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Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Repub Venality Open Thread: Mike Johnson’s Malignant Incompentence

Repub Venality Open Thread: Mike Johnson’s Malignant Incompentence

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It is a fact universally acknowledged that Pastor Mike Johnson couldn’t organize a drinkfest in a brewery, but it’s also becoming ever clearer that he was chosen as House Speaker by the GOP because he’s just that incompetent. And he knows it, the nasty little beetle! Which doesn’t mean he won’t whine about it, because whining is one of the last remaining Republican skills.

Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire — “It’s Apparently Dawning On Mike Johnson That No One Likes Him”:

Speaker Mike Johnson has a sad face these days. He’s beginning to realize that he’s in thrall to a pack of angry vandals in the service of an empty and unpopular shadow of an ideology. There’s no light. Hell, there’s no tunnel. There’s no escape for Speaker Moses, and God can’t help him because he can’t help himself…

If your sympathy for the speaker is anywhere from limited to infinitesimal, you needn’t feel guilty. He knew what he was walking into, and he knew the folks with whom he’d be dealing, and it wasn’t the Democratic majority…

Will Saletan, at the Bulwark, eviscerates “Mike Johnson’s Pathetic Apology Tour”:

MIKE JOHNSON, THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, has embarked on an apology tour. For the past week, he’s been doing interviews on right-wing radio and TV, hoping to soothe conservatives who are angry at him for cutting deals with Democrats to keep the government open. Johnson is trying to explain why he hasn’t taken a harder line. His excuses say a lot about the sickness of the Republican base—and the cravenness of the speaker who’s contorting himself to appease it.

Here are some of the alibis Johnson is peddling.

1. We barely have a majority.
In every interview, Johnson points out that the GOP’s margin over House Democrats, which used to be nine seats, has dwindled in the last year. It will soon be down to one. With such a small margin, and with unreliable support from hardliners on the right, Johnson says he can’t get much done…

2. I inherited a mess.
Three weeks ago, Johnson scolded President Joe Biden for using his State of the Union speech to blame America’s troubles on his “predecessor.” But on Monday, Johnson blamed his own troubles—in particular, his agreement to budget parameters opposed by many conservatives—on former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “I was hemmed in by the top-line spending numbers that my predecessor negotiated,” Johnson told radio talk-show host Moon Griffon. “I inherited all this. . . . They handed me the reins of this stagecoach going off the cliff.” This excuse, like the one about small margins, is an indictment of the party’s chaos and infighting…

4. A shutdown would hurt Republicans politically.
Some interviewers asked Johnson why Republicans shouldn’t shut down the government. He explained that shutdowns have always hurt the GOP because people suffer and get angry when federal paychecks stop, flights get canceled, and other functions—agents patrolling the border, for example—are halted or curtailed. He pointed out that polls show Republicans would again take the blame. But this is a hard message to sell to right-wing audiences because they live in their own mediasphere. They don’t understand how different they are from the broader population…

10. The kingdom of heaven is coming.
Through the centuries, religious leaders have encouraged believers by promising joy in the afterlife. Johnson is telling right-wing audiences that they, too, must be patient, because all the woes of this broken world will be healed in the 2024 election. “I’m trying to be an ambassador of hope on Easter Sunday,” the speaker told Gowdy…

TWO MOMENTS FROM THE APOLOGY TOUR are particularly disconcerting. One happened on Newsmax, when Bolling asked Johnson to address a rumor. “I’ve had two congressmen . . . call me, saying there’s someone on the Democrat side that’s paying off some of these [Republican] members to leave, to leave you with less of a majority,” said Bolling. Johnson said he didn’t think the rumor was true. But the circulation of this conspiracy theory among Republican lawmakers—and the fact that Bolling took it seriously, or at least thought his audience would—shows the extent of the party’s illness. Instead of facing the real problem—Republican lawmakers hate their jobs so much that they’re abandoning Johnson and the conference—the Republican base is sinking deeper into paranoia.

The other exchange took place in Johnson’s interview with Kirk. The speaker worried that a shutdown would go on for a long time because lawmakers who think they way he does would refuse to end it. “I come from the conservative movement myself. I’m a hardliner myself,” Johnson told Kirk. “A bunch of my friends would never join in the vote to reopen the government.”

That’s how derelict and dangerous the House GOP has become. The speaker is afraid to leave the fate of the nation to people like himself.

2/ If put to a vote, the bill is expected to pass with a large majority in favor, just like in the Senate. But Johnson, who has accepted russian campaign money in the past, refuses to put the aid bill to a vote.

