The new House Speaker, Mike Johnson, has unveiled his proposal for providing aid to Israel, and it definitely meets the far-right’s approval. The bill would provide $14.3 billion for Israel and obtain the funding by cutting $14.3 billion from funds already provided to modernize the IRS and to provide staff to go after wealthy tax evaders. It also doesn’t deal with aid to Ukraine.

The House passed this proposed legislation late on Thursday, despite opposition from the Senate and the President’s statement that he’d veto that bill if it ever reached him, because it will cost more than a clean bill and because aid to Ukraine is important.

In point of fact, aid to Ukraine is likely more critical to U.S. interests than is aid to Israel, given that Ukraine is the tipping point for stopping Russian efforts to recreate a larger Russian “empire” and one that will most certainly take over smaller nations on its periphery if not stopped in Ukraine. Failure to address Ukrainian aid in a timely and uncomplicated way will likely cost both the U.S. and Ukraine a great deal more in the future, but “Magic Mike” has already indicated he’ll tie other right-wing priorities to Ukraine aid.

Practically speaking, the proposal as Johnson has presented and as passed by the House may well be politically appealing to the far right, but it represents partisanship carried to an extreme that’s not only totally against U.S. interests, but counter to the professed goals of the far-right.

How can that be?

The far-right claims it’s against higher taxes and wants to balance the federal budget, but it’s hard to balance the budget when the people who have the most money are avoiding paying what they owe and the IRS doesn’t have the resources and the staff to pursue them.

But then, the far-right not only doesn’t understand international problems, it also can’t count, or won’t, despite Johnson’s rhetoric about fiscal soundness. Allowing tax cheating to continue and having taxpayers wait for hours or days to get answers from the IRS because of outdated equipment, inadequate funding, and overworked and insufficient staff is hardly a recipe for fiscal responsibility.

Below are a few terms consistently thrown out as Republican talking points or values. Beneath each term is the actual meaning.

Smaller Government

Up to a 30% cut in virtually all programs benefitting lower income Americans; less federal funding for infrastructure and the environment; maintaining subsidies and tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations; cuts in foreign aid and military aid to countries such as Ukraine and nations bordering Russia and China, except for Taiwan, because we need their computer chips.

Balanced Budget

A budget balanced on the backs of the poorest Americans, with more tax cuts for the affluent and corporations.

Reducing Federal Regulations

Only reducing those regulations that cost corporations money or require them to protect the environment.

Traditional/Family Values

Emphasis on traditional two-parent family; opposition to equal pay and equal rights for women; banning books and media that depict anything other than “traditional” values; opposition to educational courses that teach unpleasant but proven facts about American society and history; opposition to anything depicting other than heterosexual relationships or life styles; opposition to a woman’s right to choose in the matter of abortion, often even when a pregnancy could kill the mother.

Immigration/Secure Borders

No more immigrants are welcome, unless they’re multi-millionaires or billionaires.

Unconstitutional

Anything proposed by Democrats.

The Republicans in the House have elected a new Speaker – Mike Johnson. By any definition, Johnson is a far-right idealogue – election denier, extreme evangelical, anti-abortion without exception, America-firster who voted against aid to Ukraine, who opposed same-sex marriage and any LBGTQ civil rights, and who continues to back Donald Trump with bogus claims of election fraud of various sorts.

Like all idealogues, for all of his genial soft-spoken manner, he’s an absolutist. Everything is black or white. And that’s the biggest problem with absolutists in politics. Life is filled with shades of gray, and trying to force everything into black and white always results in tyranny, as well as a denial of any facts that don’t fit within the absolutists’ beliefs.

Is Johnson a true idealogue, or an ambitious politician using ideology to gain great power? Or both? In practice, it doesn’t matter. The results will be the same, because idealogues don’t compromise. That should be obvious from the voting patterns of Republicans in the U.S. House.

