GOP Death Cult

Residents call the metro area of about 760,000 Shreveport-Bossier, encompassing Shreveport — population 180,000, where Johnson was raised on the west bank of the Red River — and growing suburbs to the east in Bossier Parish, where the speaker now lives.

But there are vast distinctions between the two sides, the residue of disinvestment and white flight by families like Johnson’s.

The city proper is about 57 percent Black, 37 percent White and 3 percent Latino, according to the most recent census. Bossier Parish, home to about 130,000 people, is about 70 percent White, 24 percent Black and 7 percent Latino. Overall, Johnson’s district has a median household income of about $48,600, below the national median of nearly $75,000. About 22 percent live below the poverty level…

Like many cities in Louisiana, Shreveport is governed by Democrats and Bossier Parish is largely Republican; Republicans will control all three branches of state government once conservative Attorney General Jeff Landry, elected governor earlier this month, takes office in January…

“He was a part of that exodus from Shreveport; he didn’t stay and make the community better and as a congressman, he has done little to make the community better,” said the Rev. Theron Jackson, the Black pastor of 94-year-old Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church.

A former Shreveport city council member, Jackson, 54, was once a Democrat but said he now considers himself an independent. He’s working to counter homelessness and what he calls “trans-generational poverty” that dates to segregation.

Earlier this year, Jackson traveled to Baton Rouge to lobby for changes to Louisiana’s congressional districts — only one of six is a majority Black district despite a state population that is more than 30 percent Black. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to speed up redrawing the districts after a federal judge found the latest map still dilutes the strength of Black voters.

“When you become speaker of the house, that’s supposed to mean a lot more for your district and your state. The question is, what is that going to mean for us?” Jackson said. “It may mean more for those who have already benefited from his presence, but certainly not all of us.”…

America’s proudly ‘independent’ voters:

This person seems to have a well thought out and coherent political perspective pic.twitter.com/li9FCsUG7v

— Tomb Hellton (@TVHilton) October 30, 2023

Then again, one could always check out FTFNYTimes, if you prefer a cozier take:

You can tell this is a fair and balanced look at Mike Johnson’s hometown and how it shaped him by the way it starts off quoting his mother and then waits until paragraph 36 to quote a Black person despite Shreveport being 57 percent Black.https://t.co/V5CzlHj36m

— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) October 30, 2023

"We need to stop asking people in diners about foreign aid … Instead, put our national leaders on the spot to explain what they think foreign aid is … and then call them out, every time, when they spin fantasies about it," @RadioFreeTom writes: https://t.co/PspKru2o2H

— Not a former naval aviator (@jonruttenberg) October 30, 2023

… “Politics here is personal,” according to Celeste Gauthier, 45. (The Post, for some reason, notes that Gauthier attended Middlebury College for a time—perhaps as a clumsy way of trying to tell us she’s not merely some rough local, and that she returned from Vermont to help run her family’s three restaurants.) She is concerned:

“People really do look at the funding we’re sending to Israel and Ukraine and say, ‘I can’t afford to go to Kroger,’” Gauthier said as she sat amid the lunchtime crowd, some of whom she said had stopped buying beverages because of the cost. “A lot of these customers know Mike Johnson and think we often get overlooked and maybe we won’t anymore,” she said.

I’m not sure what it means to be “overlooked” in a cherry-red district in a state where, as the Post notes, Republicans will control all three branches of state government once the conservative governor-elect is sworn in, but the comment about foreign aid is a classic expression of how little people understand about the subject.

Perhaps Gauthier or others believe that the new speaker—who has been opposed to sending aid to Ukraine—would redirect the money back to “overlooked” Louisianans, maybe as increased aid to the poor. He wouldn’t, of course, as he has already proposed huge cuts in social spending. As for Israel, evangelical Christians such as Johnson have a special interest in Israel for their own eschatological reasons, and Johnson has already decided to decouple aid to Israel from aid to Ukraine. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—whose understanding of foreign policy is practically Churchillian compared with Johnson’s—is none too happy about that…

We need to stop asking people in diners about foreign aid. (Populists who demand that we rely on guidance from The People should remember that most Americans think foreign aid should be about 10 percent of the budget—a percentage those voters think would be a reduction but would actually be a massive increase.) Instead, put our national leaders on the spot to explain what they think foreign aid is, where it goes, and what it does, and then call them out, every time, when they spin fantasies about it. Otherwise, legislators such as Johnson will be able to sit back and let the folks at the pie counter believe that he’s going to round up $75 billion and send it back home.

That’s an old and dumb trope, but it works. If you’re a Republican in Congress, and if you can stay in Washington by convincing people at the diner that you’re going to take cash from Ukrainians (wherever they are) and give it back to the hardworking waitress pouring your coffee, then you do it—because in this new GOP, your continued presence in Washington is more important than anything, including the security of the United States.

As ever, to the self-professed ‘Christians’:

Hey Speaker Johnson and the House Republicans… pic.twitter.com/otqPmN0MMd

— Michael F Ozaki MD (@brontyman) October 26, 2023