Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The Republican Party can still do what's rational and right. Here's the proof.

Speaker Mike Johnson standing in front of American flags

Speaker MIke Johnson is likely to keep his job, even though the far-right fringe wants him out.

Aaron Schwartz/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

There's no record of Edmund Burke -- the great Irish-born British statesman and father of modern conservatism -- actually saying what is often attributed to him: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." But it does capture his worldview well enough.

It also captures a renewed, possibly short-lived triumph of courage and wisdom within the Republican Party.


Amid threats to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson for allowing a vote on aid to Ukraine, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) captured the party's own divide between the good and the rest in colorful terms on CNN Sunday. "It's my absolute honor to be in Congress," he said, "but I serve with some real scumbags."

Gonzales was taking aim at Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Bob Good (R-Va.), but he could have included quite a few others.

For the last few years, congressional Republicans have been split into factions that are not ideological in the traditional sense. Pick nearly any standard domestic policy issue -- abortion, gun rights, taxes, immigration -- and you won't see much evidence of the schism. Even (public) support for Donald Trump doesn't delineate the divide.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

No, the difference is largely over tactics, rhetoric and psychology. One faction, comprising an overwhelming majority of the House GOP caucus, is interested in accomplishing the possible. The other is more interested in aiming for the impossible and then complaining about falling short.

Of course, members of the latter group don't admit to the impossibility of their goals; that would ruin the con. They insist that with enough willpower, particularly among their leaders, they could impose their will on the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House. They make that case on television, on social media and in floor speeches. And when they inevitably fail, they whine that they were "betrayed" by Republican quislings who collaborated with the Democrats, all while raising money off the notion that they're courageous warriors who are willing to lose on principle.

The success of their shtick has depended on a number of factors. One is that the Republicans' narrow House majority empowers the fringe.

To become speaker last year, Kevin McCarthy agreed to a change in the rules that makes it possible for a single representative to move to "vacate the chair" -- that is, trigger a vote on whether to depose the speaker. That's what happened last year after McCarthy avoided a default on the national debt, kept the government open and committed other alleged outrages.

Gaetz and seven other Republicans, representing less than 2 percent of the country, were enough to oust McCarthy against the wishes of 95 percent of the Republican caucus, with Democrats uniformly hewing to the bipartisan tradition of refusing to support a speaker of the opposite party. In other words, the Republican firebrands, who think the worst sin imaginable is to work with Democrats, voted with Democrats to oust their leader.

McCarthy's successor, Johnson, brought four bills to the House floor Saturday -- three to provide vital military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and one to force a Chinese company to sell TikTok or cease operating in the United States. The bills passed overwhelmingly, with all but the Ukraine bill winning a majority of Republicans' votes.

Now Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) want to oust Johnson for his "betrayal" -- not of the caucus, country or Congress but of the tiny fringe faction that thinks it should call the shots.

They'll probably fail, for several reasons. First, few Republicans -- including some who oppose Johnson -- want to be seen following the lead of the House's most notorious cranks and bigots. Second, Trump doesn't want the Republican caucus to turn into an embarrassing circular firing squad while he is running for president. (It's remarkable that Trump is worried that other Republicans will make him look bad.) Third, Democrats have signaled that they will help Johnson keep his job after he courageously did the right thing. And finally, no one appears to want Johnson's job who could also get the job.

The most important development for the party in all of this is that the rest of the caucus has realized that going along with the arsonists -- all of whom have safe seats and would be happy to throw their bombs from the House minority -- amounts to politically suicidal appeasement.

"The majority of the majority -- the vast majority of the majority -- is sick and tired of these high school antics," Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said last week. He also noted that "the only way to stop a bully is to push back hard."

One can only hope that realization sticks.

First posted April 24, 2024. (C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Read More

U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Andrew Harnik

Trump’s First 100 Days on Trial

100 Days, 122 Rulings

Presidents are typically evaluated by their accomplishments in the first 100 days. Donald Trump's second term stands out for a different reason: the unprecedented number of executive actions challenged and blocked by the courts. In just over three months, Trump issued more than 200 executive orders, targeting areas such as climate policy, civil service regulations, immigration, and education funding.

However, the most telling statistic is not the volume of orders but the judiciary's response: over 120 rulings have paused or invalidated these directives. This positions the courts, rather than Congress, as the primary institutional check on the administration's agenda. With a legislature largely aligned with the executive, the judiciary has become a critical counterbalance. The sustainability of this dynamic raises questions about the resilience of democratic institutions when one branch shoulders the burden of oversight responsibilities.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla

Trump 2.0’s Alleged Trifecta Crisis

On July 25, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a radio address to 125 million Americans in which he coined the term “first 100 days.” Today, the 100th day of a presidency is considered a benchmark to measure the early success or failure of a president.

Mr. Trump’s 100th day of office lands on April 30, when the world has witnessed his 137 executive orders, 39 proclamations, 36 memoranda, a few Cabinet meetings, and numerous press briefings. In summary, Trump’s cabinet appointments and seemingly arbitrary, capricious, ad hoc, and erratic actions have created turmoil in the stock market, utter confusion among our international trade partners, and confounded unrest with consumers, workers, small business owners, and corporate CEOs.

Keep ReadingShow less
America’s Liz Truss Problem

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Liz Truss speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on February 20, 2025 in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

Getty Images, Andrew Harnik

America’s Liz Truss Problem

America is having a Liz Truss moment. The problem is that America doesn’t have a Liz Truss solution.

Let me take you back to the fall of 2022 when the United Kingdom experienced its own version of political whiplash. In the span of seven weeks, no less than three Prime Ministers (and two monarchs, incidentally) tried to steer the British governmental ship. On September 6, Boris Johnson was forced to resign over a seemingly endless series of scandals. Enter Liz Truss. She lasted forty-nine days, until October 25, when she too was pushed out the black door of 10 Downing Street. Her blunder? Incompetence. Rishi Sunak, the Conservative Party’s third choice, then measured the drapes.

What most people remember of the Truss premiership is the Daily Star wager that a head of lettuce would last longer than Truss. The lettuce won. But Truss’ stint as Prime Minister—the shortest ever, I should note—holds some lessons for America today.

Keep ReadingShow less
Employees being let go, laid off, fired.
Getty Images, mathisworks

Part One, The Impact of Trump’s Executive Actions: The Federal Workforce

Project Overview

This essay is part of a series by Lawyers Defending American Democracy, explaining in practical terms what the administration’s executive orders and other executive actions mean for all of us. Each of these actions springs from the pages of Project 2025, the administration's 900-page playbook that serves as the foundation for these measures. The Project 2025 agenda should concern all of us, as it tracks strategies adopted by countries such as Hungary, which have eroded democratic norms and have adopted authoritarian approaches to governing.

Keep ReadingShow less