Who is Mike Johnson?

Buckle up and brace yourself. It's going to get bumpy.

James Michael Johnson (born January 30, 1972) is an American attorney, politician, and former talk radio host. And he’s just been made Speaker of the House.

He is part of the Christian right faction of the Republican Party. Johnson is known for his strong support for a nationwide abortion ban and an end to legal same-sex marriages.

In December 2020, Johnson supported Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In January 2021, Johnson voted to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania.

Johnson supports ending American military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Since he has not been a U.S. Representative for a long time, never chaired a full House committee, or served in senior House leadership, Johnson is the least experienced Speaker of the House in terms of service in 140 years. On October 25, 2023, he was elected the 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Johnson apparently feels that his Christian views on abortion should be imposed on the entire country just as Justice Alito has done through injecting Catholic Doctrine upon the entire country in his opinion on the overturning of Roe.

Alito stated in the very first sentence of his majority opinion: “Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views”. And with those opening words, Alito then proceeded to offer his opinion on moral values using Catholic Doctrine as his moral compass. The logic is undeniable:

P1. Catholic Doctrine opposes abortion.

P2. Alito is a practicing Catholic

C: therefore, Alito opposes abortion

In a deductive syllogism, if the premises are true, the conclusion MUST be true.

So, instead of recusing himself along with the 5 other practicing Catholics that voted to overturn Roe for holding an obvious conflict of interest, which would be the ethical thing to do, Alito and the other 5 (Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrat, and Thomas) demonstrate that they have no more ethics than a common house fly. Since abortion is nowhere to be found in the constitution, Alito and the others must draw their opinion from someplace other than the constitution. That place is their Catholic religion which has already spoken on the subject and which they are committed to following.

Since our moral values are taught to us from our religion (that’s the entire premise of religion. All religions are a guide to living a moral life) the Supreme’s have no standing to determine what is morally right for anybody other than themselves. Abortion is not found in the Constitution. It would be an unenumerated right guaranteed by the 9th Amendment. Furthermore, the first Amendment says this: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Not only is the Supreme Court weighing in on a topic that is forbidden under the constitution and in violation of the Establishment clause, but they also even go as far as prohibiting the free exercise clause of a womans right to assert her constitutionally protected right to free exercise of her moral beliefs which come from her religion which the Court is forbidden from doing.

It's no different with Johnson. Perhaps he’s not a Catholic, but more likely an Evangelical Christian.

Before his election to Congress, Johnson was senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, now known as Alliance Defending Freedom. While working at Alliance Defending Freedom, he wrote a prominent amicus brief opposing the eventual U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which overturned state laws that criminalized consensual same-sex relationships. In 2004 he defended Louisiana Amendment 1, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman within the Louisiana Constitution, against legal challenges.

In 2015, Johnson founded Freedom Guard, a nonprofit legal ministry designed to represent Christian clients in lawsuits. He was its chief counsel. During his time in Freedom Guard, he "defended the sports chaplaincy program at Louisiana State University from attacks that it was unconstitutional". Also, when Kentucky officials withdrew millions of dollars of tax breaks for the Ark Encounter theme park in Williamstown, Kentucky for advancing religion by mandating that park employees had to affirm having creationist beliefs, Johnson in 2015 represented Ark Encounter and its owner Answers in Genesis in launching a lawsuit in federal court.

In September 2016, Johnson summarized his legal career as "defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage, and other ideals like these when they’ve been under assault."

Johnson is a professor at Liberty University (Founded by Jerry Falwell) and teaches classes at the Helms School of Government. In 2004, Liberty University named its School of Government after Falwell family friend and notorious racist, Senator Jesse Helms. Helms opposed civil rights, disability rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, affirmative action, access to abortions, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He brought an "aggressiveness" to his conservatism, as in his rhetoric against homosexuality.

Helms was considered the most stridently conservative American politician of the post-1960s era, especially in opposition to federal intervention into what he considered state affairs (including legislating integration via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and enforcing suffrage through the Voting Rights Act of 1965). He was a States Rights segregationist.

Helms quickly became a "star" of the conservative movement and was particularly vociferous on the issue of abortion. In 1974, in the wake of the US Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, Helms introduced a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited abortion in all circumstances, including rape, incest or the health of the woman.

So, Speaker Johnson fits the mold perfectly. He’s anti-gay, anti-same sex marriage, anti-abortion and an advocate for a nationwide ban, anti-democracy, (voted to overturn the 2020 election), and opposes funding of Ukraine in its war with Russia. (Who benefits from that? Who gets hurt from that?) It’s safe to say that Russia benefits, and Ukraine loses which is exactly what Donald Trump wants since it helps Putin who tells Trump he’s smart and hurts Zelensky who Trump tried to extort and was impeached for his efforts. And he’ll very likely shut down the government because that’s what Trump wants. Chaos.

So, what should we expect from the new Speaker of the House? Based on what we know from his past record and his affiliation with deep Christian extremism and his commitment to Donald Trump, I think we can expect the worst from a Democracy perspective. Based on what we’ve seen from the GOP, I don’t think they’ll hold the House in 24. The question is how much damage will be done in the meantime?