Trump’s flaws fortify Speaker Johnson’s folly

There is no debate about who won. It was an all-American a-- kicking, as they say in the locker room.

Of course, I am talking about the ABC-TV presidential debate Tuesday night between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. The debate was viewed by almost 70 million people, both here and abroad.

Yes, it had a worldwide audience because the winner of the November election will not only impact the United States but every other country on the planet, which has looked to American leadership, depended upon American leadership and, in many cases, survived and thrived because of American leadership. And the thought of losing Uncle Sam at this most precarious time is reason enough for everyone to pay attention.

I don’t need to go into the particulars of the debate and why it was a clear knockout by the lady in the blue corner against her challenger who hid behind his friends and America’s enemies in the red corner (pun intended). Suffice it to say that the well-publicized Trump-lashing that Fox News received from the former leader of the free world tells us all we need to know.

There is one guy, though, who doesn’t seem to have gotten the message that the man-who-would-be-emperor and who would love to be the king, may actually have no clothes.

That’s a long way of saying that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson might be better served if he stopped serving up to the American people every bad idea that Trump and his cronies wish to burden the rest of us with on our way to exercise our right to vote.

Johnson has been fighting his GOP caucus in the House over — what else — the upcoming vote to keep the government open. We have been there and done that too many times to expect anything different from the clown show that masquerades as the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. Excuse me, it is no longer on the wings. It is the Republican Party!

To keep the government funded and open this time, the crazies want some kind of election security language added that will protect the country from election security breaches that do not exist. You know: the same failures that didn’t exist in 2020, which resulted in the Trump-led insurrection at the Capital on Jan. 6.

In any event, Johnson’s razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives isn’t buying what he and Trump are selling, so the votes just aren’t there to pass a flawed funding bill that is dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate.

So the life-on-the-brink-of-disaster games continue and the chaos continues, and the disillusionment all of that causes among the American people continues.

It’s happening all because the speaker of the House can’t rid his own house of the idea that Trump is a shoo-in for the White House this November.

Had Speaker Johnson watched the debate, he might be sober enough to at least consider the possibility that the voters may decide that change away from chaos is good for their country, good for our democracy and great for the younger generations who will inherit whatever we decide to leave them of this country.

In short, Johnson should hedge his bets. So far, he has gone all in — as have his Republican colleagues — on the probability of a Trump victory and what being on the wrong side might mean for a career in politics.

But, for just this once — based on the presidential performance of Kamala Harris in dismantling the man who used to be Trump in front of the entire world — perhaps Johnson should consider America first and what’s his name after that.

A reporter for one of the networks was commenting on the proposed vote to fund the government and made what was a not surprising mistake as he talked about Trump’s impact on the speaker’s decision to hold America’s credit rating hostage. What he meant to say was “fund” the government. What he actually said was the other f-word.

Some would call it Freudian, some would call it Trumpian. I prefer to call it what it is: yet another effort by Trump and his MAGA minions to undermine the full faith and credit of the United States and the faith in this democracy required from all Americans if we are to continue what our Founding Fathers started.

Whatever else you may think about what’s going on, there should be no debate about that.

Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.