Speaker Mike Johnson claims God gave him sloppy handjob in late-night hallucination
All he remembers is waking up with a smile on his face and his undershorts around his ankles
I'm not a psychopath, Anderson—I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.
Steven Moffat Mark Gatiss, Sherlock A Study in Pink #1 (of 6)
Call me silly (or naïve if it makes you feel better), but I grew up believing that Christians were decent people with their heads screwed on reasonably tight. Or perhaps it was just that I was fortunate to grow up around Christians who were pretty sensible- no delusions of grandeur, grandiose visions, or belief that God spoke to them through the AM radio in their car or their enema bag.
Then I went out into the world and discovered that all sorts of Christians were, not to be too technical, fucking nuts. These were people who, if they weren’t already, should’ve been on heavy doses of Thorazine for their own protection.
Of course, the flip side was that the entertainment value was relatively high. It was also a comedy gold mine. Now that the American Taliban has decided that they want to take over the government, though, the humor isn’t quite what it used to be…especially since hyper-Christian Moses-designee Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) is now the Speaker of the House.
When they get together for conventions, though, they can still be unintentionally entertaining, if somewhat disgustingly self-righteous.
Christian nationalists…at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C, for a National Association of Christian Lawmakers gala at which House Speaker Mike Johnson delivered the keynote address and received the NACL’s American Patriot Award for Christian Honor and Courage.
The tenor of the evening was set by far-right anti-LGBTQ pastor E.W. Jackson, who used his time at the podium to declare that he refuses to use the words “transgender” or “gay” because, he said, “to be gay means to be happy, to be joyful, to be carefree, and there is nothing happy, joyful, or carefree about being a homosexual in rebellion against almighty God.”
‘Course, E.W. Jackson could find a way to suck the joy out of a screaming orgasm, so he’s not my go-to when I try to find someone who could pass as the poster child for Christian love and joy. Then again, Christian Nationalists generally aren’t known for being the life of whatever party they attend.
However, a certain Speaker of the House spent part of the weekend hallucinating about being the reincarnation of Charlton Heston’s “Moses” character from the Ten Commandments.
No one should make the mistake of accusing Mike Johnson of being humble.
Speaker Johnson is nothing if not the textbook definition of chutzpah:
When Johnson took to the stage, he thanked the NACL for banning media from the event, claiming that the media loves to “pick my comments out of context.” Of course, banning the media from attending doesn’t accomplish much if the event is livestreamed on social media, which is exactly what NACL founder Jason Rapert did on his Facebook page.
Johnson began his remarks by claiming that weeks before he became House Speaker, God began preparing him to lead the nation through “a Red Sea moment.” Johnson said he didn’t know what that meant at the time, but assumed it meant that he was to serve as an Aaron to someone else’s Moses. But, it turned out, God intended for him to be that Moses.
“The Lord impressed upon my heart a few weeks before this happened that something was going to occur,” Johnson said. “And the Lord very specifically told me in my prayers to prepare, but to wait.”
“I had this sense that we were going to come to a Red Sea moment in our Republican conference and in the county at large,” he continued. “[God] had been speaking to me about this, and the Lord told me very clearly to prepare and be ready.”
“The Lord impressed upon my heart….” “[T]he Lord very specifically told me….” “The Lord told me….” I’m not someone who ridicules another’s religious beliefs, but either Speaker Johnson is hallucinating, off his meds, or the anchovies on his pizza had gone south WAY too early.
Hey, y’all…THE MAN’S HEARING VOICES IN HIS HEAD. That should scrap the crap out of any average, reasonably well-adjusted person, yeah?
People have been civilly committed for far less.
I’m all for Speaker Johnson’s religious freedom, but I’ll be damned if I want him to insert his theology into my government. This isn’t a Christian nation; it IS a nation in which one is free to be Christian if one chooses to travel that path. It doesn’t mean that one gets to forcibly make Christianity the basis of American governance if for no other reason than not all Americans are Christian.
Johnson said that once Rep. Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker of the House, God began to wake him up in the middle of the night “to speak to me, [telling me] to write things down; plans, procedures, and ideas on how we could pull the [Republican] conference together.”
“At the time, I assumed the Lord was going to choose a new Moses and thank you, Lord, you’re going to allow me to be Aaron to Moses,” Johnson declared.
