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Meeting the New Boss: Mike Johnson

26-10-2023 < Counter Currents 26 1068 words
 

1,383 words


After several weeks of not having a Speaker of the House, the GOP have finally settled on a replacement for the deposed Kevin McCarthy. The lucky winner is Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Johnson was first elected to Congress in 2016, which makes him the least experienced Speaker since John G. Carlisle in 1883.


Many have never heard of him, so I will review some facts about him that might be of interest to those on the dissident Right.


Mike Johnson has an A rating at NumbersUSA


I’m starting with the good news.


NumbersUSA is an immigration watch website that ranks political candidates. VDare references it all the time. Mike Johnson gets good marks across the board. According to NumbersUSA, he has one blemish: “Rep. Johnson has not sponsored H.R. 1100 to end the Visa Lottery.” If you had to pick one issue for the new Speaker of the House to be strong on, it’s immigration, and Johnson has been solid on that so far. That’s good — but it’s all downhill from there.



Mike Johnson is a socially conservative Evangelical Protestant


You can buy Greg Johnson’s Toward a New Nationalism here.


This means that there is an excellent chance he will eventually get caught smoking meth with a male prostitute in a public restroom. I don’t have anything against Christians per se, but the Christian Right has been a complete embarrassment in recent decades, particularly due to their stubborn denialism of long-settled science. In 2014, Mike Johnson worked as a lawyer for Ken Ham pro bono. Ham is a Young Earth creationist who believes the world is only 6,000 years old. Johnson even helped Ham to get state funding for his Noah’s Ark amusement park.


The main problem with Evangelicals is that creationism is antithetical to race realism, which accepts the theory of evolution. A creationist can of course still hold that God created the races unequally, but I don’t think anyone believes that anymore. The whole “God created blacks to be our slaves” thing went out of style long ago.




Mike Johnson is a fanatical Zionist


Johnson is pretty Jewed up. In 2021-2022, his top donor was American Israel Public, and in 2020, he visited Israel along with a radical settler activist group. The very first thing Johnson did after becoming Speaker of the House was put forward a bill affirming Congress’ support for Israel. It passed 412 to 10, with six members abstaining. Granted, this is a non-binding resolution that does not provide any money — that will come later. But it’s hard not to take it as an ill omen.






That said, Johnson is not a complete tool for the military-industrial complex. He has an F rating from Republicans for Ukraine. While he voted for the Ukraine Lend-Lease Act, he has voted against every Ukraine aid bill since then.



Mike Johnson has an adopted black son named Michael that may or may not be imaginary.


In a 2019 hearing on slavery reparations, Johnson said:


Many of my colleagues in this committee may not be aware, in addition to our four children at home, my wife and I have a much older son who happens to be African American. We took custody of Michael and made him part of our family 22 years ago when we were just newlyweds and Michael just 14 and out on the streets and on a dangerous path.


In 1997, Mike Johnson would have been 25 years old. So he has a “black son” who is only 11 years younger than him. Nothing weird about that.


Granted, there are some people who question whether this black son actually exists, or even if he does, whether the adoption was legal. First of all, black people have not been named “Michael” in a very long time. Secondly, Michael is not mentioned in any of Johnson’s official biographies. The first time that Johnson ever acknowledged his black son’s existence was during a Congressional hearing on slavery reparations in which he said his black son strongly opposed it on libertarian grounds. Right. And then everyone clapped.


After the big reveal, Johnson was asked to elaborate on this mysterious black son, to which Johnson’s spokesman replied, “The Congressman will not be commenting further than what was said today in committee out of respect for Michael, his privacy, and their relationship.” So we have to just take Mike Johnson at his word that this guy exists.


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