I don’t see Johnson compromising unless he’s forced to by the defection of moderate Republicans, but if those moderates do defect, the Republican establishment will attempt to handle them in the same fashion as they did with Liz Cheney. If Johnson can hold the House in line, he’s the type to bring the government to a halt until he gets his way, just as the far-right has paralyzed the U.S. House until they got their way.

That kind of mindset can destroy democracy under the guise of saving it, and Mike Johnson is just the type to lead such a crusade.

This past weekend, we went to a dinner party. At the adjoining table were six people, all six more than acquaintances, but less than close friends. They were talking politics, and it became clear that all were Trumpists, very firm ones at that. All six would likely fall into the income classification of upper middle class but might well deny it. The men were professionals, a CPA, a retired consumer products plant manager, and a retired senior regional executive of one of the largest big-box retail chains; the women were a retired schoolteacher, the office manager (and wife) of the CPA, and a full-time housewife.

All were talking about how much they loved Donald Trump, using exactly those words and how much they hated Joe Biden, calling him an incoherent puppet of the far left.

I was tempted to point out a few facts, but refrained because a few weeks ago, I’d had a talk with the retired regional sales executive, and I knew exactly where anything I might say to the six would go. When I earlier pointed out that Trump had been convicted of tax fraud and evasion, as well as sexual assault and defamation, and faced four indictments and 90 some criminal charges, and tried to overthrow an election, and I asked him how he could support someone like that, his answer was, “All politicians are corrupt. What about Hillary and her emails, and Hunter Biden, or Biden’s brother?”

I suggested there was a difference between hard evidence with convictions and indictments and no charges at all in the case of Hillary and charges against Hunter Biden far less damning and not involving his father, and that Hillary hadn’t tried to overthrow the election she lost, to which he replied there was no difference.

Now, I can understand someone who dislikes or despises the policies of the Democrats and who will vote for any Republican rather than a Democrat. I personally think that’s a bit extreme, but I can understand it. What I find unfathomable is LOVING a convicted criminal and proven sex offender who tried to overturn an honest election, and who currently continues to spout proven lies about people in government just doing their jobs.

And then, that night after the dinner, I had a dream, more like nightmare, about the six of our acquaintances, back in Germany in 1933, sitting at dinner and saying how much they loved Adolf Hitler because of the way he was handling the communists and the Jews.

I did wake up from that nightmare.

Societies exist because human beings fare better by cooperating in groups. Human societies have ranged from loose groupings of individuals to grand empires, but one of the distinguishing features of most, if not all, successful nations and empires is that they have adopted structures and laws that strike a balance of some sort between the rights of the individual and the need to maintain civic order while protecting their citizens from attack from without.

There are essentially two ways to hold a country/society together, either through laws based on honesty and public trust of the government or through fear and force. And even societies based on honesty and public trust use fear and force on lawbreakers and other disruptive elements to deter them from harming others.

But the greatest danger to successful societies usually results from corruption from within. Corruption can be loosely defined as breaking in some fashion social compacts or laws that maintain equal rights to personal safety, equal rights to hold and use property, equal access to public services, and equal treatment under law.

Failing to pay taxes is corruption because the evader obtains public services he did not pay for, and thus places a heavier burden on those who do. Bribing a public official for services or contracts disadvantages others (and results in unequal treatment under law) and possibly results in shoddy procurement/goods. Paying to get a government position almost invariably results in a less qualified person in that position… and also reduces faith in government. Less faith in government creates more incentives to cheat government and the mindset that “if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I?”

By the same token, government policies that appear to grant special rights and privileges to certain groups or classes of people also reduce trust in government, even if such policies actually make access more equal.

Now, in practice, all societies have a degree of corruption, but history shows, rather conclusively, that comparatively more honest societies actually achieve more, have greater power, and have happier and more prosperous people.

A society that accepts corruption as a way of life deserves what it gets, and it will continue to get it, because corruption stems from the idea that whatever’s best for me and my family supersedes the rule of law, and when people don’t respect the law, corruption becomes endemic and self-perpetuating.