Time was, and it wasn’t that long ago, when Hollywood gifted us with epic films depicting heroic high school boys (and cute girls) fighting guerilla actions against invading Russian armies.
Starring Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey, the 1984 film “Red Dawn” was probably the best known, but Chuck Norris also made one about a commie invasion of Florida.
So now it’s “Civil War,” featuring Kirsten Dunst as a crusading journalist struggling to reach Washington to interview an embattled president holed up in the White House. Apparently, the film never discloses the causes of the fighting, nor who’s on which side, with any clarity, although California and Texas are allies, improbable as that may seem.
There’s also something called the Florida Alliance, presumably battalions of old duffers riding to battle in golf carts.
Fore!
What the film apparently does disclose is how many gun-happy Americans fantasize about shooting people. (It’s being shot at that most amateur militia enthusiasts fail to fully imagine.) Otherwise, I’m confident there are also plenty of car chases and exploding gas tanks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an 18-wheeler go up in flames.
Kaboom!
Anyway, I think I’ll take a pass, because while it’s my solemn duty as a Pundit-American to worry about a 21st-century American civil war, I can’t pretend to take the idea seriously.
Sure, millions of Americans get a charge out of talking about how angry they are and calling each other bad names on Facebook and Twitter. It’s essentially masturbatory activity.
But when push comes to shove, what the vast majority really want is something like what happened in Congress last week — bipartisan cooperation and a functioning government.
Speaker Mike Johnson may not deserve a Nobel Prize for bringing President Joe Biden’s foreign aid package to a vote in the House over the strident objection and threats of the adolescent wing of the Republican Party.
But the bill’s passage by a 311-112 vote shows that at least the man can count. Even Donald Trump was forced to abandon what The Atlantic’s David Frum called his “peculiar and sinister enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin’s Russia” and pivot to the winning side.
After years of sneering at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and groveling before the Russian strongman, Trump did an abrupt about face. “As everyone agrees,” he posted on his Truth Social website, “Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!”
Actually, NATO members that see the Russian tyrant as an existential threat to their own democracies helped keep Ukraine in the fight while the U.S. Congress dithered. Meanwhile, somebody needs to inform Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. — “Moscow Marge,” Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has taken to calling her — and her handful of far-right allies that the wind has changed.
Will Fox News pivot with it?
Why the mainstream press persists in the habit of calling Moscow Marge, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and others of their ilk “conservatives,” I can’t say. There’s nothing conservative about pimping for Putin.
Should Greene follow through on her threat to call for a vote vacating the speakership, it appears enough Democrats under the leadership of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will support Johnson to keep him in the job. In a House long dominated by party-line voting on leadership issues, the effect could prove decisive longer term, saving Republicans from themselves.
What if crossing party lines became a habit? Might it begin to ameliorate the scorched-earth politics that have dominated Washington since Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh came to town in the 1990s? I personally find Speaker Johnson’s style annoying. Deep South Bible-beaters who drag God into everything get on my nerves.
“He was torn between trying to save his job and do the right thing,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul told CNN reporters. A Republican advocate of protecting Ukraine’s democracy, he described Johnson as praying over his decision the night before the legislation was released.
In the light of day, the speaker stood firm: “My philosophy is do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. If I operated out of fear over motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job. Look, history judges us for what we do. This is a critical time right now.”
A bit self-serving, you say? Well, he’s a career politician. Cooperating with Democrats to pass critical legislation infuriated GOP culture warriors. (A small majority of Republicans voted against Ukraine aid.)
Veteran Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole told reporters that counting on Democratic votes was the only realistic way to get anything done given razor-thin majorities.
“This place is probably operating right now more like the founders thought it would,” Cole said.
Yeah, well, they were career politicians, too. Meanwhile, the Civil War has been postponed.
Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President.” Email Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com.
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