Never anyone else but Mike Johnson would do.
Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, seemingly came out of nowhere to become speaker of the House, a position that most people spend their whole careers working for.
Johnson has used his position as chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee as a springboard to the position of second in line of succession to the presidency of the United States.
Assuming becoming speaker of the Republican House is more of a boon than a bane, no member of the House has had such happened-to-be-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time good fortune since Gerald Ford dined alone.
Despite his inexperience with a political, legislative, or fundraising issue of this kind, Johnson is a talented man who may prove to be an accomplished speaker. In any case, the dirty secret of the GOP speaker fight was that the stakes were always very low, given the constraints imposed on any leader by a single chamber majority and a Democratic president.
The Republican majority is not very happy with being a majority, which is what eventually elevated Johnson and could make his term problematic after the honeymoon. That calls for unity and realism, which go counter to the goals of some in the party who would rather promote their own image at the expense of the group as a whole.
The minority in the House must bear the burden of witnessing the majority, within certain bounds determined by the size of the majority, do and pass anything it wants. If you can get over it, though, things are simple. Voting “no” and making remarks are the extent of one’s duties.
However, maintaining a majority position necessitates making decisions on the fly. What are the top priorities? When it comes to a certain topic, how far can the party go? How can we strike a balance between significant policy goals and manageable political risk? How can a majority coalition keep its many disparate parts together?
It’s already challenging enough without having to deal with people who would rather watch their favourite show on cable than offer constructive criticism of the leadership.
The party’s right wing has adopted a strategy that is almost actively antagonistic to changing legislative outcomes. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) was trying to avoid a government shutdown, but he was having trouble doing so because Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and his colleagues wouldn’t help them pass a budget plan backed by the GOP.
This made no sense, but at least the McCarthy detractors stayed blameless. This method of legislation turns democracy into a farce in which competence is gauged by ineffectuality.
The cult of the unconventional also plays a role. It’s a cultural trend that individuals are less influenced by authorities and find their natural state to be one of rebellion and dissent. Trump is the prototypical Republican politician in that he held the highest office in the land while yet sounding like an impotent critic of his own administration.
Similarly, Gaetz may spend the next three decades in Congress, rise to the position of chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and still consider himself the outsider who dared to speak truth to power.
Taking down McCarthy was a destructive move with no sure relationship to a better end, and the speaker fight he sparked off exhibited all the markings of this style of politics. Even if Gaetz likes Johnson better than McCarthy, this isn’t the way he pictured the drama unfolding.
Gaetz and a handful of his fellow small-government Republicans broke the custom of backing the party’s speaker or speaker-designate on the floor, creating an incentive for others to do the same. The weeks-long stalemate that ensued as different groups blocked each new speaker candidate was an inevitable result of what Gaetz had started.
It’s clear that some of the leaders in this circus would rather have a weak majority than a strong one.
Gaetz’s fighting buddy That much has been made clear by Rep. Matt Rosendale. The Messenger reported that, during a call with donors in which Gaetz participated, he said, “Look, we have shown, OK, with a very small handful of people, six at times, five at times, that we can have tremendous impact in that body and when a lot of people, unfortunately, were voting to have a 270, 280 Republican House, I was praying each evening for a small majority.”
In part, his wishes came true since the party nominated too many Trump supporters, including Rosendale. According to a feature in the Wall Street Journal, following the dismal midterms, Gaetz “recognised that the thin GOP majority that resulted worked to his advantage.”
Nobody who truly cares about their party ever wants it to have fewer members. Maybe you don’t want a majority at all if you want one that can be easily disrupted and blackmailed. If Gaetz and his allies feel this way, the recent upheaval may make it more likely that they will not have to bear the weight of a majority come November.