Dem
47
GOP
53
As we note above, the folks who run The Wall Street Journal are none-too-friendly to Democrats. At the moment, however, they are also unimpressed with the Republicans (or some of them, at least). Reader K.B. in Manhattan, NY, brings to our attention an editorial headlined: "The Woody Johnson Republicans: This week's budget fiasco carries bad omens for governing in 2025."
To fully understand the piece, you have to first appreciate that New York Jets owner Woody Johnson is a big-time Trump supporter and donor, one who served as ambassador to the U.K. during Trump v1.0. He is also one of the foremost examples of "born on third base, thinks he hit a triple." Heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, he bought the Jets with his inherited money in 2000. And, after 30 years of their having been a dumpster fire, Johnson converted them into a full-blown train wreck. He is absolutely convinced that he knows better than anyone else how to run a football team, despite all evidence to the contrary (the Jets have the longest run of not making the playoffs of any team in the "Big 4" American sports, having last made the postseason in 2010). The team has been particularly soap opera-esque this season, aided in no small part by their meathead QB, Aaron Rodgers. This week, there has been much eye-rolling and much complaining in New York, due to the news that Johnson brings his teenage kids to meetings, and consults them on decision-making. Of course, being kids, they don't know anything about football, so they consult... Madden NFL, a video game.
Mind you, the WSJ eddi board isn't terribly impressed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), describing him as "probably the best the GOP can get as a Speaker." But Woody is the Johnson in question here, as an example of what the Republican Party has come to. And the worst "Woody Johnson" in the GOP isn't the actual article, as far as the WSJ is concerned, it's his doppelganger, namely Donald Trump. The criticism is unsparing:
One of the weaknesses of President Trump's first term was his preference for bullying over persuasion. He denounces dissenters in social-media posts rather than trying to bring them on board with arguments or an appeal to their political self-interest.
Another weakness is that the President-elect governs by impulse, and often by whoever talked to him last. Someone told him he should demand that Congress include a debt-limit increase this year, which isn't a bad idea. But apparently no one noticed that Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. Democrats aren't likely to raise the debt limit to make life easier for Mr. Trump, and if they do, they will want something for it. The increase was dropped from Mr. Johnson's latest bill.
This is how Congress works, and for all Mr. Musk's brilliance, he hasn't figured that out. He's also supposed to be a math whiz, so he can probably count to 218, the votes needed for a House majority when everyone is present. Memorize it.
The board allows that maybe Trump will pull it together, but they are not optimistic, given his track record (and see below). Presumably, Rupert Murdoch did not sign off on this one. Although it would be even more interesting if he did.
Naturally, Trump does not like this kind of negative coverage. As we have written many times, it's never, ever his fault, no matter what goes wrong. He is currently casting about for someone to blame for last week's fiasco, and he's settled on the obvious target, namely Johnson (Mike, not Woody). The Co-President-Elect does not like the final bill that was passed, he does not like that the Speaker did not fight to raise the debt ceiling, and he does not like that there is now egg on his (Trump's) face.
Again, the whole mess is actually Trump's fault. If he really and truly wanted the debt ceiling raised, he should have made that known long ago. Even Nancy Pelosi could not have pulled that off with 24 hours until shutdown time. Alternatively, Trump could have made clear that he would trade the debt ceiling for [THING X THAT DEMOCRATS WANT]. But The Donald wanted to receive everything and to give nothing, and that was never, ever going to work with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House.
Anyhow, Trump is apparently deciding right now whether to come out against giving Johnson another term as speaker. Clearly, Trump wants to punish the Speaker for being naughty. On the other hand, another "we can't settle on a speaker" disaster would be embarrassing, and would take away some thunder from the start of Trump's second term. Our guess—and it's 100% a guess—is that the Co-President-elect will deploy J.D. Vance (and maybe others) to figure out if Johnson does, or does not, have the votes to be re-elected, and then will come out in favor of... whatever was already going to happen. In particular, it would be very, very embarrassing if Trump demanded that Johnson be cashiered, and then House Republicans did not do so.
And Johnson is not the only person leaving a sour taste in Trump's mouth right now. Predictably, he hates, hates, hates the fact that everyone thinks Elon Musk is calling the shots. Over the weekend, Trump said: "No, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe. You know why he can't be? He wasn't born in this country."
This is a curiously poor assessment of the situation. Nobody thinks that Musk literally is, or will be, the president. If the country wanted to scrap that "natural-born citizen" bit of the Constitution, it would have happened when Arnold Schwarzenegger was a popular governor of California. People think that, by virtue of his money and influence, he is imposing himself on the Republican Party and on the incoming Trump administration. The Donald's words do absolutely nothing to dispel the notion that is what is going on, and will continue to go on.
Thanks to all of this, Republicans, both in politics and in the media, are tearing their hair out. They were looking forward to having the trifecta, and hitting the gas pedal on right-wing priorities, and now it looks like another 4 years of mostly dysfunction. Meanwhile, the Democrats love, love, love what they are seeing, as it is the first hopeful news the party has gotten since the election. They are getting a reminder that, on the whole, it is way, way, way easier to be in the minority, with no power and no blame when things (inevitably) go south. (Z)