A Dick Named Johnson

When James Michael Johnson of Louisiana, the new Speaker of the House, took questions from reporters after being elevated to the job, ABC News reporter Rachel Scott asked Johnson, who had members of the House Republican conference behind him, about his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which included circulating a petition of support for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit against states won by Joe Biden to get the outcome reversed.  Republican House members jeered and laughed, and North Carolina congresswoman Virginia Foxx told Scott, who is black, to "shut up."

This is where we are now.  We have in Mike Johnson a House Speaker who tried to help Donald Trump negate the results of the 2020 presidential election, is against gun control (and said prayer could help the residents of Lewiston, Maine overcome the trauma of the mass shootings that just took place there), is in favor of a federal abortion ban, supported the 2017 ax reform law that benefited the wealthy, and is very clear on is position on the rights of non-heterosexuals.  He thinks they don't have any.   

Republican House members who said they wouldn't vote for an election denier as Speaker went ahead and voted for Johnson mainly because they liked him personally, whereas they personally despised Jim Jordan.  Never mind that Johnson is merely Jordan with his suitcoat on - unless the House GOP unanimously got behind one of their own to be Speaker, they were looking at a power-sharing agreement with the Democrats - and House Republicans would rather chew whole rolls of tin foil than agree to share power with House Democrats, especially when they're led by a black guy from Brooklyn named Hakeem.

And so House Republicans now have a MAGA man in charge of the whole House of Representatives and it will be much easier for them to advance their anti-democratic agenda - and, if they keep the House in 2024, they'll have a Speaker who aid and abet Donald Trump to ensure he gets to be President whether he wins or loses the presidential election.  Fortunately, Scott doesn't know a twit abut running anything, but. unfortunately, he'll get plenty of help from his fellow Louisianian Steve Scalise, the House Republican leader, who once called himself "David Duke without the baggage." 

And if (when?) Trump is President in 2025, and Rachel Scott asks Trump or a high-ranking Republican a question he doesn't like, she won't be told to shut up.  Instead, she'll be accosted by two men in black suits and sunglasses and led out of the press room, and she will never be seen again.