After three weeks of turmoil, the Republicans in Congress finally picked a speaker of the house last week. His name is Mike Johnson. He’s from Shreveport, Louisiana, and you could be forgiven if you’d never heard of him. He’s only been in Congress seven years, and his political views are, well, concerning. When asked how he would approach the issues of the day, Johnson responded, “Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.”
At first, I took this as possible good news. After all, the Bible commands that we love our neighbor, care for the poor, welcome refugees, judge not lest ye be judged, and treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated — all good ideas. Looks like there might be some changes in the GOP platform, I thought.
Turns out, not so much. Johnson’s Bible is nothing if not flexible. When asked about last week’s mass shooting in Maine, for example, Johnson’s governing philosophy was put to an immediate test, since, you know, nobody was packing heat in Biblical times.
Johnson said it was not the right time to consider legislation. “The problem is the human heart,” he said. “It’s not guns, it’s not the weapons. We have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves.” In other words, forget that Jesus-y “turn the other cheek” stuff. Lock ’n load, pilgrims.
On climate change, Johnson will likely be the most vocal climate-change denier to ever hold the speakership. He received a 100 percent rating from the pro-fossil fuel American Energy Alliance in 2022. As, no doubt, Jesus would have.
Johnson worked for years as an attorney for the Christian nationalist organization, Alliance Defense Fund, fighting to ban abortion and gay rights. He called the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade a “great, joyous occasion,” and favors a nationwide ban on abortion. As for LGBTQ rights? “States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse,” Johnson says, “including concerns for public health, safety, morals, and the promotion of healthy marriages.”
At this point, it won’t surprise you to learn that Johnson was one of the principal congressional leaders in Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and an enthusiastic promoter of the absurd legal theories used by Trump’s “legal team.”
In sum, Johnson is a boiler-plate, right-wing Republican who checks all the boxes: evangelical nationalist, anti-abortion, anti-climate change, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-gun reform, pro-cutting Social Security and Medicare, and a pro-Trump election denier. The vote to elevate him to the speakership, a position two heartbeats from the presidency, was unanimous among his fellow GOP congressmen. So much for the myth of “moderate” Republicans.
The guy is a loon. And I haven’t even gotten to the weird stuff yet.
When asked why his wife, Kelly, didn’t come to Washington, D.C., to witness his swearing-in, Johnson said, and I quote: “She’s spent the last couple of weeks on her knees in prayer to the Lord. And, um, she’s a little worn out.”
I can’t even begin to parse that. Why would she pray for two weeks prior to Johnson’s election, which took less than one day? What kind of Jeebus weirdness is this? Even Monica Lewinsky couldn’t figure it out, tweeting in response (and I’m not making this up): “Not touching this.”
Johnson and his wife are in a “covenant marriage,” a Christian construct which makes divorce exceedingly difficult. It’s an institution beloved by misogynists, er, evangelical men, because it makes it nearly impossible for a woman to leave a marriage if she’s not financially independent.
And Johnson’s finances are yet another point of intrigue. From Vanity Fair: “In financial disclosures dating back to 2016, the year he joined Congress, Johnson never reported having a savings or checking account in his name, his spouse’s name, or in the name of any of his children. In his latest filing, which covers last year, he doesn’t list a single asset.” So how is that even possible? How does he pay bills?
And it gets weirder. In the late 1990s, when Johnson was in his mid-twenties, he “took custody” of a 11-year-old Black kid. When he and his wife got married in 1999, they claim to have “taken in” the teen as their own child. The teen doesn’t appear in any of the wedding pictures or current Johnson family pictures that have been released to the media. He is said to be living in California with children of his own. It’s undeniably strange. Johnson has likened the relationship to the one in the movie, The Blind Side. Okay. More to come, I suspect.
Johnson and his wife deleted the 69 (heh) episodes of their fundamentalist podcast within 24 hours of his winning the speakership, but they’ve been archived by an activist group and are reported to be very controversial. I’m not in the prediction business (well, maybe I am), but I’m guessing Mike Johnson will come to rue the day when the national media began to take his personal history off the shelf and read it.