Our Coup-Plotting Speaker of the House
Amid all the commentary about our new House Speaker, Mike Johnson, let us not miss the most crucial part — he was a key player in President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Johnson, R-La., you've probably heard by now, is an evangelical Christian. But more importantly, he's a particular type of evangelical Christian. He has aligned with young Earth creationists and armchair historians who teach a mythical view of America in which our founders are like modern evangelicals who designed our government to provide a privileged place in law and culture to their faith. Not all evangelicals believe this, and some of the sharpest critics of these views are themselves evangelicals. Much of the news coverage of Johnson that I've seen neglects to point this out, which may lead some to the impression that Johnson is a typical evangelical. (Evangelicals are too diverse for any one type to be typical.) One of the reasons I appreciate Matthew D. Taylor's profile of Johnson for The Bulwark is he takes time to make this distinction.
And as Taylor points out, the fact that Johnson is a conservative Christian isn't the primary issue — his political extremism should be the focus of our attention.
To understand the Republican party’s internal politics today, we need to redraw some old distinctions. The most important ones to keep in mind today are not between Christians and non-Christians, nor between conservative Christians and liberal Christians, but between conservative Christians and politically extreme conservative Christians.
To put it more personally, if simply being a conservative Christian were the problem, then I would be part of the problem. But I'm a conservative Christian who supports the norms of democracy, Johnson does not.
In a Monday column for The Atlantic, Peter Wehner, another conservative Christian who supports democracy, pointed out Johnson's hypocrisy. He claims to be a "rule-of-law guy" but sought to undermine the results of a legal election.
At the same time, Johnson has been a pivotal figure in undermining the rule of law—specifically trying to overturn the 2020 presidential-election results. In a carefully reported story on the 139 House Republicans who voted to dispute the Electoral College count, three New York Times reporters wrote, “In formal statements justifying their votes, about three-quarters relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Representative Mike Johnson, the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.”
Johnson also collected signatures for a legal brief in support of a groundless Texas lawsuit to throw out the results in four battleground states won by Joe Biden.
According to a report in the Times, Johnson “sent an email to his Republican colleagues soliciting signatures for the legal brief in support of it. The initiative had been personally blessed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson wrote, and the president was ‘anxiously awaiting’ to see who in Congress would step up to the plate to defend him.”
Johnson also claimed in a radio interview that a software system used for voting was “suspect because it came from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.” According to Johnson, “The allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion. Look, there’s a lot of merit to that.”
So not only was he one of the most active players in laying the groundwork for a coup, he promoted some of the wackiest conspiracy theories out there. One of the main promoters of the debunked Dominion/Chávez conspiracy, Sidney Powell, recently pled guilty for her efforts to interfere with the election in Georgia, and Fox News will pay Dominion $787 million to settle its defamation lawsuit for spreading the same conspiracy. Yet after being elected speaker, when given the opportunity to refute his claims about the 2020 election, Johnson declined to comment.
Key Takeaway: Given what we know about Johnson, what if Republicans retain control of the House and Biden wins the next election? Would the majority decline to certify the results and would Johnson use his power as speaker to seek to overturn the results? Signs point to yes.
Mending Division Academy
How divided are we? Here's the good news — not as much as we think. Much of our division is a function of misperceptions — Republicans think Democrats are more left-wing than they really are and Democrats think Republicans are more right-wing than they really are. This is called the "perception gap" and Mending Division Academy has a course on it that will help you, your small group, or your church class to reduce the division in your community by reducing the perception gap. The course, "When Polarization Divides Us: Confronting the Perception Gap," is taught by Austin Gravely, Executive Producer of Mending Division Academy and Social Media Manager for The Gospel Coalition. Check out this short clip from one of the four sessions:
What Else We're Reading
"Communication Breakdown: Dissemination of Public Health Information"
Trust in public health institutions such as the CDC has plummeted since 2020. It’s not just the CDC; doctors, researchers, politicians, and even the scientific method have come under scrutiny. Evolving data, 50 different sets of policies for 50 different states, and the emergence of armchair experts fueled a historic level of confusion and distrust. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2022 Special Report: Trust and Health noted that distrust fuels polarization.13 And in a polarized community, words have enormous power.
So how can we talk about COVID-19 without causing more trust to be lost? We need to use the right language.
NYT Books Review: "Do Any of These Never Trumpers Have the Power to Persuade?"
By literally “preaching to the choir,” Moore, on the other hand, ironically avoids preaching to it figuratively.
He is better equipped to lovingly cajole, carefully critique and persuade his readers, because he speaks to his audience in their own idiom, relying on theological concepts that hold particular potency for his fellow congregants, especially those who find themselves called to decry an evil they fear they have abetted.
Adam Kinzinger: "The Democrats have a big problem"
Having watched the Republican fringe cement control of the party under Donald Trump’s influence, Democrats must recognize they are threatened by the same dynamic. But so far, top leaders are acting as if this extremism doesn’t exist. This was precisely the mistake Republicans made as they allowed a vocal minority to push their party further and further to the Right. The result is a GOP in shambles, controlled by the cult of Trump.
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Thank you for this reporting on our new speaker of the house. You shared some information I was not aware of regarding his extremist views.