And You Thought McCarthy Was Bad

Here at YSDA one of our editorial rules is that we never say, “I told you so.”

So, today we’re not going to say “I told you so” to Democrats who refused to save Kevin McCarthy’s job as Speaker. During the three weeks of open Republican dysfunction (as opposed to their ongoing less public dysfunction) we opined that Democrats might have been better off joining with “moderate” Republicans (the term is relative) to keep McCarthy in that job simply because anybody who would replace him would be even worse.

We acknowledged the heaviness of that lift given McCarthy’s extreme conservatism, flirtation with Donald Trump and appeasement to the handful of hard-right political terrorists in his own caucus.

Still, Democrats actually had a formal discussion within their own caucus about stepping in to save him. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries even kept quiet and let the debate play out for awhile before taking a position. It’s hard to say just how close the Dems came to intervening on McCarthy’s behalf, but he might have had at least some chance had he not gone on the Sunday morning talk shows to blame Democrats for the near shutdown of the government — hours after they had supplied the votes to avert just that.

But in the end the Republican moderates caved and the caucus elected Mike Johnson, a favorite of the hard-right. Those chickens wasted no time in coming home to roost. Yesterday, Johnson introduced a bill stripping out military aid proposed by Pres. Biden for Ukraine and Taiwan, leaving only his proposed amounts for Israel. And he attached a poison pill to even that. Johnson’s bill would fund the aid for Israel by cutting the IRS. Not only is there no connection between what’s going on in the Middle East and enforcement of tax laws, but this cut would actually result in widening the Federal deficit. For every dollar spent enforcing tax laws on the wealthy the government picks up $12 in tax payments that would have otherwise been sidestepped.

For all of McCarthy’s many faults, during his brief 10 months as Speaker he twice worked to secure Democratic support to keep the government operating. God knows what will happen as another deadline approaches on November 17th.

It gets worse. Johnson is a Christian nationalist, something you couldn’t say about McCarthy. That is to say, Johnson believes that America was chosen by God to be a Christian nation and his job is to push back against pluralism and anything that deviates from what he reads in the Bible.

Let me digress for a moment and quote from this morning’s Thomas B. Edsall column in the New York Times:

A different P.R.R.I. survey, released on Feb. 8, “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian nationalism to American Democracy and Culture,” measured support for Christian nationalism based on responses to five statements:

• The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.
• U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.
• If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.
• Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.
• God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.

Presumably, these are all things that Johnson believes along with about 10% of Americans who agree with all five statements without reservation.

But here’s the scary thing. Only 29% of Americans (most definitely including this one) completely disagree with all of those ideas. So, about two-thirds of us or more agree with at least some of that.

Now, I suppose a person could read the statement, “the U.S. should be based on Christian values,” as a sort of general statement that we should be good. And if you interpreted it that way you might not be in the 29% that “completely disagrees” with all five statements while hardly being a Christian nationalist.

But if Johnson really is, as he’s been described, “the embodiment of white Christian nationalism in a tailored suit,” than compromise might be sin for him. Whatever you want to say about Kevin McCarthy he was not evangelical in what he believed, but rather a career politician who did what he thought he had to do to gain and keep power. And, in fact, in the end he lost that power because, for once (actually twice), he did the right thing, which was not, as it turned out, in his own best political interests.

Another tenet we have here at YSDA is a disdain for true believers of any stripe. We like real politicians, practical people who see their chances and take ’em. God save us from people who believe they are chosen by Him.