"The Nerd Bigot Religious Extremist Seditionist House Republicans Have Been Waiting For"
New House Speaker Mike Johnson is not your father's moderate; he's a "fascistic zealot; utterly divorced from objective reality, a milquetoast maniac"
It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.
Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Mike Johnson is a rank seditionist — no really, look at that article — and a vile religious bigot with ties to the extremist hate group Alliance Defending Freedom. He was their spokesperson! American Atheists notes that he has been given an award by another extremist religious hate cell, the Family Research Council. He’s a dumbfuck who thinks marijuana is a gateway drug, he’s anti-abortion, and he’s an anti-LGBTQ+ bigot. He’s got a weird hard-on for school prayer.
So, after 22 days, the House finally has a Speaker- a Commander straight off the pages of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Gilead may yet be America’s future, and if that is to be our fate, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is well-positioned to lead Gilead AmeriKKKa into our glorious new Christian future.
The “good” news is that House Republicans finally found the “coup-plotting religious extremist creeper” they could all agree on- even the Freedumb Caucus.
Republicans voted unanimously and on the first ballot to elect Mike Johnson, coup-plotting insurgent religious extremist of Louisiana, an interchangeable and undistinguished white man, as the new speaker of the House. He has zero experience for this kind of thing, but he was a chief congressional architect of the plan to overturn the 2020 election to illegally install white nationalist fascist Donald Trump in power, so he’s cool. Also he used to work for anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.
Oh who gives a damn? Republicans aren’t a party of people who govern. They are simply extremists who beg, borrow and mostly steal power from an American people who increasingly would never give it to them if asked fairly for their consent.
Johnson will do fine. He won’t be a good speaker, but Republicans didn’t choose him to do that. (Vote hard next year, America. You have 12 months to get over whatever you need to get over.)
Nah… let’s not get all unrealistic and begin thinking that Republicans will govern. Speaker Johnson isn’t Superman, after all. He’s an election-denying, abortion-opposing, coup-plotting religious extremist who still supports The Former Guy (TFG), so no one should be thinking he’s new blood. He’s merely a variation on the same old tired theme.
And Johnson was behind those who worked overtime to spread the “Stop the Steal” Big Lie about the 2020 Presidential election. Though there was no hard evidence behind their claims, the conspiracy theorists bellowed at the top of their voices that DA ELECTION WAS STOLLEN BY DA EVIL DIMMOCRATZ!!
NBC News has a good overview of how central Mike Johnson’s work was to the effort of overthrowing the Republic in 2020 to soothe Trump’s hurt feelings and ego. Republicans might have barked like syphilitic hyenas last night when a reporter asked Johnson about it, but it needs to be discussed. Johnson worked really hard to get each and every other House Republican to sign an amicus brief in shady crimeboss Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s universally mocked clownfuck lawsuit to overturn the election in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, for totally cool reasons that amounted to “Trump lost and we’re mad.” Johnson found 125 fellow seditionists in the House to sign it.
The New York Times referred to Johnson as “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections” to Joe Biden’s free, fair and legitimate victory. What Johnson did, essentially, was to help members try to overturn the election by bitching about how states changed their election procedures to accommodate the global pandemic that was happening at the time, arguing that they were somehow unconstitutional or woke or gay or something. This allowed those members to not have to pretend to believe Jewish space lasers had RIGGED AND STOLLEN the election through the Chinese thermostats, but still try to overturn it anyway.
(Let’s be clear though: Johnson was totally hard for absolutely bugfuck DSM-IV-grade conspiracy theories about the election too.)
Though Speaker Johnson will now try to present himself as a VERY Serious Person, his past is still there for everyone to see, and it ain’t pretty.
Then-Rep. Johnson was tip-toeing on the edge of committing sedition on and before January 6. However, he and his fellow f**k-ups had neither reason nor evidence to believe, much less prove, that the 2020 election had been stolen.
Then again, Johnson didn’t have the balls to stand up to TFG and be honest. All he had to say was, “Hey, you lost, dude. It sucks, but it happens.” Given the margin- like, eight million votes- there shouldn’t have been any doubt, but whining is what you do when you’re a sore loser and can’t/won’t accept defeat.
So now an election-denying, abortion-opposing, coup-plotting, militant religious extremist is leading the House of Representatives to cock-block anything the Democrats hope to accomplish. This means, of course, that the House will accomplish as much with a Speaker as they did without one- which is to say nothing.
