Democrats Helped Mike Johnson Keep His Job Because Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Just That Terrible

This is actually a ‘lesser evil’ situation.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, an actual sitting member of Congress, attempted to depose current House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday, and she failed miserably. The House voted to table Greene’s motion to vacate 359 to 43. Only 10 Republicans sided with Greene, but the GOP majority is so narrow that was more than enough to trigger the trap door underneath Johnson if Democrats hadn’t overwhelmingly voted for protect him. It’s not as if Democrats have much reason to like Johnson, but they have zero reasons to help Greene do anything.

“Hopefully this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress,” Johnson declared after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries let him keep his job for another few months. Johnson’s words were of course hypocritical, because he openly supports Donald Trump, whose entire platform is built on petty personal grievance and frivolous character assassination.

This week, Johnson claimed that the felony indictment collector had “done nothing wrong and yet he’s the target of endless lawfare.” It’s weird that an elected official who’s second in line to the presidency believes there’s “nothing wrong” with falsifying business records, stealing classified documents, and attempting to overthrow the government. “Lawfare” is just a nonsense term Republicans made up to rationalize their continued support for a presidential nominee facing 91 felony charges. He’s not a crook. He’s a victim of “lawfare.”

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“You’re going to see the United States Congress address this in every possible way we can,” he continued, “because we need accountability” — obviously, not for Trump — “at the end of the day, it’s bigger than … Trump. It’s about the people’s faith in our system of government. We’re gonna get to the bottom of it. All these cases need to be dropped.”

Johnson sounds less like a reputable speaker of the House and more like the legal counsel for a mobster. Johnson also unveiled his plan to help Trump return to the White House by hook or by crook, but mostly by crook — very few hooks were present when he gathered with his fellow MAGA goons on Tuesday. This included Stephen Miller, who apparently can be captured on film.

Standing behind a lectern with the sign “Americans Decide American Elections,” he announced GOP-driven legislation to stop illegal immigrants from voting. This is already against federal law and there’s no evidence that it occurs in any significant numbers. Actual American citizens barely bother to vote.

“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” he said. “But it’s not been something that’s easily provable. We don’t have that number.”

Johnson now sounds like gangster Joe Cabot, who famously said, “You don’t need proof when you have instinct!” That’s a fine position to take when you work in organized crime, but our actual laws should have a basis in reality. The last major legislation inspired solely by “intuition” banned Bigfoot from convenience stores after 1 a.m. That might’ve made the late shift employees feel safer, but it was ultimately pointless.

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post pointed out that Trump absurdly claimed 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 election (somewhere between the populations of Iowa and Oregon). That would magically erase his crushing 2.9 million popular vote loss. Trump’s broke-ass scumbag former lawyer Rudy Giuliani argued that illegal immigrants accounted for around 40,000 to 250,000 votes in Arizona, another state Trump lost.

Johnson is canny enough to avoid specific numbers. He probably doesn’t expect to pass any meaningful laws based on 4chan hunches. Instead, he is deliberately casting doubt on the 2024 election outcome. It seems he’s paying more attention to the special election results than all the polls that show Trump winning. The road back to the White House for Trump clearly involves another attempted coup, and if Republicans control the House and Senate on January 6, 2025, they can reject a Biden victory based on shady innuendo and outright lies.

White Americans still overwhelmingly support Republicans, even in defeat. This is why there is a constant “othering” of Democratic votes with illegal immigrants as an ideal scapegoat. When Republicans rant about a “border invasion,” they never consider the possibility that non-white people from non-Nordic countries would ever support them. They can only serve as “ringers” for Democrats.

2020 presidential exit polls. Y’all won’t believe me otherwise.

All the Sturm und Drang about a supposed “border invasion” directly connects to the fear of a non-white planet. Former Trump adviser Cleta Mitchell ranted on a right-wing radio show in February:

“I absolutely believe this is intentional, and one of the reasons the Biden administration is allowing all these illegals to flood the country,” she said. “They’re taking them into counties across the country, so that they can get those people registered, they can vote them.”

This is nonsense. Desperate people don’t break the law to enter this country and then risk it all for an “I voted” sticker. Such conspiracy mongering from the Right isn’t new and is almost always an excuse to make voting harder for certain demographics.

As Gilda Daniels, an election law professor at the University of Baltimore, explained, “If you make [registering] harder, there will be students, young people, elderly people, poor people and other groupings of people who would just not bother.”

It’s worse now, though, because Trump is more than willing to promote political violence if he doesn’t prevail. “I don’t think we’re going to have that,” he said in his horror show interview with Time magazine. “I think we’re going to win. And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

Actual gangsters are more subtle.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Crying In Her Kholodets After Mike Johnson Does Bare Minimum, Passes Ukraine Aid

Why did Democrats save this creep?

Mike Johnson will inevitably use his power and influence to help Trump steal the election. So, why would Democrats lift a finger to save him from Marjorie Taylor Greene, a malignant growth posing as a Congress member? Because any other Republican speaker would inevitably use their power and influence to help Trump steal the election. Speaker Elise Stefanik is an even worse option. We barely dodged the bullet called Speaker Jim Jordan.

Johnson did eventually relent on funding for Ukraine. It’s a low bar but he cleared it … although not all that gracefully. Greene didn’t try to oust him because he’s in the tank for Trump. She considers that a plus. No, her primary beef was that he at least tried to govern as if America has obligations to its democratic allies. That’s unfortunately a bold position within the GOP, considering that Trump declared that the nation’s true enemies are the “Left” and not China and Russia, who both have him in their Venmo contacts lists.

Democrats had to prop up Johnson because they are generally honorable people who keep their commitments. This apparently confused Kevin McCarthy, who Democrats eagerly watched drown. McCarthy of course had refused to actually deal constructively with Democrats and publicly stabbed them in the back when they did help him. During an appearance on Politico’s Power Play podcast, he cast shade on Johnson and tried to put a positive spin on his revolving-door speakership.

“I couldn’t live with myself if I’d done a deal with Democrats,” he said. “If you can’t sustain being speaker by your own majority, should you sustain it? No.”

McCarthy obviously wasn’t interested in governing. He ludicrously suggested that Greene’s motion to vacate was different from Matt Gaetz’s successful one.

“She wants to have a policy discussion,” he said. No, Greene wanted to sell out Ukraine to Vladimir Putin and whack special counsel Jack Smith. The only major difference between Gaetz and Greene is that Gaetz absolutely hates McCarthy. The feeling is mutual. McCarthy, who’s backing Gaetz’s primary opponent Aaron Dimmock, slammed his former colleague and permanent enemy.

“Gaetz is the Hunter Biden of the Republican Party,” McCarthy said. “He’s got an opponent who is pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, trained at Pensacola, went to the Naval Academy and flew jets to defend us while Gaetz was getting kicked out of high school, buying coke, and paying minors for sex.”

Hunter Biden isn’t a member of Congress … or president of the United States. Republicans keep forgetting that part. Gaetz is definitely a sleazeball, but McCarthy has no problem supporting politicians suspected of committing serious felonies.

McCarthy will have to live with the reality that he was outmaneuvered by Matt Gaetz. Johnson, however, fended off Marjorie Taylor Greene. That’s worth making a deal with Democrats and — very briefly — doing the right thing.

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