Meet the new Speaker, same as the old Speaker

The mud in The Swamp is as thick as it's ever been. Campaigns to combat the Uniparty will have to originate from outside of its base of operations.

They swapped out Kevin McCarthy for Mike Johnson, and nothing has really changed whatsoever.

It’s business as usual in Washington, D.C., with one party attempting to drive off the cliff at 97MPH, and the other party coasting in the same direction, but driving the speed limit.

Politico reports:

“Speaker Mike Johnson said he's ‘confident and optimistic’ Congress will be able to pass additional funds to help Israel and Ukraine before the holidays — provided lawmakers are able to coalesce around border security policy changes sought by Republicans.”

In the piece, Johnson is quoted as saying [emphasis on Uniparty rhetoric in bold]:

“Ukraine is another priority. Of course, we can’t allow Vladimir Putin to march through Europe. And we understand the necessity of assisting there. What we’ve said is that if there is to be additional assistance to Ukraine — which most members of Congress believe is important — we have to also work on changing our own border policy.”

In short, it looks like the Slava Slush Fund is still alive, which means that so is every other Big Government priority.

So Republicans have once more conceded the big fight in exchange for the hopes to carve out a few bucks to “secure the border,” which will surely not be sufficient to actually secure the border.

In recent weeks, Speaker Johnson has endorsed Donald Trump and released the Jan. 6 tapes, in a seeming attempt to secure his bonafides with the GOP base. But when it comes to being a real agent for change, he’s come up empty. And his commentary about the holiday season legislative agenda makes that crystal clear.

At The Dossier, we promised to give the new Speaker a fair shake, and wrote approvingly of Rep. Matt Gaetz’s gambit to unseat former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Down with the Uniparty: deposing Speaker McCarthy was the righteous move

But that optimism has disappeared in the face of reality.

It’s not that things have gotten any worse in D.C. But the Speaker transfer has done absolutely nothing to change the way business is done in the Beltway, where the corporate and quasi governmental organization lobbyists take priority over the interests of the American people. The once-promising “populist revolt” has fizzled out.

Last month, we asked whether Speaker Johnson would become a “liberty hero or an establishment zero.”

Will Speaker Mike Johnson become a liberty hero or an establishment zero?

And the answer to that question is becoming increasingly clear.

The mud in The Swamp is as thick as it has ever been. It’s become clear as ever that efforts to combat the D.C. Uniparty will have to originate from outside of its base of operations.