When the Republican House Majority lacked the votes to defeat Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to remove Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House, 163 House Democrats voted to keep him in office.
What was their thanks? Only a week later, Johnson showed up at Trump’s hush money trial to proclaim Trump’s innocence, to falsely attack the Judge’s daughter, and to denounce the American justice system as corrupt.
Recently M. Steven Fish wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Trump Knows Dominance Wins. Someone Tell Democrats.” As Mr. Fish wrote, “The American National Elections Studies has polled voters on presidential candidates’ traits since the 1980s, and the candidates who rated higher on ‘strong leadership’ has never lost. The one who more people agree ‘really cares about people like you’ loses half the time.” Fish also writes, “Today’s Republicans are all about dominance. They embrace us-versus-them framing, double down on controversial statements and take risks. Today’s Democrats often recoil from “othering” opponents and back down after ruffling feathers. They have grown obsessively risk-averse, poll-driven, allergic to engaging on hot-button issues…”
What could be more risk averse than House Democrats voting to support an election-denying MAGA man for Speaker of the House, the person second in line to the Presidency, in the name of “stability”?
If they want to win, House Democrats should have let House Republicans depose their own leader for the second time this year and demonstrate to voters the chaos of keeping Republicans in charge. Rather than bailing them out, they should have let the GOP drown.
In light of Johnson’s appearance at the Trump trial, House Democrats, if they have the courage, still have a chance to fix this drastic mistake. Let a new motion to depose Johnson come to the floor and don’t give him a single Democratic vote. Let the country see the chaos wrought by MAGA Republicans.