3/ This delay for over 6 months has already cost Ukraine thousands of Ukrainian lives. I am truly ashamed for these representative of the Republican Party. And I am even more ashamed for some Ukrainian Americans who will actually be voting for these pro-russian advocates.

4/ The US is showing itself to be an unreliable partner on the world stage.

All we sane people can do is work for change come November. Ed Kilgore, at NYMag — “Don’t Get Too Attached to Speaker Mike Johnson”:

Like his defenestrated predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker Mike Johnson is caught in a perpetual squeeze between what’s necessary to keep the country operating and what the wackier members of his conference want. And as Politico reports, it’s a real buzzkill:

To hear Mike Johnson tell it, he’s not having much fun as speaker. He has complained about the long hours and constant travel, according to those who have recently spoken to him, and a series of escalating internal clashes have made the job a joyless slog.

… The bigger question is Johnson’s longer-term survival as the top House Republican. But he might as well un-furrow his brow, because the decision may be beyond his control. Odds are high that the November election will greatly affect Johnson’s status. One such scenario is by definition curtains for Speaker Johnson, and likely for Leader Johnson, as Playbook suggests:

Many Republicans privately concede that they’re unlikely to keep the House this fall. And if they don’t, there will be pressure on Johnson to step aside from leadership completely, as has happened to GOP speakers who have lost the majority since the 1950s.
[One Republican asked:] “What’s he going to say? ‘Oh, shucks, guys … I ran everything through suspension and lost the majority, and I still want to be your leader’? That’s not going to be tolerated.”

Johnson would then be free to return to the back-bench obscurity from whence he emerged…

The most complicated post-November situation for Mike Johnson is probably the least likely: the status quo ante. It’s unclear what exactly the failure to flip the Senate and the White House would do to the psychology of the Republican Party. But at the very least, Speaker Johnson would more than ever remain the extremely unlikely top Republican in Washington, and quite possibly a sitting duck for those demanding a change in party leadership.

His life may seem difficult right now, but it could be a lot worse. In any event, voters hold Mike Johnson’s future in their hands.

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  2. 2.

    Leto

    @Baud: I remember when we didn’t believe in 1 weird trick to save anything, but here we are. Idk, combine this post with the one below  and it’s just a dispiriting road ahead. Only option is forward though.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: Pretty much. It doesn’t matter whether Johnson is malignant, incompetent, or both; clearly he’s not going to call the vote on his own.

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    Injurious to attempt kicking the can down the road when it is (a) filled with cement and (b) superglued to the pavement.

  10. 10.

    Barney

    October: GOP insists that funding for Ukraine and Israel must be accompanied by border stuff. Senator James Lankford is made head of the Republican negotiators.

    He does, for them, a good job – getting spending and commitments to fairly draconian shit.  February, Mike Johnson tells him to fuck off, but slightly more politely, because Trump insisted that no deal be done on the border, so that Trump could fearmonger about it.

    In April, Mike Johnson insists that funding for Ukraine and Israel must be accompanied by border stuff. He apparently thinks we have the memories of goldfish, and that this won’t consist of a few months of more time-wasting, followed by another “fuck off” by Johnson, one of whose balls is held by the religiously-deranged Taylor Green, and the other by the sociopathic rapist Trump.

  19. 19.

    wjca

    @MattF: Maybe incompetence is Johnson’s… um, … subtle way of encouraging a discharge petition.

    It is, after all, the only way for him to get it to a vote without the RWNJs kicking him out as Speaker.

    EDT It does feel a bit strange to be attributing being too subtle to him, but…

  23. 23.

    piratedan

    @schrodingers_cat: I agree, they anticipating “good faith”, he’s just shitty at his job, which takes the heat off.  he came out of a meeting with Biden, he’s simply shining us all on while the money sits on the shelf.

    Biden is going to have to be creative with funding Ukraine, it’s more apparent than ever that the GOP is working in concert with Putin to weaken Ukraine.  Just like all of the money Putin is spending in Europe to affect their elections to also weaken NATO.

    Kind of wish that more people in the media would simply come out and say it plainly.

  24. 24.

    eclare

    @Steeplejack:

    Wow, you aren’t kidding!  I guess it’s hard for him to hire good makeup artists.

    He probably has a groundskeeper at Mar a Lardo spray it on his face like Roundup.  Hmmm…that would be an interesting “oops!”

  25. 25.

    Josie

    @eclare: ​
     I’m surprised that his advisors let him go on camera with such a bad make-up job. The contrast is quite obvious.

  26. 26.

    Gvg

    @wjca: I think plenty of people have suggested it to him, and he can read blogs like this one outlining the possibility. He doesn’t have to come up with the idea on his own.

  27. 27.

