Well, it's official - Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) is the new Speaker of the House, receiving the vote of every single Republican (except for Wisconsin's Derrick Van Orden, who is in Israel but who tweeted his support for Johnson early Wednesday) while leaving Democrats pouting and sulking over the fact that they can't use a Speakerless House against the GOP majority anymore.
As we reported earlier, Johnson seemed to be a shoo-in for the victory after he won the nomination, having a solidly conservative record while managing to get along and work well with the different Republican factions within the conference. Johnson has his staunch defenders, including Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who point blank told a so-called reporter to "shut up" and move on during a Tuesday presser after she questioned Johnson on allegedly working to "overturn" the 2020 presidential election.
Not surprisingly, the chief Democrat/media complaint about Johnson is that he is pro-life and a so-called "election denier," the latter of which House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), a 2016 election denier, took a shot at prior to handing over the gavel to Johnson earlier Wednesday.
“Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He’s doing a great job under difficult circumstances — and no amount of election denialism will ever change that reality," Jeffries declared.
But though they'll try their best, Democrats are going to have a tough time painting Johnson into the "extremist" corner, a point made by CNN left-wing political analyst Gloria Borger in the lead-up to the vote:
"You know, I think he is a person who’s hard to demonize. You know, it's very easy to demonize somebody like a Jim Jordan, who’s a firebrand. He's out there, he's fighting. And then Donald Trump can demonize an Emmer because he didn't believe the election was rigged.
But you had this kind of, I don’t use the word 'milquetoast,' that's not quite the right word, he's a serious person, who is not prone to getting in big, huge fights with people. He is known as a listener, I was told. He is hugely conservative, but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve all the time. So he can get along with moderates and listen to them. And it will be interesting to see what happens with Ukraine aid, for example. But, you know, he’s not the devil incarnate."
Watch:
In other words, he's a big problem for the Democrats and their media allies precisely because he can't be "demonized" as the "devil incarnate" with any degree of credibility though again, as I mentioned earlier, they will try their best.
I didn't know much about Mike Johnson before this week, but the more I've learned, the more I like him. And from the looks and sounds of things, he's pissed the right people off, which is far as I'm concerned is another point in his favor.
As always, stay tuned!