The Swamp has voted for a quagmire, with supporters of aid to Ukraine offering no reason to think the latest $61 billion will do what the last $75-odd billion failed to achieve. Increasingly, even proponents concede that the aim isn’t victory, but simply keeping the fight going, for fear that otherwise Kiev’s war effort might collapse as quickly as Kabul did. For months, Republican doubts about the wisdom of this non-strategy kept Ukraine aid from reaching the House floor, let alone passing into law. Most GOP House members’ doubts haven’t been assuaged—but Speaker Mike Johnson’s were, and that was enough.
Republicans slightly outnumber Democrats in the House of Representatives right now, but as Johnson has proved, the uniparty outnumbers Republicans. And where foreign policy is concerned, the uniparty has more in common with the Democrats who run the Senate than with the GOP majority in the House.
A majority of House Republicans, 112 of them, voted against sending another $61 billion in aid to Ukraine. But Johnson and 100 other Republicans joined all 210 Democrats who voted on the bill (three didn’t vote) to give President Biden the Ukraine support he had long demanded. The Senate followed suit.
Why did a Republican speaker side with Biden and against his own caucus?