Infidels in the temple
It took almost three years but the insurrectionists have finally captured the House. Without a weapon being fired this time.
Say hello to House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Jim Jordan with a jacket and a smile.
The fourth choice after the Insurrection Caucus ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the accession of Johnson completes the takeover of the chamber that was foiled when Capitol Police shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021 as she tried to enter through a broken window.
We’ve already learned a lot about the little known back bencher — and it’s not encouraging: he played a key role in rounding up support for a failed Texas lawsuit to overturn the 2020 results and he voted against certifying the results after the insurrection was put down.
In the run-up to that day, he was a key peddler of the lies that eventually cost Fox “News” $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit settlement with Dominion Voting Systems and which resulted in a guilty plea from Sidney Powell in the Georgia election interference case.
“You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that … because it came from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.”
Johnson is a fundamentalist Christian whose religion is integral to all his legislative acts, according to a record of his comments obtained by POLITICO, before urging his fellow Republicans to join him in opposing the results.
“This is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God’s discernment. I know I’ve prayed for each of you individually.”
Yet when reporters attempted to ask him about his role before the uprising, his Republican colleagues shouted the questioner down.
But, as the TV pitchmen say, wait, there’s more.
Johnson supplanted Tom Emmer in a heated meeting where, according to The Daily Beast, the Minnesota Republican was told by House colleague Rick Allen:
‘…he didn’t “need to get right with him, he needed to ‘get right with Jesus.'"
“Getting right” apparently includes opposition to reproductive freedom, same-sex marriage and transgender rights, all centerpieces of the Insurrection Caucus — if not the majority of the American people.
So how did Johnson claim the gavel? With the unanimous support of Republican moderates or “normies,” now being more accurately described as “squishes.”
Where do we go from here?
The House still faces the same challenges as it did before McCarthy was ousted — passing some sort of budget to keep the government operating after November 17. The last stopgap budget, approved with Democratic support, was the reason why Florida Man Matt Gaetz filed the motion to vacate the chair and depose McCarthy.
Assuming — a rather major if — Johnson is willing to show leadership and bring an acceptable proposal to the House floor, he will need the same unanimous GOP support he received for the gavel.
Including the 18 Republicans elected from districts won by Joe Biden in 2020. Republicans who are already in the sights of Democratic ad makers.
If Johnson pulls that off, he must still work Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who reportedly never met Johnson before this week. While the Kentucky Republican has clearly lost some velocity on his fastball, he holds an overwhelming advantage over the wet-behind-the-ears speaker when it comes to parliamentary procedure.
And as the ever quotable Louisiana Senator Foghorn Leghorn, er, John Kennedy, told Punchbowl News:
“To pass anything, you have to get Democratic votes. You don’t have to be Einstein’s cousin to figure that one out. I just don’t know how he’s going to handle it. [Nov.] 17 is coming, the world’s on fire, the border’s open and inflation continues to gut the American people like a fish… All this has to be addressed.”
Finally, whatever eventually emerges from Congress must be signed by President Biden, whose leadership was firmly on display in attempting to (so-far) avoid a full blown Mideast war while House Republicans were battling among themselves.
To quote the famous Betty Davis line from “All About Eve”:
“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
And we haven’t even dealt with the continued meltdown of the man insurrectionists revere as the second coming.