The Devil We Know Now in the House GOP

Again, I'm not so good with the prediction stuff.

I figured the House Republicans would flail at finding a replacement Speaker for whatever was left of this year - well into 2024 - out of the belief that the Freedom Caucus extremists knew it would force an inevitable shutdown. Apparently, there was an agenda by those extremists to eventually confirm a "consensus" candidate as soon as they found someone the Rational factions could accept without openly vomiting on the floor.

Jim "Scandals Aplenty" Jordan was clearly not the consensus choice: He angered up too many people on a personal level, and he reeked of both incompetency and guilt. The GOP couldn't accept the "moderate" - although that word no longer holds meaning for their ranks - choices of Scalise or Emmert, but they could accept a virtual unknown at the high chair in someone named Mike Johnson out of Lousiana.

Just because nobody ever noticed Johnson before now doesn't mean he's a safe choice. It means he kept himself out of the limelight long enough for people to not notice the extremist world-view he brings with him. Amanda Marcotte over at Salon has taken a closer look and has recoiled:

Ahead of his sudden ascension to House speaker late last week, the media had little time to vet Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., thoroughly. And because he sucks in so many ways, it's been hard for his critics to settle on one of his many evil inclinations to focus on. He's a Christian nationalist. He's an election denier. He wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security. He's a fan of neo-Nazi conspiracy theories. As Brian Beutler of Off Message writes, "typecasting an opposition leader" may be tedious, but it's politically necessary. Democrats have benefited from the fact that the most famous Republican villains have one standout trait that defines their personality: Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is a pugnacious bully. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is a loudmouthed Karen. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California is a spineless suck-up.

...What stands out to me about Johnson — and I suspect will be compelling to most people — is what a sinister little creep he is. The man gives off strong incel energy, and his elevation really showcases how much the politics of bitter sexual obsession have come to dominate the Republican Party.

I don't know if I ever covered the term "incel" at this blog, so a refresher is in order. "Incel" means "Involuntary Celibate," referring to heterosexual men who are frustrated that they are either socially unacceptable to women, or unable to find women who are submissive enough to their needs. Rather than blame their own behaviors - their own failures as men to adapt and improve themselves to behave better towards women - incels prefer to blame "feminists and queers" who have "disrupted the natural order of the patriarchy" that would have otherwise gotten these assholes laid by now.

In other words: Incels believe women are trophies, they are possessions, they are chattel meant only to serve the pleasure of men. And if that sounds a lot like how the Far Right religious Republicans sound when it comes to punishing women over abortion rights, divorce rights, the basic human right to think for themselves then you get where Marcotte is getting that vibe from Johnson.

In true incel fashion, Johnson is haunted by all the erotic adventures he imagines the straight ladies of America are having when he's not in the room. When New York's Irin Carmon interviewed him in 2015, he blamed legal abortion for school shootings, saying, "When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.” Nor was that a one-off. In 2016, he gave a speech in which he blamed feminism, liberal divorce laws, and the "sexual revolution" for mass shootings.

In this view, Johnson agrees with mass shooters, who claim they were driven to it because of women's sexual freedom. In the year before Johnson blamed male violence on women's sexuality, the incel-identified killer Elliot Rodger went on a shooting spree in California, claiming he was forced to do it to "punish" the "sluts" who had sex with other men while he remained a virgin. Since then, there's been a rash of violent incidents, some quite deadly, conducted by men who employ the same logic: Female sexual autonomy offends them, and must be punished with pain and death...

It is not exaggeration on Marcotte's part to paint Johnson as a dangerous radical, because he is. Not only with his fervent public stance that America is a "Christian nation," - in opposition to the Constitutional facts of "No Religious Test" and "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" - but also his open disdain towards women as human beings with their own beliefs, their own minds, their own rights.

Johnson has similar views. He wants to lock women down into unhappy marriages with abortion bans. And, in a twist that incels will love, he wants to throw away the key. He's long been outspoken against "no-fault" divorce, which allows someone to leave simply because they no longer want to be married. These laws don't just benefit those in garden-variety unhappy marriages. By lifting the burden to "prove" their suffering in court, abused women have an easier time escaping. That's why liberalized divorce laws led to a 20% decline in female suicides...

We saw it recently in Florida where the GOP-controlled legislature and DeSantis signed off on laws weakening women's ability to get divorces as well as proper alimony that could let them live outside of the control of the men they're trying to flee from. The Religious Right don't like divorce - not that it disrupts society like they claim, but because it guts the controls men would have over "their" women - and would prefer increasing the likelihood of domestic violence that bad marriages compel.

There are still many in the punditry who are confused about why Christian conservatives like Johnson glommed onto Trump, a thrice-married chronic adulterer who touches the Bible like it will burn him. But, of course, it was never really about Jesus. What Trump and the men who worship him share is anger that any woman would have the right to say no: To a date, to a marriage, to having your baby. It's why Trump has a long history of sexual assault. And it's why men like Johnson embrace a "religion" that is hyper-focused on caging women like they're farm animals. And why they resent gay people for their perceived sexual adventures. It's a coalition of men who fear, often for very good reason, that their repulsive personalities exclude them from a world where sexual expression requires consent. Johnson's now the most powerful Republican in Congress. The incel-ization of the GOP is complete...

Where the Republican-controlled House is likely going to get a lot of attention drawn to the inevitable government shutdown that the Freedom Caucus desires, don't be at all surprised that this Johnson-led House decides to go nuclear by passing a federal-level abortion ban - that thankfully won't get past the Democratic Senate or Biden's desk - and stage more assaults on women's rights than ever before (even as the polling experts are screaming at Republicans that strict anti-abortion stances are destroying their numbers).

Johnson is no Man of God. He's just another Republican huckster shilling faith as campaign slogans, hiding his misogyny behind fake platitudes and hypocrisy. And he's the one the House GOP settled on to lead them into the 2024 election cycle.

Gods, truly help us.