. Or maybe it is just bipartisan compromise under the aegis of passing legislation which can get passed into law. “Politics is the art of the possible,” Bismarck argued. So true. Now someone go tell that to Majorie Taylor Green. So if you want to be a political activist on campus or keyboard warrior online, then go ahead. But you do not have the actual responsibility of governing, unlike MT Green (or the similarly execrable Rashida Tlaib) supposedly has.
Today’s vote was an illuminating moment for everyone. Where do you stand? Do you vote “yes” or “no” on this foreign aid bill? What will be the official policy of the United States?
I can see some MAGA claiming that there is no way he wants to send money to defend Ukraine’s border while America’s border with Mexico is overwhelmed by throngs of immigrants trying to cross illegally into the USA. As if you cannot support Ukraine’s eastern border and our southern one. You can do both, within the bounds of legislative reality. Or some college students at Columbia or Yale “demanding” a cease fire in Gaza “now” while wearing the keffiyeh and chanting “LOVE LIVE THE INTIFADA!” “LONG LIVE HAMAS!”… what country do you think you live in? Lebanon? A nation effectively controlled by the dictators in Syria and Iran? And why do you think there is broad bipartisan support in the United States for our long-term democratic ally Israel? (There is, you know.) It is because you are in the United States. Most American voters care about inflation, health care, and housing. They don’t care too much about a “hopeless conflict” 7,000 miles away in the Middle East, and if they had to choose between combatants there they would tend to veer towards Israel, not the Palestinians.
I read that on March 30 Khaled Barakat, reportedly a former official in the terrorist group PFLP, claimed on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station that “the vast majority” of young Americans and Canadians now “support armed resistance” against Israel because of “the introduction of colonialism, racism, and slavery studies into history curricula.” Barakat might point to academics like this one making this speech during a recent anti-Israel campus protest to support his point:
But I would be very careful in trying to extend sympathy for “decolonization” and “anti-imperialism studies” in the United States beyond a relatively narrow slice of radical chic professors, their students, and other assorted far lefties. The “non-binary” college student with blue hair and a nose ring, and her professor standing next to her wearing a keffiyeh head scarf, are unserious people on the American scene, in my opinion. What do I mean by “unserious,” you might ask? Well, they and their politics lack anything approaching mass support among the general electorate in the United States at this time. They don’t have the votes, outside of academia. (Josh Barro writes most insightfully on this, “Stop Letting Histrionic Children Drive Our Politics;” I had my own piece on these “histrionic children,” “Leave JK Rowling Alone, FFS.”)
Here are some hard political realities. Israel has majority support both in Congress and in the general population. The Ukrainian cause against the Russians is also a popular one in the United States. That is why the House of Representatives is set to pass a bill giving $95 billion dollars of weapons for the defense of Israel and Ukraine, as well as for Taiwan. The legislation will pass by a wide majority. So the loudest and most strident voices in politics aren’t necessarily the ones with the most heft or influence. (If that weren’t the case, Bernie Sanders would currently be president, not Joe Biden.) It is social media which amplifies extreme voices on the left and the right, and the extremes in their echo chambers don’t see the mainstream support for these causes. Twitter reality is not real life. TikTok world is not the real world. Go out and “touch grass.” Get a reality break. “Grow up.”
But let’s return to this foreign aid bill in Congress. The handful of Freedom Caucus members like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene wanted to “burn it all down” by obstructing the legislation this week in the House of Representatives, and by promising to attack any Speaker supporting a bill they (and Donald Trump) don’t like. Republican Thomas Massi of Kentucky and two others this week predictably called for a vote to depose Speaker Johnson for daring to put forward this foreign aid bill. “I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the speaker over it,” Dan Crenshaw commented on those few fellow Republicans holding up the vote. “I mean, it’s a strange position to take. I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality… I’m still trying to process all the bullshit.”
Then I saw this statement by Jared Moskowitz (Dem-FL), “Massie wants the world to burn, I won’t stand by and watch. I have a bucket of water.” (cite) And so many moderate Democrats stepped in with Republicans like Dan Crenshaw to give Speaker Johnson the votes he needed to pass his bill, and saving his job in the process. Who is applauding? Moderate Democrats and Republicans. Who is enraged? The far left and the far right. Good. Who is hurt by this legislation? Russia, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the CCP.
God bless you, Congressmen Moskowitz. I want to hug the guy. In my second favorite quote from Moskowitz this week: “I agree with @RepJeffries. This is a Churchill or Chamberlain moment, and I look forward to standing with him in defending western democracy.”
It is almost enough to make me want to be a Democrat – or at least, the Jared Moskowitz type of Democrat.
Almost.
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” — Winston Churchill
