House Republicans selected Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to be their latest candidate for speaker.
Here’s a bit about this guy:
An ideological member of the Christian right faction of the Republican Party, Johnson is known for his strong opposition to legal abortion access, medical marijuana, and same-sex marriage. In December 2020, Johnson signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election. In January 2021, Johnson voted to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania. Johnson has cultivated close ties to Christian right groups Louisiana Family Forum, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Focus on the Family. Prior to his career as a politician, he worked with them to “represent churches, pastors and congregants whose vision of religious freedom conflicted with government regulations”. Johnson supports ending American military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.
And here is his wiki page if you want to look into him more.
TL;DR: he’s a Nationalist Christian.
I hope his nomination fails.
Edit: world is a fuck
The previous guy they nominated who wasn’t a Nat-C immediately withdrew once Trump attacked him, so it’s not surprising that a Nat-C would get picked next.
This asshole voted to overturn the election.
That’s one of the requirements the crazy-eight had for a speaker candidate. No shit, they outright said they wouldn’t vote for anyone who voted to certify the 2020 election results. They only have a 9 seat lead so the other 213 have to do exactly what the 8 say or else nothing gets done.
They could work with the Democrats to bypass the crazy, but they absolutely won’t.
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Your #3 option is the most likely, but don’t entirely rule out #2 yet, particularly if Johnson sees the same fate as Jordan. The folks who voted against Jordan got savaged by the Right Wing media, and it’s entirely possible they’ve earned wacko primary challenges regardless of what they do next. Some of them are from competitive districts that voted for Biden in 2020. So from the perspective of their political futures, after voting against two arch-Conservatives they may feel like they can’t depend on Republican Party support anymore, and have a better chance running as an Independant in a 3-way race.
Any current Republican who decides to work with Democrats is effectively leaving the party, given how Republicans operate now. But these folks may feel like their political futures are better off if they disassociate from the Republicans, particularly if they get better committee assignments out of it, and Democrats don’t run strong candidates against them in the next election.
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If these people do this, though (and again, it’s not likely to happen), it will be because they are representing districts that are not as far down the MAGA rabbit hole, and they are making the political calculation that they would be better off that way. This includes taking the threats into account, but they may be representing districts where the MAGA is a minority, and more importantly, they trust local and state law enforcement to protect them.
It is fitting that Republicans refer to their internal groups as the “Five Families”, becauwe they really are being run like Mafia families, with all the threats and intimidation that implies.
#3 leads to an omnibus since there’s not enough time for a budget which leads to this process starting all over again
No, #3 leads to a government shutdown, or a budget that is gutted to the point where the government may as well have shut down.
My bet since this clusterfuck started has been on option #4, which is that the House careens Speaker-less into another shutdown.
This happens not just in politics, but everywhere. When it comes down to a staredown between stubborn hardliners and moderates on any given subject, the moderates tend to blink first.
This is why it’s important to be extreme in the other direction, or even possibly deliberately pretending to be more extreme than you actually are: because moderates (read: mainstream Democrats) are incapable of dragging the Overton Window back from the brink.
House Republicans are what the French call “les incompétents”.
Home Alone: The Shutdown
“I made the government disappear!”
Can’t wait for Julia Louis-Dreyfus to play this guy on SNL.
nominate deez nuts.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Cheers rang out and members chanted “Mike” as reporters raised questions about Johnson’s viability on the House floor.
However, roughly 20 members were missing from the meeting, leaving Johnson to shore up his support in the 13 hours that remained before the floor vote.
The late-night vote came after another long, chaotic day on Capitol Hill that saw Republicans repeating their nominating process for the fifth time this year.
The past three weeks have left many House GOP members frustrated, angry and unable to see a solution.
Members have not moved closer together — some began reverting to votes for McCarthy, whose ouster three weeks ago started this crisis.
Jordan dropped out of the race last week when Republicans voted for him to step aside after losing three rounds of balloting on the House floor.
The original article contains 453 words, the summary contains 135 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