    TBone

    More schadenfreude

    “The Appellate Division issued this order so quickly the judges didn’t even have time to stop laughing,” wrote conservative attorney George Conway. “DENIED: No change of venue for the election interference hush money trial. SAD!” wrote legal and political commentator Allison Gill, better known by the online moniker Mueller, She Wrote.

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-hush-money-delay-2667721171/

  28. 28.

    Princess

    @Steeplejack: I suspect he’s becoming recalcitrant and refusing to let his make up people do a thorough job, like a whiny kid who won’t sit still in the barber’s chair.

  29. 29.

    eclare

    @TBone:

    Ha!  “The ruling that the screaming toddler must go to bed without supper is upheld.”

    Such a perfect description.

  32. 32.

    Dan B

    Have any Jackals mentioned that 19 high level retired military commanders and some of Trump’s former people requested of the Supreme Court that TFG should not be granted immunity, that it would subvert democracy.

  33. 33.

    randy khan

    @Baud:

    Discharge. Only hope.

    Probably.  He might move it to a vote if the discharge petition gets close, but that’s really kind of the same thing.

  34. 34.

    Lyrebird

    @dmsilev: agreed.  and I’m not pretending I know more than Anne Laurie, because no way!! not possible, but in this case I doubt that incompetence is real, he is SO SO SO SLIMY, I think he is acting stupid to keep ahead of the others.

  35. 35.

    prostratedragon

    @Martin:  Putin’s their thrill:

    🎼 🎶 Oh, nothing seems to matter.
    Oh, here’s Ukraine on a silver platter. 🎶

  36. 36.

    Another Scott

    The picture of VVP and Johnson made me chuckle because they’re both on the short side (for men’s height these days).

    Don’t tell Adam but, I’ve been wrong in my supposition and feeling on how long it would take to get the Supplemental through.  Warning Politico (from November 27):

    Speaker Mike Johnson said he’s “confident and optimistic” Congress will be able to pass additional funds to help Israel and Ukraine before the holidays — provided lawmakers are able to coalesce around border security policy changes sought by Republicans.

    “I think all of that will come together in the coming days,” he said at an event in Sarasota, Fla. “I’m confident and optimistic that we’ll be able to get that done — get that over the line.”

    […]

    It’s always going to be sunny pretty soon now in Johnson Land!! :-/

    Biden and the Senate had a border bill (which Fritschner pointed out has the outlines that are the only sensible way forward and everyone knows it), but the GQP jumped when TIFG said NO and killed the bill. Now Johnson is (again) saying that they’ve gotta have a border bill to address the CRISIS!!!11 AT THE BORDER!!!11

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    It’s hard to see it without getting really deep into the weeds, but Discharge Petition #9 is the one for the Supplemental (and a bunch of other things). It has 191 signatures at the moment and needs 218 (IIRC).

    Listening to Johnson is a waste of time.

    He obviously doesn’t know how to get anything through the House except for bringing stuff to the floor and having Democrats pass it. He wants something really big in return for letting the Supplemental. He floated letting more natural gas permits through quicker. That was shot down. Maybe he’ll come up with something else that he can sell as a big win, but things have gone on so long that it looks like the GQP is perfectly willing to let nothing else pass this year (except for FAA reauthorization which expires at the end of May).

    I don’t think a Discharge Petition is going anywhere – if there are 218 votes then Johnson will let it come to the floor without the indignity of the DP. We’re off the map though – maybe more of the GQPers heading for the hills will sign on the way out.

    I continue to think, believe it or not, that the Supplemental (or something very much like it) will end up on Biden’s desk. It might not happen until January 2025 though…. :-(

    Who wants a pick for losing lottery numbers??

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  39. 39.

    wjca

    @Another Scott: I don’t think a Discharge Petition is going anywhere – if there are 218 votes then Johnson will let it come to the floor without the indignity of the DP.

    Quite the contrary.  If it comes to a vote via a DP, he doesn’t lose his job.  And indignity only matters if shame is still in your repertoire.

  43. 43.

    M31

    @MattF: Maybe incompetence is Johnson’s… um, … subtle way of encouraging a discharge petition.

    well, incontinence often does lead to discharge

    oh wait, incompetence?

  44. 44.

    Scout211

    @Dan B: I haven’t seen that yet, but I haven’t read all the threads. It’s very good news.  Here’s more.

    A distinguished group of retired four-star generals and admirals from the U.S. military have argued in a brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that Donald Trump’s claims of absolute “presidential immunity” from criminal prosecution tied to Jan. 6 is an “assault” on the “foundational commitments” underpinning democracy and if his argument is allowed to succeed before them later this month, it threatens “to subvert the careful balance between the executive and legislative branches struck in the Constitution.”

