Why would Republicans want the military to prepare for real wars when fighting culture wars is so much more fun?
In recent years, the GOP has abandoned its commitment to many of the core principles it once stood for (law and order, family values, fiscal responsibility, etc.). Lately, we can add to that list: a strong commitment to U.S. national security.
Consider Republicans’ recent shenanigans surrounding the marquee annual defense legislation, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is a must-pass bill that Republican lawmakers have lately been trying to convert into a less-likely-to-pass, more-likely-to-shut-down-the-entire-government bill.
For most of the past six decades, the NDAA has passed Congress with strong bipartisan support. That tradition was ignored last Friday, when the fiscal 2024 defense bill passed the GOP-controlled House overwhelmingly along party lines.
This time around, only four Democrats voted for the measure. To be clear, that’s not because Democratic lawmakers have suddenly become less supportive of our military. It’s because Republicans decided to compromise national security by dragging the Pentagon into unrelated and divisive culture-war issues, which made the final legislation too toxic for Democrats to support.
Dana Milbank: Republicans celebrate their successful deception of voters
At the last minute, after the House Armed Services Committee had spent months hashing out a bipartisan deal, House Republicans voted to add poison-pill amendments demanded by far-right lawmakers.
Among these amendments: new limits on abortion access for service members and their families, through language prohibiting reimbursement for travel and transportation costs related to abortion or fertility care.
The bill would also prohibit the military from implementing directives related to climate change. As military leaders appointed by presidents of both parties have observed, climate change represents a serious security threat, as it affects not only U.S. military readiness but also geopolitical unrest abroad, through floods, famine, drought and other contributors to population displacement and conflict.
The GOP bill would gut the military’s diversity and inclusion programs. (Phew, good thing we don’t need diverse personnel in the armed services.) And it includes a litany of anti-LGBTQ+ provisions, including one curbing medical care for transgender troops. Another would limit the flags that employees of the military may display in public places — language designed to ban the Pride flag.
Yet other language would prohibit military-run schools that educate the children of service members from keeping any “radical gender ideology books” on their library shelves.
Hard-right lawmakers demanded that these measures be added to the bill, knowing full well they would cause the bill to lose Democratic votes.
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What to make of such cynical behavior? Consider the wise words of a former House minority leader, who once said: “The NDAA was a test for this new majority. It was a test of whether they could put their radicalism aside and work across the aisle to do what was right for the country. … [They] failed.”
The elder statesman who made these observations was Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). He made the comments back in 2019, when Democrats had just retaken the House. McCarthy was upset that the majority had larded up its defense authorization bill with what he considered partisan priorities (e.g., language blocking use of defense funds for President Donald Trump’s border wall). That bill received a party-line vote in the House, too.
Now back in the majority, and serving as House speaker, McCarthy has changed his tune. Today, he argues that a little culture-warring to slow down the defense bill is not only desirable but necessary. Apparently the greatest risk to U.S. national security is not international terrorism, Russian aggression or even Chinese authoritarianism. It’s homegrown woke-ism.
“We don’t want Disneyland to train our military,” McCarthy said Friday.
Given all this, perhaps the best way to summarize GOP priorities these days is merely promotion of cultural grievances and fearmongering. Certainly there have been many policies — so-called bathroom bills, anti-immigrant measures, book bans, anti-drag legislation — playing up the culture wars, particularly at the state level.
But at the federal level, the GOP seems to have another broad objective, too: throwing sand in the gears of government, and sowing government dysfunction wherever possible.
After all, the House bill’s culture-war measures are probably dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Maybe this means that at the other end of this process, legislators will have worked out a more normal, bipartisan, cultural-grievance-free bill. Perhaps more likely, unresolvable conflict over the defense bill will help precipitate a government shutdown, which some Republican lawmakers have openly signaled they want.
Culture wars and chaos: the brand conservatives can get behind.
In recent years, the GOP has abandoned its commitment to many of the core principles it once stood for (law and order, family values, fiscal responsibility, etc.). Lately, we can add to that list: a strong commitment to U.S. national security.
Consider Republicans’ recent shenanigans surrounding the marquee annual defense legislation, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is a must-pass bill that Republican lawmakers have lately been trying to convert into a less-likely-to-pass, more-likely-to-shut-down-the-entire-government bill.
For most of the past six decades, the NDAA has passed Congress with strong bipartisan support. That tradition was ignored last Friday, when the fiscal 2024 defense bill passed the GOP-controlled House overwhelmingly along party lines.
This time around, only four Democrats voted for the measure. To be clear, that’s not because Democratic lawmakers have suddenly become less supportive of our military. It’s because Republicans decided to compromise national security by dragging the Pentagon into unrelated and divisive culture-war issues, which made the final legislation too toxic for Democrats to support.
Dana Milbank: Republicans celebrate their successful deception of voters
At the last minute, after the House Armed Services Committee had spent months hashing out a bipartisan deal, House Republicans voted to add poison-pill amendments demanded by far-right lawmakers.
Among these amendments: new limits on abortion access for service members and their families, through language prohibiting reimbursement for travel and transportation costs related to abortion or fertility care.
The bill would also prohibit the military from implementing directives related to climate change. As military leaders appointed by presidents of both parties have observed, climate change represents a serious security threat, as it affects not only U.S. military readiness but also geopolitical unrest abroad, through floods, famine, drought and other contributors to population displacement and conflict.
The GOP bill would gut the military’s diversity and inclusion programs. (Phew, good thing we don’t need diverse personnel in the armed services.) And it includes a litany of anti-LGBTQ+ provisions, including one curbing medical care for transgender troops. Another would limit the flags that employees of the military may display in public places — language designed to ban the Pride flag.
Yet other language would prohibit military-run schools that educate the children of service members from keeping any “radical gender ideology books” on their library shelves.
Hard-right lawmakers demanded that these measures be added to the bill, knowing full well they would cause the bill to lose Democratic votes.
Press Enter to skip to end of carousel
What to make of such cynical behavior? Consider the wise words of a former House minority leader, who once said: “The NDAA was a test for this new majority. It was a test of whether they could put their radicalism aside and work across the aisle to do what was right for the country. … [They] failed.”
The elder statesman who made these observations was Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). He made the comments back in 2019, when Democrats had just retaken the House. McCarthy was upset that the majority had larded up its defense authorization bill with what he considered partisan priorities (e.g., language blocking use of defense funds for President Donald Trump’s border wall). That bill received a party-line vote in the House, too.
Now back in the majority, and serving as House speaker, McCarthy has changed his tune. Today, he argues that a little culture-warring to slow down the defense bill is not only desirable but necessary. Apparently the greatest risk to U.S. national security is not international terrorism, Russian aggression or even Chinese authoritarianism. It’s homegrown woke-ism.
“We don’t want Disneyland to train our military,” McCarthy said Friday.
Given all this, perhaps the best way to summarize GOP priorities these days is merely promotion of cultural grievances and fearmongering. Certainly there have been many policies — so-called bathroom bills, anti-immigrant measures, book bans, anti-drag legislation — playing up the culture wars, particularly at the state level.
But at the federal level, the GOP seems to have another broad objective, too: throwing sand in the gears of government, and sowing government dysfunction wherever possible.
After all, the House bill’s culture-war measures are probably dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Maybe this means that at the other end of this process, legislators will have worked out a more normal, bipartisan, cultural-grievance-free bill. Perhaps more likely, unresolvable conflict over the defense bill will help precipitate a government shutdown, which some Republican lawmakers have openly signaled they want.
Culture wars and chaos: the brand conservatives can get behind.