As one candidate after another stepped forward to run for Speaker but failed, Johnson said that “the Lord kept telling me to wait” but “then at the end, when it toward the end, the Lord said, ‘Now, step forward.”
“Me? I’m supposed to be Aaron,” Johnson said. “No. The Lord said, ‘Step forward.'”
God began to wake him up in the middle of the night? No, that’s the indigestion speaking. Or the bad anchovies. Or the hallucinations. Whatever the case, this is still a nation where the separation of Church and State is paramount, and you don’t get to make your God everyone’s government.
Sorry, that’s just the way things are. Your God is your God, not my government.
But Mike Johnson’s God chose him to create an American government designed for the benefit and enrichment of White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals that look like Mike Johnson…because God’s a kill-’em-and-grill-’em Republican, don’tchaknow?
That’s a hell of a way to put a Christian spin on your own party’s inability to pick a leader over the course of three weeks after one extremist used his power to boot out the extremist already in charge, and three other extremists failed to rally enough support within the party to take the previous extremist’s place, and you were so obscure despite your own extremism that your extremist party finally settled on you as the choice of last resort.
It’s also a bizarre comparison given that one of the things Moses is most famous for is wandering aimlessly through the desert for 40 years before seeing any kind of payoff. We’d all be better off if he left Congress o go on that journey for the next few decades. Instead, we’ll have to suffer through a series of plagues first all because the guy two heartbeats away from the presidency hears voices in his head.
God apparently chose Mike Johnson to lead the charge against refugees and LGBTQ people.
Of course, the whole charade is intended to create an atmosphere that keeps Republican voters from questioning what Speaker Johnson is doing. If his decisions and actions can be cloaked in the holy white light of “God’s blessing,” then what can mere mortals do but obey?
Then the GOP has the problem of a Speaker “two heartbeats away from the presidency hears voices in his head.” And the fact that he’s Speaker isn’t a matter of Divine Providence, more a matter of Johnson being a tabula rasa to most of America before his ascension to the Speaker’s chair.
We’ve seen this sort of rhetoric before, though, with white evangelical zealots comparing themselves or their leaders to biblical characters. Long before Johnson saw himself as Moses, conservative Christian leaders claimed Donald Trump was a lot like the biblical king Cyrus, a non-Christian whom God put in place to help the faithful. Or King David, a sinner who was nevertheless anointed. Or Queen Esther, who saved the Jews. (GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has also leaned into the King David comparisons.)
We know why they do this, too. If they can position themselves as modern versions of God’s favorite people, that makes it much harder for Christian voters to criticize their actions and policies. It’s easy to ignore Trump’s crimes and ignorance and cruelty if you believe God simply appointed an imperfect person to fulfill His goals. And if Mike Johnson says God told him to be like Moses, then his rash and irresponsible decisions can be overlooked by the GOP base because God works in mysterious ways.
Anything to stop Republican voters from taking a critical look at what Johnson is actually doing.
It worked, too. As soon as Johnson finished his remarks, Rapert responded, “It’s very obvious to see, you’re one of us.”
From a purely personal standpoint, I don’t care if Speaker Johnson sacrifices a virgin each morning before he has his morning coffee. His religious beliefs are private, and his rights to them are guaranteed by the 1st Amendment (except for the part about the virgin sacrifice, which might put him in considerable legal peril).
However, his rights end when he attempts to impose his beliefs on others. This is particularly true when he tries to insert his religious beliefs into American governance, which is by tradition and, per the Constitution, secular. Those who object to this assessment need only refer to the 1791 Treaty of Tripoli and Jefferson’s letters to the Danbury Baptists. Both contain statements indicating that American governance is not based in any way on the Christian religion.
The reason for the separation of Church and State in the first place was that the Founding Fathers had the example of England to fall back on. The Church of England and the state had become one and also corrupt and venal beyond imagining. The Founders wanted to avoid that. That Speaker Johnson wants to forego that lesson and dissolve the wall between Church and State shows how little he and his Christ-free “Christians” have learned.
Mike Johnson and the American Taliban are Christians in the same way I’m a Nobel Literature Prize laureate AND a Heisman Trophy winner. And did I mention my brilliant career as a Premier League goalkeeper?
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Funny how the God-In-Their-Head always and only tells them exactly what they want to hear ...