The Political Ramifications of a Mike Johnson Speakership
Democrats did the smart thing by helping to kick McCarthy out
In the spirit of keeping everyone reading this whole article and not just flipping to another browser tab after the first two sentences of what, below, was to be the original introductory paragraph, I would like to make a few declarations about Mike Johnson:
He is an extreme right-wing member of the House Republicans
He is an advocate of no-exception abortion bans
He was the go-to constitutional legal scholar for House Republicans looking to decertify the 2020 election
I get all of this, and I am not a Mike Johnson supporter. Far from it. I want to make this clear because I am about to write some things with Mike Johnson in the same sentence or paragraph that will make some of you throw up your hands in disgust. Remember, as my bio says, I’m a “non-hysterical” analyst of current events and politics, which means I try to look at things with as cool a head as possible to determine the risks and benefits of all parties involved. So here we go….
I think there’s a chance that Mike Johnson as Speaker can be a good thing for the country. There, I said it; collect yourselves. Now, please keep reading so you understand my reasoning, and it’s likely not going to be what you expect.
First, let’s look at what Mike Johnson is not: He is not a MAGA arsonist. He’s not in the Freedom Caucus. He’s not Donald Trump’s slave-child.
Now, I know that the media, much of it social media, has picked up on all kinds of negative things to make it look like he’s all of the above. If the narratives produced in the last 24 hours are all you know about this man, then you think that he will impose his Christo-fascist iron-fisted handmaid’s tale vision on the huddled masses.
Perhaps this is his ideal vision, and, if he were dictator of the country, he would impose it forthwith. But he’s not a dictator; he’s the Speaker of the House. With a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President, he can’t impose jack.
He can make principled stances of some things if he chooses. But what he’ll really be doing is negotiating the labyrinth of the chaotic cesspool of Republican dysfunction. He won’t have time to figure out how to arrest newly pregnant women that are considering an abortion. He’ll be too busy picking out the most comfortable ear plugs to soften the blow to his eardrums of the screeching matches between the GOP’s intra party factions.
Things do seem hunky-dory now in the Republican Party. They appear united and strong and happy. They all clap and shout down reporters in unison. What a difference a few days makes, right?
Wrong. Nothing has changed in the House Republican caucus. The competing factions are still there. The splintering string upon which the GOP is currently being held together is still splintering. Mike Johnson, one of the most inexperienced and anonymous members of the House GOP is not going to change that.
I made several predictions in my last few articles. I was wrong on one major one: that the GOP would eventually have to make a deal with the Democrats to get a Speaker in place, since they seemed incapable of agreeing on someone (see “A Deal With Their Devil”). However, I will say that there are still 15 months left in this current iteration of Congress and I still think this is a real possibility. I would not be surprised at all if Speaker Mike Johnson did not last very long.
The jury is still out on some other predictions I made, like that the Republicans would have to pick someone that is more moderate and leads by consensus, and we don’t know who that’s going to be (see “How the House is Like a Lost Television Remote”). Who it is was somewhat irrelevant, I said. It will be someone that you wouldn’t have thought of as consensus, or moderate, but will now behave that way, because the political times call for it.
Mike Johnson may surprise us all and be that person. He may turn out to be a reasonably moderate Speaker that leads by general consensus and transforms the House into a model of good governance. And it’s not because he’s such a nice guy and deal-making genius. It’s because he doesn’t have enough power to impose anything on anyone. The Republicans’ lead is extremely slim and they are fractured to the point of being debilitated, and as I mentioned earlier, they don’t control the other half of Congress or the Executive Branch.
Sure, he can try to pass a nationwide abortion ban or force the government to shut down over funding to Ukraine if he wants. Let him try to do that. The portion of the more moderate Republicans in toss-up districts are a pretty forceful faction themselves and future Republican power depends on them winning elections. Therefore, it is very unlikely they will let these things go without retaliation.
And as we know, it will be easy to kick him out of the Speakership if they want. The toss-up Republicans still have power, they can still work with Democrats to ensure that policy stays out of the extreme wing of the MAGA crowd. If they really wanted to, within 24 hours, they could vote to remove him and install a new Speaker and pass the things that need to be passed in order to make the House appear sane.
Also, the more extreme Mike Johnson appears, the more likely it is they will lose the House in 2024. It’s already likely, they barely gained control in 2022, in what almost everyone predicted would be a “Red Wave”, for no other reason than that’s what usually happens. But the appearance of an unhinged ultra-MAGA Speaker would make a shift of party control become an inevitability, and the margin would probably not be near as close as it is now. So, again, go ahead and impose your Christo-fascist vision on all of us, Mr. Johnson, and see what happens.
The other side of the coin is that Mike Johnson will try to be a consensus-building Speaker that works with Dems to negotiate good policy with input from all sides. He’ll have to contend with the MAGA arsonist crowd at that point, and probably incur their wrath, which may also involve kicking him out, just like they did with McCarthy. Just by taking this job, Johnson has inserted himself into the “establishment”, and even though we’re in the honeymoon phase of the romance between MAGA and Mike Johnson, this could escalate into a War of the Roses pretty quickly.
But let’s say he manages to reconcile all of these forces against him, successfully passes relatively bipartisan legislation and budgets, and remains in the Speakership through the end of the Congress in January 2025. In the 2024 elections, Democrats will still have a field day with him and the House Republicans because of his extreme views that he’s expressed for most of his professional life. And opposition forces have already dug up enough dirt on him to paint him as an insurrection-supporting Christo-fascist, and they haven’t even uncovered a scandal yet. Give that time, it’s likely there’s some kind of skeleton in his closet to uncover.
The reason I think this could be good for the country is because of these two main potential scenarios. On one hand, he will try to impose his extremist agenda, which is likely to end in a quick humiliating fashion and guarantee a huge Democratic victory in 2024. On the other, he will be a moderating force in the House, tempering the MAGA fury and actually getting reasonable things done. And this won’t even necessarily help him or the Republicans politically, since he still has such a documentable extremist background. Plus, Republicans are still unabashedly beholden to their multi-indicted, much despised leader, Donald Trump, which does not help them.
The Democrats did the smart thing when they helped kick McCarthy out. They have put Republicans on the pressure cooker again to prove their true nature. It will be a sight that the whole nation deserves to witness.