No More Speaker Fiascos, Please

I am once again torn after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a resolution, a motion to vacate Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House. Whether or not we will have another Speaker fiasco is up for debate as many House Republicans have expressed, "It's not the time," but certainly there is even growing disdain for Speaker Johnson among Republican voters outside of Congress.

The issue for me is that while I disagree with Johnson's decision to allow for more funding to Ukraine, I have also expressed numerous times the need to have at least some modicum of unity within the party, and to have an understanding that while we all want certain things, we're not ever going to get everything we want.

I don't want an all or nothing government anyway, regardless of who is in charge. It doesn't get the work done if you have that expectation or operate that way. The job of Congress, in my view, is not to do the bidding of the parties, but to do the bidding of the American people they represent.

That means having a discussion on the issues, searching for and finding that important middle ground, and deciding things on the basis of compromise that still gets something done even if neither side gets a perfect resolution.

I grant you, the topic of Ukraine is a hot one. It's not our fight. I admit to having mixed feelings about it. Unlike many of my fellow Republicans, I am not as huge a fan of Putin as some my Republican friends seem to be. I view Russia as an evil regime with interests and ideals far removed from core American values.

They are allies with countries like Iran and China for Heaven's sake. And I disagree with Putin's rationale for invading Ukraine in the first place.

The bottom line is, I have no admiration for Putin at all, honestly. I feel for the citizens of Ukraine, caught in a battle they likely will never win. But the amount of money we are sending over there just feels wrong to me when we have other issues inside our own borders to address and a ballooning debt crisis.

I mean, what's the end game for the United States, really, when it comes to Ukraine?

Look, we're only 7 months away from the general election. Can we afford to have another clown show Speaker fight? And I know that assessment might piss of some of my fellow Republican friends. But that's what it is. That's what it looks like to the general voting public. It especially looks like that to the all important independent voters who ultimately decide who wins the race.

I get it. We're conservatives. We're Republicans. We take the higher moral ground and unlike the Democrats, when we have bad dogs, we scold them. 

Meanwhile, all of this infighting also does another thing. It creates a huge distraction. There's work to be done. We should be filing resolutions and having discussions that advance the interests of the public at large. 

I don't like all of what Mike Johnson is doing. At the same time, I have no expectation that I will find myself in agreement with him 100% of the time. Just like with any politician. I don't even disagree 100% of the time with the Democrats.

I think it is important to air our concerns and state our disagreements. But immediately calling for someone to be fired just because we didn't get our way on one or another issue to me is simply childish and uncalled for.

The big question is, how do we expect to win elections if it appears we cannot even agree with ourselves? How can we convince the American people we know how to lead if we can't even decide who leads us?

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