    The 38-page amicus brief features 19 authors, all of them decorated retired admirals, generals or secretaries from branches of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force respectively. On April 25, the high court is poised to hear Trump’s question of immunity against prosecution for his alleged criminal conspiracy to subvert the results of the 2020 election. and according to the brief, these are arguments that should be approached with extreme caution.

    “Petitioner’s theory of presidential immunity threatens to subvert the careful balance between the executive and legislative branches struck in the Constitution. For example, if emboldened by absolute immunity, the President might unsuccessfully seek authorization from Congress to undertake a certain action and then attempt to have the military carry out that action even though Congress rejected it.

    Moreover, our Constitution directs the people’s elected representatives in Congress to enact criminal laws that the executive is tasked with enforcing; allowing the President to violate those laws with impunity fundamentally distorts this constitutional allocation of powers,” they wrote.

     

    In a separate amicus brief filed Monday by a host of former government officials and constitutional lawyers in support of Smith, similar sentiments and legal arguments were made about Trump’s claim to immunity or lack thereof.

    Even if former presidents had some sort of limited immunity against criminal prosecution for certain official acts, they could not “conceivably” reach the acts alleged in his indictment in Washington, D.C., they argue.

    ETA: typos

  45. 45.

    David 🏀Caitlin Clark🏀 Koch

    BREAKING: The Iowa-South Carolina national championship game averaged 18.7 million viewers.

    That makes it the most watched basketball game — men’s or women’s, college or professional — in five years.

    What a MASSIVE month for women’s basketball.

    — Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) April 8, 2024

    😊

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @Scout211: Horrible, thanks for asking! 😂 I had to drink a Big Gulp-sized mug of vile, cloyingly and artificially sweet red liquid at one point. The MRI was the worst of the three though. Good God, the infernal noise and claustrophobia! I meditated on my happy place to get through it.

    I did make a beeline to a favorite Cuban-American eatery immediately after. And some busboys in the parking lot were kind enough to share their eclipse-viewing equipment, so I didn’t miss out! ❤️

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    OT but trumpov is going after Lindsey Graham for “respectfully disagreeing “ with trumpov’s ‘leave it to the states’ position on abortion (Lindsey wants a national 15-week ban)

    YESSSSSSSSS!!!

  54. 54.

    David 🏀Caitlin Clark🏀 Koch

    @eclare: ​

    We’ve been lucky enough to see her 4 times in person and she’s never failed to be spectacular. We were in the front row when she did this (photo)

  55. 55.

    CaseyL

    Mike Johnson is a religious zealot, who believes God game him the Speakership in order to bring about the End Times. Russia winning in Ukraine, and then spreading the war to the rest of Europe is exactly what he wants.

    He is immovable. No matter what he says. Ukraine aid will never come up for a vote while he can stop it.

  56. 56.

    prostratedragon

    @Dan B:  There’s an excellent discussion of this brief just ended on Jen Psaki’s show  with Louis Caldera who was a signer of the brief, and Sherrilyn Ifill. Hopefully the video will show up somewhere shortly.

  60. 60.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: Thanks for the update.  It did sound like you would be having quite an unpleasant day. It sounds like it was an extremely unpleasant day. Yikes

    I’m glad it’s over for you today.  Here’s hoping the results are all normal. 😊

  62. 62.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @Another Scott: Just wrote my rep (Pocan) to understand why he isn’t signed on to this. Nor do I see Gallager (WI), Turner (OH), and McCaul (TX), which seems contradictory to their public stances. JFC.

  63. 63.

    dirge

    @Scout211: For example, if emboldened by absolute immunity, the President might unsuccessfully seek authorization from Congress to undertake a certain action and then attempt to have the military carry out that action even though Congress rejected it.

    I wholeheartedly agree that we should have thrown Reagan in jail for Iran-Contra.  Or is that not what you guys meant?

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    @dirge

    If there is such a thing as absolute immunity then ipso facto there can be no such thing as impeachment and conviction.

  66. 66.

    dirge

    @NotMax:

    I may have done a poor job of conveying my meaning there.  I just found it very jarring that their hypothetical example actually describes a real historical event, and one where the president did, as a practical matter, enjoy immunity.  Strange to use the example without noting that history, but I suspect the authors didn’t make the connection, because they don’t really think of Iran-Contra as a criminal conspiracy.

  68. 68.

    kindness

    I don’t understand why the discharge petition for the Ukraine aid hasn’t been signed by all these Republican supporters.  I guess they don’t want to be called unpatriotic by the Republican Putin wing.  Spinelessness isn’t attractive.

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