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The New Speaker Exudes the Smugness of Fringe Evangelical Certitude*
“The problem is the human heart. It’s not guns.” Mike Johnson (R-LA)
One year ago I posted, The Absurdity of Actual Events Is Eclipsing Parody.
Parody vanished behind the election of Mike Johnson (R-LA) as House Speaker. The earth is no more than six-thousand years old, humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth together, and dinosaurs — gathered two-by-two alongside the other beasts of the field — took passage and refuge on Noah’s ark from god’s cleansing deluge. Johnson Thinks Creationist Museum Points People To The Truth.
Exasperated and desperate to end weeks of embarrassment, to seat someone — anyone (who could garner 217) — as speaker, the slim majority in the House unanimously elected putatively less objectionable, viz., offensive, and relatively unknown Mike Johnson.
Johnson, it turns out, epitomizes rightwing religious extremism and zealotry in every quarter. Johnson’s ascension to speakership — after his wife spent the preceding two weeks on her knees in prayer — was ordained of god. America was founded on Christian principles. The Bible is the supreme law of the land. The Constitution must be read, interpreted, and enforced through a literalist biblical filter that Johnson is working diligently to impose nationally, the First Amendment…