The former president isn’t in office—but is still dictating U.S. policy.
Donald Trump, who is not the president, is using a minority of Republicans to block aid to Ukraine, to undermine the actual president’s foreign policy, and to weaken American power and credibility.
Why does the article focus on the small minority of Republicans when the rest of the Republicans are complicit in blocking the aid too? Only a few Republicans need to vote in favor of the aid to pass.
It has to be brought to a vote, which is the responsibility of the speaker of the house, who is a Republican. There is a way around that, but I think it would take more than just a few Republicans
That’s the proximate cause. The ultimate cause is that the Republicans stand no chance if they alienate Trump’s base. Many of them would prefer it if he went away but they can’t make it happen.
AFAIK Democrats had the option to elect a moderate Republican as speaker, but instead they allowed Johnson to be elected. So Democrats could as I see it, have prevented the shitshow the House is now.
It's allowed because Democrats failed to prevent it. And instead allowed the MAGA crowd to control the House with their majority among Republicans.
OK, maybe I misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure there were Republicans who aired the idea, and Democrats shot it down immediately.
But maybe it was just media talk IDK?
There was an interesting news conference with Hakeem Jeffries yesterday where he said that its possible that Democrats might vote to save Johnson if there is a vote to vacate the chair due to putting the Ukraine bill on the floor. Jeffries said specifically its because Johnson hasn't reneged on any promises yet. It's clear that Democrats didn't trust Kevin as far as they could throw him. But they are signaling to Johnson that he might be protected if he did what they wanted.
To be fair, I think a majority of Republicans also want the Ukraine/Israel deal, too. It's just the lunatic fringe of the party willing to abandon Ukraine. (I think we know why.)
Because the Republican House Reps listen to him and want to appeal to his political base. And because right-wing news media pushes a ton of Trump-friendly media advocating against further funding of the Ukraine War.
If you really get under the hood of this thing, the Republican positions is that Americans should be allied with Russia and at war with Ukraine because Ukrainians are gay woke liberal pedophile soyboys, while Russians are Based Western TradCath Chads. What gets even nuttier is that Republicans still despise China, and believe they need to ally with Russia against China in a war over the South Pacific.
Trump's not even really leading on this issue so much as echoing what the right-wing press regularly puts out. The real hand behind the throne is a cartel of industrialist billionaire hold-overs from the John Bircher movement of the 1960s, plus their larger network of talk radio, TV, newspaper, and social media talking heads parroting their message.