“Put those damn flags away,” 34-year-old Anna Paulina Luna sneered, as Democrats waived miniature Ukrainian banners on the House floor following a 311-112 bipartisan vote to green light $60 billion in new aid to Kyiv.

Luna, a born-again right-wing incendiary whose personal rebranding exercise remains the subject of some debate, counts herself among the vexatious Republican extremity which continues to bedevil America’s legislative process. That contingent of lawmakers spent months blocking desperately needed foreign aid to Ukraine, where the beleaguered populace lives under constant threat of aerial bombardment from Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Like his predecessor, House Speaker Mike Johnson regularly struggles to pacify his right-most flank (despite hailing from it), and also like his predecessor, Johnson was eventually forced to gamble the gavel in the interest of advancing must-pass legislation.

111 Republicans joined Luna in opposing additional assistance to Ukraine. The nays included all the usual suspects. Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace and so on.

101 Republicans joined all Democrats in voting for the bill, which includes a $10 billion forgivable loan and a provision setting up the sale of seized Russian assets.

Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the US. The aid package will prevent “the war from expanding,” he said. Zelensky named Johnson, praising the Speaker as a man who overcame personal objections (Johnson routinely voted against sending additional aid to Ukraine prior to replacing Kevin McCarthy as Speaker) to “keep history on the right track.”

Johnson will likely face a coup. Although Donald Trump stood beside the Speaker (literally) during a recent press conference aimed in part at staving off a motion to vacate threatened by Greene, Johnson can’t count on Trump to stand in the way of a determined insurgency. Instead, Johnson will need to rely on Democrats to keep the gavel. That, apparently, was the bargain: Deliver enough Republican votes to pass the foreign aid bills with something we can call an overwhelming bipartisan majority, and maybe we’ll help you keep the gavel.

Ostensibly, GOP opposition to the Ukraine funding is attributable to concerns that the money’s better spent shoring up America’s southern border. That, and generalized angst around what Greene described as “a business model built on blood and murder.”

I actually don’t disagree with Greene’s characterization of American foreign policy. But without castigating the congresswoman, I have grave doubts about her motivations and even if I didn’t, I’m skeptical that Greene possesses the nuanced understanding of geopolitical realities necessary to distinguish between causes that are worth funding (like Ukraine’s defense) and those that aren’t (like neocolonial adventurism dressed up as democratic proselytizing).

In addition to the Ukraine bill, the House also cleared $26 billion for Israel and $8 billion in what amounts to deterrence money for the Indo-Pacific. The funding for Israel didn’t come with the kind of strings that critics of the Netanyahu government would’ve preferred.

US policy towards Israel has shifted meaningfully in recent weeks. The targeting (accidentally, according to the IDF) of seven World Central Kitchen food volunteers by the Israeli military in Gaza was a turning point of sorts, and the US’s abstention from a Security Council vote on a measure demanding an immediate halt to the fighting during Ramadan a week previous was a milestone.

Some readers suggested there’s been no such shift, or if there has, it’s meaningless on the ground in Gaza. That latter contention’s certainly true, but it’s important to note that any shift in American support for Israel’s notable. And there has been a perceptible shift.

Axios said over the weekend that the State Department’s poised to sanction a notorious IDF unit for human rights abuses in the West Bank, a prospect Benjamin Netanyahu called “the height of absurdity.” Although the investigation into the unit dates to 2022, a decision to move ahead with sanctions now, in the middle of what Israel considers an existential war, sends a message: There are two sides to the Israel-Palestine conflict. And to quote a former US president, there are “good people on both sides.” Yehiya Sinwar plainly isn’t one of them. Neither is Netanyahu. But Hamas’s actions shouldn’t condemn all Gazans to death, just as Itamar Ben-Gvir’s extremism shouldn’t be confused or conflated with the collective Israeli will.

The US makes no secret of which side America’s on. Israel’s. Just ask Mahmoud Abbas, who said he’ll “reevaluate” the Palestinian Authority’s relationship with America after the US vetoed a bid by Palestine to be recognized as a full UN member state. But, again, the Biden administration has taken tentative steps towards rescinding the carte blanche blamed in many circles for exacerbating the civilian death toll in Gaza and, before the war, encouraging Israeli violations of international law in the West Bank.

All of that said, the new aid package for Israel cleared by the House on Saturday doesn’t include strict conditions, and therefore will look like a blank check in the eyes of Netanyahu’s many detractors and also to besieged Gazans. Reports suggested IDF strikes in Rafah killed nearly two-dozen people over the weekend, including 18 children. The House vote on fresh assistance for Israel was 366 to 58.

Coming quickly back to Ukraine, Democrats and what counts these days as “moderate” Republicans delivered a veritable chorus of lofty rhetoric.

“If Ukraine does not receive this support… the legacy of this Congress will be the appeasement of a dictator,” Democrat Rosa DeLauro declared.

“We cannot be afraid at this moment. Evil is on the march,” Republican Michael McCaul urged. “History is calling and now is the time to act.”

Suffice to say McCaul’s far-right colleagues remained unconvinced. Luna’s Ricky Bobby-esque personal motto says people “have two options in life.” They can “choose to be the victor or the victim.” Whatever you want to say about Ukraine, they’ve demonstrated a steadfast determination to “choose” victor despite impossibly long odds. But Luna and her compatriots seem inexplicably determined to make that choice harder.

McCaul presented his fellow Republicans with a choice of their own. “You have to ask yourself this question: ‘Am I Chamberlain or Churchill?'”