His Republican colleagues describe him as a library rat. Mike Johnson has the face of what used to be known and is now a nerd, when Halloween has retired the chestnut trees and panellets.
His election as speaker of the House of Representatives, after twenty-two days of angst, ridiculous chaos and humiliation, is a political thermometer of the United States and the Grand Old Party (GOP), at a time when a according to a recent survey, one in four citizens considers it lawful to resort to violence to save the country.
Maga Mike, as he is already known because he is one of the hooligans of Trumpism, believes more in God than in democracy. The Almighty and Trump are his badges of identity. Although he prides himself on being a constitutionalist – the Constitution does not accept a more literal reading – this does not prevent him from demonizing the consecrated commandment of the peaceful transfer of the presidency.
This 51-year-old evangelical Christian is one of those who think in the 21st century that the Church and power must go together. “The founders wanted to protect the Church from an invading State, not the other way around,” he stated in 2022 in the podcast he makes with his wife, Kelly Johnson, with whom he has four children, entitled Truth be told ).
Staunch anti-abortionist and anti-homosexual, fundamentalist of moralism, this inexperienced congressman elected by Louisiana, who entered the House in 2017, has already earned the merit of being described as the most conservative and extremist speaker the body has ever had. Analyst Jamelle Bouie considers that he was a character “too dark” to have enemies. “He is neither moderate nor institutionalist. On the contrary, it comes from the far-right and anti-institutionalist wing of the Republican Party”, he argued in an article.
If he didn’t have enemies to annoy and stop his irruption, he did cultivate a great friend, Donald Trump, who has made the party his own with bellicose and intimidating rhetoric.
The former president sabotaged the third nominee for the position, the moderate conservative Tom Emmer, who did not endorse his coup d’état and voted to certify Joe Biden’s victory at the polls. Trump destroyed it.
Instead Johnson’s victory was attributed as a personal achievement. This time he didn’t exaggerate. One of his own, one of the main architects of his coup strategy, has climbed to the third position on the US command ladder.
President Biden assured that he is not worried that in 2024, if he wins again, Johnson will again try to override the will of the people. Although mitigated by Democratic control of the Senate, this uneasiness is palpable.
Little known for his legislative contributions, despised even by his own because of his radicalism, his name will forever be linked to the denial of the result of the ballot boxes in 2020, which led to the tragic day of January 6 2021 with the capture of the Capitol by the fascist hordes, sorry Trumpists.
He went much further than anyone else in the task of creating and spreading the falsehood of electoral theft. Legal arguments, such as the unconstitutionality of electoral measures due to covid or the conspiracy of Venezuela with the counting machines, are due to his work, all ideas that were not only scorned by justice but even ridiculed . It was normal for a journalist, who had just been elected, to question him about the issue. Johnson dodged it, while his fellow Republicans responded with a “boo.”
Despite the whitewashing that Fox is trying to do about his figure, the channel to which he grants interviews, the Democrats have already pointed out Johnson as “the man in the bag” for 2024.
He is haunted by his proposals for zero dollars for social assistance or in Ukraine, for the total abolition of abortion or to annul the “diabolical conduct” of gay marriage. “One will end up marrying his pet” or “There is no right to sodomy in the Constitution,” he wrote.
