They’re getting the coup back together
After Trump saved his gavel, Speaker Johnson paid the ex back with the public launch of Big Lie version 2.024.
If you look back at what cost Kevin McCarthy his career, it’s that he’s a snake.
Democrats couldn’t trust him, because he kept lying to them. Matt Gaetz couldn’t trust him because McCarthy allowed the House Ethics Committee to look into allegations that Gaetz used illegal drugs and raped a child. And Trump couldn’t trust him, because in the immediate aftermath of January 6th he attempted to raise alarms about the insurrection. Because like a rational adult, he was scared by a horde of militia-brained Nazis storming the Capitol trying to beat or murder most everyone inside.
But that didn’t stop McCarthy from becoming Trump’s biggest post-Jan6 enabler. Because he’s a snake.
Speaker Mike Johnson is much more in the Mike Pence mold. They both speak patriotically, both seem somewhat interested in America's national security interests, and both are unashamed theocratic fanatics. The difference between Johnson and Pence is that Johnson fully embraces Trump’s Big Lie with absolute conviction, unlike Pence who only enabled Big Lie 1.0 to the point that it successfully delayed the certification of Joe Biden's victory in 2020.
Facing almost the same exact threat to his Speakership as McCarthy did last year, Johnson visited Maralago last month to apparently remind Trump of his allegiance to the coup. He got the ex-president’s support. And Trump, always, gets something in return. It was the return of the coup to the floor of the House of Representatives.
Johnson, flanked by child stealing ghoul Stephen Miller, announced that he, as long planned, would entertain a bill that points to the centerpiece of what looks like it will be Big Lie version 2.024. It’s such a toxic mess of nonsense and racism that even debunking it stabs little daggers into democracy.
It’s such a mess of nonsense and racism that it has become Elon Musk’s almost full-time job, in addition to the unraveling of Telsa and literally breaking brains.
The only point of this kind of racist tripe is to preemptively explain why Trump lost. It would change absolutely nothing in how our elections are conducted because our elections are secure to the point that even stealing one vote is an onerous task with the potential of massive negative consequences, especially if your skin isn’t white.
That coup signaling is alarming but predictable, which is a good way to describe Mike Johnson.
Even more alarming and predictable was a quote Johnson gave to Politico, while generally sounding rational, or at least practical, about several other issues:
There’s also the Johnson who led the House GOP amicus brief that claimed the 2020 election was “riddled with an unprecedented number of serious allegations of fraud and irregularities.” When we asked him if had any regrets about the role he played after the election, he said, “No, I don’t.”
The Big Lie has been thoroughly debunked to the point that those who still embrace it do so just to assert their belief in handing Trump the presidency based on their deeply held feeling that he should be our king. And 2020's Big Lie bleeds right into version 2.024.
Billy Crystal once said, “Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” This is also true of the Big Liars. They just need a placeholder to justify their desire to make Trump a dictator.
Johnson has identified the placeholder he would use to try to hand Trump the presidency no matter the results of the election if he is Speaker on January 6, 2025. And though his powers are limited, he would be the leader of a MAGA effort against certifying a Joe Biden win in the House.
And what’s worse is that Donald Trump, who knows a lot about being a snake, has every reason to believe him.