Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.
After multiple tries and candidates, the House GOP finally settled on a speaker: Mike Johnson of Louisiana. He has never chaired a committee or held a high leadership post. He got the job because his lack of experience (elected 2016) left him with few enemies. He is largely unknown outside of his district and the House GOP. Picking someone who has never withstood national scrutiny has some disadvantages. Justin Green at Axios:
New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) didn't have a national profile until this week, but his 20-year paper trail is an opposition researcher's dream.
Why it matters: Johnson is one of the most socially conservative speakers in modern memory — often far to the right of former President Trump — and Democrats are ready to make him a central figure in their 2024 campaigns.
- Johnson is making it easy on his researchers, with reams of op-eds and newspaper columns paired with legislation he's recently introduced and supported.
- "He actually has years of material, freestyle right-wing rhetoric, that nobody has looked under the hood on," one Democratic strategist told Axios.
- Johnson was unanimously elected by House Republicans on Wednesday.
It has begun.
Mike Johnson, while celebrating Roe v. Wade being overturned, called for doctors to be “imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 years” if they provide reproductive health care pic.twitter.com/OoeRxdyeIV
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) October 25, 2023
Here is Mike Johnson railing against Roe v. Wade, arguing that if women were forced to give birth to more “able-bodied workers,” Republicans wouldn’t try to cut Social Security and Medicare pic.twitter.com/RN5FPNlvon
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) October 25, 2023
Here is Mike Johnson calling to cut Social Security and Medicare: “We’ve got to think about long-term reforms to those programs” pic.twitter.com/7wsh3POJvN
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) October 25, 2023
