An October of unmitigated chaos in the GOP-led House of Representatives, in addition to its undeniable entertainment value, has also been an incredibly useful, if continuously dispiriting lesson in what today's elected Republicans find acceptable and unacceptable in a leader. And by selecting policy hardliner and 2020 election truther Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as their leader after more than three weeks of rudderless infighting, they are telling us exactly who and what they are. We would be very wise to listen carefully.
What some observers saw as a struggle for the party's soul was really just about finding the right mix of outward-facing normalcy and extremism. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) was rejected not because he is a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist who carries so much water for former President Trump that he's practically drowning, or because he was one of the ringleaders of the GOP's plot against democracy following the 2020 election. No, he lost his bid for speaker because a small minority of the caucus found him to be a personally irritating grandstander who didn't abide by informal norms and party procedures for advancement. Had he been just a bit more of a team player, he would be speaker and second in line for the presidency.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) was tossed aside not because of his not-so-secret past as "David Duke without the baggage" but because he was too closely associated with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his hated compromises with President Joe Biden and the Democratic Senate. Rep. Tom Emmer's (R-MN) nomination was DOA with the Freedom Caucus crowd not because of meaningful policy differences but because he was seen as insufficiently obeisant to Trump and committed the terrible sin of voting to certify the 2020 presidential election (after weeks of supporting efforts to undermine it.)
Enter the heretofore completely unknown Louisianan Mike Johnson, who sports a Handmaid's Tale hard right social agenda but who lacks the stench of radicalism and desperation that wafts off of people like Jordan and his allies. The elevation of Johnson to the speakership sends a very clear signal about what today's Republicans are looking for in a leader, from the squishiest squishes like Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) to media-grubbing extremists like reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). And that appears to be a policy brinksman who has enough composure and savvy—along with bespectacled Dad vibes—to avoid setting off creeper alarms for normies who don't play super-close attention to national politics
Don't let the facade fool you: Johnson will be the most extreme leader of either chamber of Congress in modern American history. It is not just his voting record, which features the hardest right positions on hot-button issues like abortion (he favors a total national ban from conception onward and once threatened doctors who performed abortions with "hard labor") and Ukraine (he favors letting Russian President Vladimir Putin dismember and gorge himself on what is left of it).
Just as importantly, he wasn't a reluctant participant but rather an eager entrepreneur in Donald Trump's effort to destroy American democracy by illegally installing himself in power for another term. He spearheaded the effort to write an amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit that sought to have election results in four battleground states thrown out. Johnson has never walked back or softened his position that the 2020 election was stolen by big city Democrats in a handful of states who weirdly forgot to rig their own down-ballot races. That means that Republicans have chosen as their highest profile elected leader a man who, if given the opportunity, would erase U.S. democracy from the face of the Earth to ensure that Republicans get to stay in power indefinitely.
This is what forged consensus in the fractured Republican caucus. That's what the extremists want and that's what the so-called "moderates" want. And at this point there's no sense in denying that naked authoritarianism isn't just a fringe position that some Republicans went along with to save their jobs—it is the new center of gravity in the party. Previously, core Republican positions like defending besieged democratic allies overseas and supporting the routine transfer of power between presidential administrations are now Extinct in the Wild and kept alive only by the few remaining zookeepers with ties to the pre-Trump GOP.
MAGA fanatics bent on imposing their reactionary system of authoritarianism on America? They look like the party's apex predators with no meaningful threats to their ongoing reproduction. By folding to them for the umpteenth time during the Trump era, the Republicans who complained about the disloyal insurgents in the Freedom Caucus have not only given them literally everything they ever wanted but should also have disabused even the most hopeful member of the press corps of any lingering delusions about what the GOP has become.
David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. His writing has appeared in The Week, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Washington Monthly and more. You can find him on Twitter @davidmfaris.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
