New House Speaker Mike Johnson is not a moderate

The new Republican Speaker of the House’s policy views are wildly out of touch with those of the American people.
After a full three weeks of public infighting and remarkable dysfunction, the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives finally selected a new Speaker of the House on Wednesday, Oct. 25. After four previous nominees failed to secure the gavel, House Republicans settled on Louisiana representative Mike Johnson. This decision has led Americans everywhere to stop and ask, “Who?”
Allow me to introduce you to the gentleman from Louisiana, who, last week, no one knew existed, and this week became second in line to the presidency.
Mike Johnson is, in his own words, an Evangelical Christian who believes in a “biblical worldview” and has embraced extreme forms of both social and fiscal conservatism. He supports policies such as a national abortion ban, restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights and an economic agenda that would grant massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, paid for by slashing the budgets of programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Johnson’s social policies are some of the most extreme in the country. In an op-ed from 2005, he compared abortion to the Holocaust and described the judicial philosophy underpinning Roe v. Wade as “no different from Hitler’s.” In a Congressional hearing for the House Judiciary Committee, Johnson described Roe as allowing for the “elected killing of unborn children in America, period.” He then continued, saying, “[y]ou think about the implications of that on the economy. We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this.” When Roe was overturned in June of 2022, Johnson said it was “a joyous occasion.”
However, these extremist social views are not limited to the realm of reproductive justice. The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ rights organization in the United States, has already called Johnson “the most anti-equality” Speaker of the House in modern US history. This is, in large part, due to Johnson’s previous work with Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization deemed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center that, at one point, pushed for the recriminalization of same-sex marriage and intimacy. Johnson has also claimed that “homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural” and that gay marriage is “a dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.”
These positions on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights are incredibly out of step with the beliefs of the American public. As of June of this year, more than 70% of Americans support same-sex marriage, and 85% of Americans support some form of legal abortion, with a majority of people describing themselves as pro-choice.
Johnson is not just out of touch when it comes to social issues. His economic policies are also deeply unpopular. While chair of the Republican Study Committee, Johnson suggested cutting trillions of dollars from bedrock social services like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. According to the director of Federal Budget Policy at American Progress, Johnson’s proposed plan would have cut $2 trillion from Medicare, $3 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and $750 billion from Social Security. Johnson has also said that “entitlements” like Social Security, the ACA, Medicare and Medicaid are an “existential threat” to the United States’ “whole form of government.” These cuts would lead to fewer benefits for seniors, higher healthcare costs for all Americans and some individuals completely losing access to essential government services. Johnson justifies these cuts in the name of fiscal responsibility, but the outcomes of his proposed plan would lead to massive harm inflicted upon those Americans who are already most vulnerable.
The American people do not want this. According to a poll from Gallup, over 60% of Americans do not approve of cuts to Medicare, and a majority of Americans are supportive of the ACA. However, Mike Johnson does not seem to care about the opinions and desires of the American people.
Actually, it is known that Mike Johnson does not care about the opinions and desires of the American people because, in 2020, he tried to overturn the will of the voters and undermine democracy.
After President Biden’s victory in 2020, Johnson led an effort among House Republicans to sign on to an amicus brief in support of a Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate the results of the election. Over 100 House Republicans signed the brief. Johnson also voted against the certification of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, and has been described as “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections” that occurred on Jan. 6. As insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol, brutalizing law enforcement officers and threatening physical violence against the vice president and members of Congress, Johnson was giving an interview in which he said there was “nothing unusual” about Republicans’ attempts to overturn the results of the election, and that there had been “many objections over the years.”
While perhaps not as visible or well-known as other House Republicans, Mike Johnson played a crucial role in the events that led to the violence on Jan. 6, and is in no way more moderate than his other Republican colleagues. On every issue, he has taken a far-right conservative stance — stances that are not in line with the views of the American public. He is just as extreme as Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan; the only difference with Johnson is that his extremism is boring. His extremism is buttoned up in beige suits. He does not yell. He does not have any major scandals under his belt. He is just a guy — a guy who hates gay people, does not believe in bodily autonomy, wants to cut Medicare and Social Security and does not care about democracy. He is utterly banal. His beliefs are anything but.
This man is now the Speaker of the House; second in line to the presidency. The highest ranking elected official in the Republican party. He was voted in as Speaker with unanimous Republican support. This is what Republican control of Congress looks like in 2023: three weeks of chaos, a total collapse of the legislative process, followed by the promotion of a man who actively rejects the will of the American people. He is an extremist and his rise to power proves once again that his party is made up of extremists.
The only way to stop them is to get them out of power. And the only way to get them out of power is to vote them out of power.