Media Matters published a flashback to a Fox News interview Johnson gave from the Capitol on January 6, while it was being attacked by Donald Trump’s supporters, who had been fired up and incited to commit terror by Trump’s Big Lie that the election had been stolen. He was hiding from the insurrectionists. He lied and said there was “nothing unusual” about Republicans’ efforts to overturn the election. He tried to be very calm, and expressed hope that Trump would try to tamp down the violence. He said we need to remember what unites us as Americans.
Of course, that morning, Johnson had tweeted his own version of Trump’s “Be there, will be wild!” tweet, saying that “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today.”
Mike Johnson is not a serious person, but he plays one on TV.
Of course, there were more experienced choices available to Republicans for the Speaker role- Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Tom Emmer, Sideshow Bob, and Chucky the Clown. Still, either TFG and/or the Freedumb Caucus vetoed them all. They either weren’t “MAGA” enough, hadn’t supported the January 6 insurrection, or failed to show up with kneepads and lipstick when summoned to an audience with TFG.
Mike Johnson had the advantage of being anonymous but reliably MAGA.
And most Americans don’t yet know he’s a hard-core member of the American Taliban. He looks harmless enough, but he’s anything but.
In 2002, a course created by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools was offered in eight Louisiana parishes. The course, according to an April 2002 report in the Sunday Advocate, called "for students to read the Bible as a history book." It was criticized for being "skewed toward Protestant evangelical Christianity," for treating "the Bible as an accurate record of history," and for being a "thinly veiled" attempt to push Christianity on public school students.
The Supreme Court allows for the Bible to be taught in public schools, but only "objectively as a part of a secular program of education." Johnson defended the Bible course on behalf of the Louisiana Family Forum. He argued that the "Supreme Court did not say you have to discuss everybody's view on the Bible." Requiring that public schools treat all religious traditions equally, Johnson said, was "the height of political correctness."
Johnson, believing that current law makes divorce far too easy to obtain, advocates for “covenant marriage,” something Conservative Christians favor.
Entering into a covenant marriage means a couple cannot divorce for many of the reasons a divorce may be sought within conventional marriages.
Johnson is also an advocate of a legal type of marriage that makes divorce difficult. Known as a covenant marriage, this form of matrimony reduces the grounds for divorce. It was championed by “conservative Christians in the late 1990s [who] thought divorces had become far too frequent under permissive procedures and sought to legally tighten the rules.” NOLA.com reports. Couples in this arrangement cannot divorce by mutual consent and can only dissolve their marriage under specific, limited circumstances. Even then, there are significant barriers to initiating the process.
In Louisiana, for example – the first state to formally recognize covenant marriages – couples seeking a divorce “must go through marriage counseling,” submit evidence, and “be separated for at least a year before a divorce can be granted.” These requirements apply even in cases involving physical and sexual abuse, and increase the chance that a woman continues to experience violence at their hands of their partner. Johnson and his wife entered into a covenant marriage in Louisiana in 1999. They’re now “proponents of the cause.” In an interview with ABC in 2005, Johnson said that opting for a covenant marriage was "kind of a no-brainer."
One unintended (or perhaps very much intended) side effect of covenant marriage is that it places the male in a position of power far superior to that of the female. The law isn’t sympathetic to women, even in a case of gross domestic abuse where a woman may have obtained a restraining order from a court.
Covenant marriage effectively ties a woman to a man, making it difficult for a woman to extricate herself from an abusive marriage. Even in a case involving considerable physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, a woman can still be legally yoked to her husband for a significant length of time. This gives a man tremendous control, influence, and, yes, ownership over his wife’s affairs.
And yet Johnson and his wife are still “proponents of the cause.”
In states like Texas and Louisiana, permanently tying a woman to a man is gaining greater popularity among the American Taliban.
Earlier this year, the Louisiana GOP considered calling for “the elimination of no-fault divorce,” WWNO reports. Meanwhile, last year, the Texas Republican Party urged legislators to “rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws” and “support covenant marriage.”
This probably makes sense if you believe that women are property and their primary responsibility is popping out babies for the coming Christian war against sin and evil.
After all, God needs soldiers for his Christian Army, no?
Johnson also isn’t particularly open-minded when it comes to homosexuality. In a series of editorials from the 2000s, Johnson said, “homosexual relationships were inherently unnatural and, the studies clearly show, ultimately harmful and costly for everyone.”
