After three weeks of not having a Speaker of the House, Republicans finally coalesced behind Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), their caucus’s fourth (and thankfully final) speaker-designee, and elected a new speaker. It’s been a long road and for the longest time, it felt like there was no end in sight, as Republican holdouts repeatedly made electing a speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy seem like an impossible task.
While it’s nice to see that Republicans aren’t as monolithic and under the thumb of leadership as Democrats, the process of electing a new speaker was messy and prolonged and made the GOP look bad.
After the drama earlier this year to get McCarthy elected, Democrats knew it wouldn’t be any easier for the slim Republican majority to coalesce behind a new candidate for speaker. So they promptly voted along with Matt Gaetz and his cabal of Republicans to oust McCarthy, clearly calculating the process would divide the party and give the Democrats an advantage.
It did — for a while. But then, finally, Republicans united behind Johnson. Now it wouldn’t surprise me if Democrats are wishing they hadn’t voted with Gaetz to oust McCarthy in the first place.
Related: BREAKING: We Have a New House Speaker
Speaker Johnson is a strong champion of conservative principles. He’s worked to secure the border, bolster our military, and reduce the federal bureaucracy. On social issues, he’s an advocate for religious liberty, and he hasn’t been afraid to fight one of the most dangerous plagues threatening society right now: radical leftist gender ideology. He’s fought to protect children from the transgender cult and groomers in education. Last year, he introduced the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act. LGBTQ activists are livid that Johnson has been elected speaker.
Meanwhile, the so-called MAGA wing of the party is celebrating.
“It is going to be a great moment for the House. At the very end, when people didn’t know if they could still bring back Kevin McCarthy, a few of them just left the room and didn’t vote,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who started this entire drama in first place, told Steve Bannon on his podcast. “The swamp is on the run, and MAGA is ascendant. If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to ‘MAGA Mike’ Johnson shows the ascendence of this movement, and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.”
Even conservatives like me, who didn’t like the drama and chaos, can actually feel happy about this outcome. The moderate Kevin McCarthy has been replaced by the conservative Mike Johnson.
And yes, Democrats are livid. “After spending three weeks in total chaos, House Republicans have finally landed on their new speaker: election denying, anti-abortion MAGA extremist Mike Johnson,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement following Johnson’s election. “Most Americans don’t know MAGA Mike, but he was a mastermind behind House Republicans’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the cosponsor of legislation to institute an extreme abortion ban nationwide, and a proponent of cutting Social Security and Medicare. Speaker Johnson has proven that he is a loyal foot soldier to the real leader of the Republican Party – Donald Trump.”
In the end, the Democrats made this possible. They helped oust McCarthy, and in return for their efforts, they got a speaker who is even more conservative. It was a gamble that Democrats chose to make, and once again, they’ve learned that the house always wins.
