Republican "Loathe Triangle" Dramedy Gets Even More Complicated

Mike Johnson's legacy--other than being the male version of an American Girl doll--will largely be about how he managed some high maintenance relationships

Here are the players:

• The professional pragmatic ideologue (key character traits/backstory: does not have a bank account, seems vaguely like an android)

• The frenzied hyperbolic “cry wolf” zealot (key character traits: conspiracy promoter, unabashedly and confidently loud despite documented ignorance)

• The nihilist (key character trait: narcissistic and proud, despite being out of shape and unable to talk coherently)

Unfortunately, we are not writing a novel, but, instead, living through an unbelievable time in American history. If you can’t match the characters above with the actual people playing them, here they are in order: House Speaker Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Donald Trump.

Together they are taking part in what seems to be a “loathe triangle” dramedy that has been getting more complicated by the day. None of this should really be too surprising, given the dysfunctional state of the Republican Party at this time, but it’s still a sight to behold. Like an unwatchable movie that you are only watching so that, if it becomes a cult classic, you can say you watched it.

First Act: The Glue

Amazingly, Mike Johnson has been coming off as the glue that holds the broken pieces together. But, as I’ve written about extensively here and here, that’s essentially what he has to do for the House Republicans to maintain any semblance of sanity and governing competence. The saner they look, the better the chances of them holding the House majority, although those chances are now, and have always been, extremely slim.

Yes, he’s called “MAGA Mike Johnson” and has been labelled a “christo-fascist”, but the reality is he can’t govern that way, and he knows it. If he didn’t know it, the federal government would have been shut down for months by now with no end in sight. And there would be no hope of funding Ukraine, Israel, or Taiwan without a complete border shutdown.

Instead, the federal government is open for business through the whole fiscal year, and votes to fund the defense of Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, all seem on track to happen in the House as soon as this weekend. The pragmatist is doing what pragmatists do…being pragmatic. Anything other than doing these things would look insane to the American people, and he understands that.

Second Act: The Lunatic

Enter the zealot, Marjorie Taylor Greene. As soon as the government was funded, which by necessity required Johnson and a relatively large portion of Republicans to agree with Democrats on some items, Greene filed a motion to vacate, which tees up a chance to attempt to remove Johnson as Speaker at any point in the future if further action is taken.

She wrote a scathing letter explaining why, in which she said that the funding agreement was a “total surrender” to Democrats, with whom he was working “in lockstep”. On Xitter (X/Twitter, pronounced “shitter”), she even accused him of being the “Democrat Speaker of the House”. She also said that Republicans are essentially giving up their majority by following this path.

Of course, as I mentioned before, if her preferred path was taken, then the government would currently still not be funded, and support for Ukraine would be nowhere in sight. Johnson knows that their majority is imperiled and appearing to be sane is their only hope. As a curious aside that gives rise to questions of Greene’s motivations, why did she stand by the ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy when he was being removed for essentially the same exact thing?

In a sign of the actual support she has, the number of Republicans that are signing off on Greene’s motion to vacate has doubled….from one (Greene) to two (Thomas Massie of KY). This suggest that, likely due to the trauma of the previous two Speaker votes during the current House Republican majority, there’s little appetite for such action.

Third Act: The Grim Nihilist

Who can step in and provide guidance to Republicans during this turbulent time? Donald Trump, of course! When in doubt, just do and say whatever Trump does and says.

But this is where things become interesting. Trump is a nihilist, will always do what he thinks is cool at any given time, and then could flip-flop later on the same issues for the same reason. There are no actual principles that govern his behavior. But he’s so influential among the voters of his party that he forces Republicans to equivocate and constantly come up with new arguments to justify their behavior, which changes at the whims of Trump. I can’t even think of an analogy for a fictional story character prototype that fits. A character that’s pure nihilism is almost impossible to write a story about, as there’s no conceivable endearing trait or character arc or involved.

Earlier this year, the loathe triangle was closer to a love triangle, as Johnson did exactly what Trump wanted with a newly negotiated border security bill. He would not allow a vote in the House, essentially killing it. Everyone was happy. MTG was much quieter, and Trump and Johnson seemed to be totally in sync with each other.

This deteriorated when Johnson got the government funding package through. Trump was oddly quiet during this time. Hard to say if this was intentional, or if he was more focused on his other issues, such as: indictments, posting bonds, becoming the official Republican nominee…you know, normal stuff people have to deal with. But MTG certainly thought she was doing the noble Trumpian thing by filing that motion to vacate.

Then came the recent express willingness to deal with the funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Johnson even has announced a House vote on these bills as early as this Saturday. Johnson is trying to play to Trump’s preferences and handle each separately, presumably in order to treat Ukraine differently than the others, which have essentially full Republican support. The Ukraine funds are presented more as “loans” instead of a pure giveaway, which is something that Trump had mentioned previously. And the fact that it’s a stand-alone bill gives Republicans the opportunity to vote “no” on Ukraine to appease The Don.

Fourth Act: The Sting

Perhaps Trump is okay with Ukraine support if it’s in the form of loans simply because he came up with the idea, hard to know for sure at this time, but he has not been railing against the new strategy, while MTG has been going off on it, and threatening to….continue threatening, it seems.

The default position for crazy MAGA has always been to not fund Ukraine, and favor Russia, so it makes sense if MTG is vehemently opposed to any Ukraine support vote being held at all. But Trump is suddenly giving the Ukraine funding issue and her the cold shoulder. He’s staying suspiciously mum, having just finished up a meeting with the other corner of the triangle, Johnson.

In that meeting, they appeared to support each other. Johnson gave lip service to Trump’s big bugaboo, “election integrity”, saying that he supports a bill to make something illegal that is already illegal (non-citizens voting in Federal elections). Trump has in turn done what he does to show support: NOT post insulting things on Truth Social. Plus, he offered the quasi-endorsement of, “[Johnson] is doing a very good job”.

Trump also vaguely responded to questions about MTG’s efforts to remove Johnson as Speaker with the cryptic “We’ll see what happens with that”. This is not a full-throated endorsement of any particular action, and in true Trump fashion could be read as him positioning himself to say he was behind whatever result ends up happening.

But it seems like this could cause MTG to be a bit miffed at best. She’s been vehemently promoting the Trump/MAGA agenda for her whole career, with Trump’s approving grin behind her. And now he’s meeting with Johnson and showing outward support for the Speaker, in addition to not humiliating him on social media.

As a result, she appears to be tempering her rhetoric a bit, while avoiding criticism of Trump. In interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, as recounted in Raw Story on April 15, she mentions support from others for the specific action that she has teed up for herself to take:

Raju asked if Greene would back off her efforts to oust Johnson from the Speakership, Greene answered with a resounding negative, according to the report.

"No, no, and as a matter of fact, there’s more people that are probably going to be angry from whatever happens this week," Greene reportedly said.

"[Greene] has been warning Johnson not to move on Ukraine aid," Raju continued. "Leaving conference meeting, MTG is angry about the speaker’s approach but says she hasn’t decided yet whether it will cause the motion to vacate."

This is just three weeks removed from saying she’s “done” with Speaker Johnson and filing the motion to vacate, after he allowed the government funding bill to get passed. And now she’s acting like she needs support from others to take action on something she’s now suddenly undecided on? What’s a scorned loather to do?

Who knows how this drama will end. But one thing is certain: There continues to be trouble in Republican paradise.