“The studies clearly show?” If your sources are Focus on the Family and Prager U, that would make sense, but since his sources aren’t cited, it’s difficult to note what he’s basing his scholarly conclusions on. If you believe love is love, no more or less harm is done than in any heterosexual relationship. As for being “costly for everyone,” with no evidence cited, that seems a bit of a reach intellectually.
It’s one thing to believe that homosexuality is wrong on a moral level. Anyone is free to hold that belief, but there’s a simple solution- don’t engage in homosexual acts or a same-sex relationship. But no individual has the right to impose their morality on others. And when people like Johnson are so virulently anti-LGBTQ, I wonder what they fear so intensely.
Could it be that they, at some level, are terrified of some aspect of their own sexuality, as is in the reality that we hate what we most fear in ourselves?
In 2015, after being elected to the Louisiana legislature, Johnson sponsored the Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act. The bill would have prohibited Louisiana from taking "any adverse action against a person, wholly or partially, on the basis that such person acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction about the institution of marriage." The bill was slammed as "anti-gay" and an effort to greenlight discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Louisana House Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger (D) called Johnson's proposal "bigotry enshrouded in religion," noting there were existing state and federal laws protecting religious freedom. Leger noted people "cannot cite religious freedom to allow businesses to deny service to people based on their skin color, religion or gender." Why, Leger asked, "would we allow discrimination based on sexual orientation?" He said that Johnson's proposal would allow businesses to place "Heterosexuals Only" signs where "Whites Only" signs once hung.
America for White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals ONLY….
Baton Rouge Metro Councilman John Delgado (D) called Johnson a "despicable bigot of the highest order" for pushing the proposal. ("I'm not a 'despicable bigot of the highest order,'" Johnson replied.) IBM, which was then building a technology service center slated to employ 800 people, wrote a letter opposing the measure, stating that "IBM will find it much harder to attract talent to Louisiana if this bill is passed and enacted into law." Dow Chemical released a similar statement. Other business leaders "expressed concern that the legislation could tarnish Louisiana's reputation as an accepting place to visit." Todd Chambers, chairman of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the state would not be selected for large-scale events if the bill passed.
Despite enjoying the strong support of then-Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), the bill died in committee.
Johnson tried again by introducing similar but less ambitious legislation called the “Pastor Protection Act,” which Johnson said was necessary to protect pastors from being forced to officiate same-sex marriages.
Wait…that was a problem?
There had been no reports of pastors being forced to officiate same-sex weddings against their will. Nonetheless, that wasn’t about to stop Johnson, whose “solution in search of a problem” approach was a way to encode his morality into Louisiana law.
The Pastor Protection Act also died in committee after "two key Democrats on the committee accused Johnson of making changes to the legislation that would have allowed clergy to refuse to perform marriages for interracial couples." Johnson acknowledged the changes but said it was a "red herring" because he was "not aware of any religious tradition in this state that is opposed to interracial marriage."
Above and beyond all of Johnson’s American Taliban extremism, though, we should be concerned with his involvement with the attempted January 6 coup. Despite his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, Mike Johnson was up to his Johnson in an attempt to end American democracy and install TFG as an American God-King.
And Republicans were having none of any reporters attempting to ask Johnson about his support for and involvement in the attempted coup.
Johnson was instrumental in Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Routinely in touch with Trump, he rallied his colleagues to object to counting the electoral votes from states that Democratic candidate Joe Biden won. As Trump’s legal challenges to the results failed, Johnson pushed a Texas lawsuit against the four states that had given Biden the win, calling for the invalidation of millions of his fellow Americans’ ballots, and echoed lies about Venezuelan interference with ballots.
Johnson has also embraced the far right’s culture wars. He is a self-described evangelical Christian who is staunchly anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-union, and anti-immigration. He has close ties to the Israeli right wing, and he opposes further aid to Ukraine, saying such money would be better spent at home, but he has also called for extensive cuts to domestic spending programs.
When a reporter asked Johnson about his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the colleagues surrounding him booed and told the reporter to “shut up.” On the floor of the House, every single Republican voted for Johnson.
The saddest thing about the encounter is that Republicans did shut up. They allowed Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)- the one who shouted “SHUT UP!!- and other Republicans to shut them down. It was a cowardly display of just how impotent the mainstream media has become in the face of those who’d steamroll American democracy…and are in the process of doing precisely that.
