WHAT MAGA MIKE REALLY IS

MAGA MIKE

No Labels, the “centrists” plotting a third-party presidential bid, are singing the praises of newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson.

“He’s a Reagan Republican, not a Trump Republican,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) in a Zoom call organized by No Labels and attended by a few hundred of the group’s supporters. Fitzpatrick is part of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus backed by No Labels.

The call, which took place shortly after Johnson’s elevation to the speakership, comes amid a heightened amount of scrutiny on the new speaker’s record, including a renewed look at the role he played in trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election.

Johnson voted against certifying the election on January 6, 2021, and encouraged other Republicans to join on an amicus brief challenging the results in several states. He worked with Trump on the matter. And the former president has embraced him in return. On Wednesday, Trump triumphantly called the new speaker “MAGA MIKE JOHNSON!” in a social media post.

No Labels has cited Trump’s electoral claims, and specifically his attempt “to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election” as one of the central reasons it opposes him. Fitzpatrick said, “We stand by the fact that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president of the United States.” He acknowledged that there were “some irregularities” in some states but not to the extent Trump claimed. “It didn’t change the outcome of the election,” he said. “We disagree with Mike on that. And I’m not sure Mike would do the same thing today.”

These. People. Are. Fucking. Morons!

Most of the current coverage emphasis is on how far to the right Johnson is, and that’s a fair place to focus. But as someone who has played professional politics on a team led by real pros, I’m more interested in how Johnson can possibly lead this caucus without any of the usual assets that a speaker brings to the table. The things that got Johnson elected – he didn’t have a lot of baggage compared to other candidates and he hadn’t irredeemably pissed off multiple factions within the House GOP conference – don’t equate to strengths as a speaker.

Johnson hasn’t secured member loyalty by helping get them elected. He hasn’t earned chits from prodigious fundraising. He doesn’t have a power base within the conference from having chaired a committee. In short, Johnson has no reserve of the currency speakers use to deal, to keep members in line, to soften differences, and to reach accommodations.

It’s going to be a helluva thing to watch him try to keep a conference full of show ponies and burn-it-all-down types in line and on task.

Meanwhile, here’s what we’re learning about the accidental Speaker Johnson:

MAGA Mike - Chrisitian Nationalist

From Politico:

“As he understands it, this country was founded as a Christian nation,” says Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a historian who specializes in evangelical Christianity and politics. “So really, Christian supremacy and a particular type of conservative Christianity is at the heart of Johnson’s understanding of the Constitution and an understanding of our government.” “He is incredibly standard in terms of being a right-wing, white evangelical Christian nationalist. “

Johnson has said that “christian historian” David Barton’s ideas and teachings have been extremely influential on him; Johnson said he was introduced to David Barton’s work 25 years ago, and it has really influenced the way he understands America. It’s really hard to overstate the influence that Barton has had in conservative evangelical spaces. For them, he has really defined America as a Christian nation. What that means is that he kind of takes conservative, white evangelical ideals from our current moment, and says that those were all baked into the Constitution, and that God has elected America to be a special nation, and that the nation will be blessed if we respond in obedience and maintain that, and not if we go astray. It really fuels evangelical politics and the idea that evangelicalism has a special role to play to get the country back on track.

That essentially roots Johnson in the longer tradition of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism essentially posits the idea that America is founded on God’s laws, and that the Constitution is a reflection of God’s laws. Therefore, any interpretation of the Constitution must align with Christian nationalists’ understanding of God’s laws. Freedom for them means freedom to obey God’s law, not freedom to do what you want. So really, Christian supremacy and a particular type of conservative Christianity is at the heart of Johnson’s understanding of the Constitution and an understanding of our government.

It’s not the right of any parents to decide what’s best for their kids; it’s the right of parents to decide what’s best for their kids in alignment with his understanding of biblical law.

Listening to his speeches, he is explicit about describing this country as a republic and not as a democracy. Inside these conservative Christian nationalist spaces, that is par for the course: that this is a republic, and it is a republic, again, founded in this biblical worldview, and that it’s not a democratic free-for-all. And so again, this is Christian supremacy.

From David Corn at Mother Jones:

Mike Johnson, the new Republican speaker of the House, has a very dark view of America. He believes that the United States is “a completely amoral society” and that global “sinister” forces have a hold on some of its governmental policies. He is a far-right Christian fundamentalist who seeks to ban all abortions, who has called for getting rid of no-fault divorce, who has decried same-sex marriage, and who has compared homosexuality to pedophilia.

In a 2016 sermon he preached at the Christian Center of Shreveport—while he was running for Congress—Johnson summed up his take on the United States. Standing before an American flag and an Israeli flag, Johnson delivered a 90-minute-long presentation in which he traced all present ills to the countercultural upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s that undermined “the foundations of religion and morality.” He ticked off the culprits: no-fault divorce, the sexual revolution, radical feminism, and legalized abortion. “Collectively as Americans,” he declared, “we began to get together in growing number and thumb our noses at the Creator and say we don’t believe that anymore.” The nation, he bemoaned, chose a path of “moral relativism.” He pronounced a harsh verdict: “We’re living in a completely amoral society.”

MAGA Mike the inexperienced Speaker

From Axios:

He has less experience serving in the House than any person elected speaker since John G. Carlisle in 1883.

Since the Civil War, speakers have spent an average of 18 years in the chamber before ascending to the top of the ladder.

Here’s the truth about MAGA Mike:

MAGA Mike is a wolf in sheep’s clothing: intelligent, soft-spoken, humble, bespectacled, and with a bit of self-depreciation. He has an anti-Trump personality, with intelligence, vigor, and real “family values .” But he is far more amenable to grooming and understanding doctrinaire positions and crafting legislation, which makes him a huge potential asset for the oligarchs behind the former Republican party. He was primarily responsible for the Republican budget proposals in 2022, which aimed at dismantling the social safety net.

Make no mistake, MAGA Mike is on the fringe of the right-wing fringe.

MAGA Mike scares me more than any other Republican. “The devil with blue eyes, in blue jeans.”

You should be scared of the wolf too.

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