“MAGA Mike” Johnson is not, in and of himself, the problem. His views and American Taliban sensibilities are revolting, as are his beliefs that he has the right to force his morality on everyone.
But what should frighten those of us who believe in democracy and wish to preserve it is the amount of power now concentrated in the hands of those who, like Mike Johnson, want to blow up a democratic system that’s lasted 247 years. The conflict is no longer Left vs. Right or Democrat vs. Republican. No, it’s much more significant than that.
It’s Democracy vs. Authoritarianism.
And so, the House Republicans have caved to the MAGA extremists. Representative Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said that for the Republicans, the search for a speaker hadn’t been about looking for someone interested in “growing the middle class, helping our communities, keeping the cost of healthcare lower, and making life for everyday Americans better.” Instead, Aguilar said, “this has been about one thing…who can appease Donald Trump. House Republicans have put their names behind someone who has been called the most important architect of the [2020] electoral college objections.” A Republican yelled back: “Damn right!”
Republicans aren’t concerned with the issues that concern the American people. They could hardly care less about education, infrastructure, economic policy, the cost of healthcare, and growing the middle class…just to hit on a few points. They’re concerned with political power and achieving it by whatever means may be necessary.
Unfortunately, even with the economy doing well, Americans are convinced it’s not. It’s up to Democrats to convince the country that things ARE far better than they were under TFG, who managed to f**k things up almost beyond repair.
Democrats didn’t try to overthrow the federal government when they lost the 2016 Presidential election, even though the Russians may have interfered enough to swing the election to TFG. Democrats didn’t whine or complain. Nor did they bitch or moan.
No, Democrats got to work on the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. They did what they felt was necessary to put the party and their candidates in a position to win, which ultimately happened. And though they didn’t win a majority in the House, Republicans have embarrassed themselves enough that they might cough up their plurality in 2024.
In contrast to his Republican colleagues, in his welcome to the new speaker, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) outlined his caucus’s efforts to work with Republicans in a bipartisan way, noting that it was the Democrats who provided the votes to raise the debt ceiling, to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government and thus avoid a shutdown, and to secure disaster assistance for Americans suffering from extreme weather events.
Going forward, he said, House Democrats will “continue to push back against extremism in this chamber and throughout the country. House Democrats will continue to protect Social Security, protect Medicare, protect Medicaid, protect our children, protect our climate, protect low-income families, protect working families, protect the middle class, protect organized labor, protect the LGBTQ community, protect our veterans, protect older Americans, protect the Affordable Care Act, protect the right to vote, protect the peaceful transfer of power, protect our democracy, and protect a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decision.”
But Jeffries’s soft speech covered a steely message. He observed that “Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election,” adding that “[h]e’s doing a great job under difficult circumstances, and no amount of election denialism will ever change that reality.”
Jeffries pointed out that great presidents of both parties have urged House members to “put aside partisan politics for the good of the American people,” and he noted that Americans are “understandably alarmed at the turbulence of the moment, at the chaos, the dysfunction, and the extremism that has been unleashed in this chamber, from the very beginning of this Congress.”
Yes, America is a profoundly broken society. One need not look far to see that. The mass shooting in Maine is only the most recent example of a polity that knows what to do to fix itself but steadfastly refuses.
Extremism has become the order of the day, the roadblock to progress and the fly in the ointment for anyone who hopes to make a difference. Too many in Congress are there not to legislate but to burn things down. They make it impossible for either House of Congress or the executive branch to move forward because they consistently find ways to throw sand in the gears of government.
This will remain the millstone around our necks- We, the People, elected these numbskulls- until November 2024. Hopefully, enough Americans will take their responsibility seriously and elect Congresspeople and Senators able to do their job and move America forward.
Where we are now isn’t where we need to remain. If enough Americans remove their anterior from the posterior, we can once again have nice things. We can be the country the rest of the world looks to for inspiration and leadership. And we can stop being an international laughingstock because the idjits in the Freedumb Caucus won’t be on the floor of the House with their thumbs up their backside.
We can do better than a cabal of election-denying, coup-plotting, religious-extremist, gun-loving, anti-abortion zealots who believe AmeriKKKa is the property of White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals. And don’t think that Mike Johnson isn’t one of them.
We need to stop sending them to Washington. You feeling me, red states??
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