The recent foreign aid abomination that somehow managed to pass through a Republican-controlled Congress this weekend can lead fair-minded observers to only one conclusion: House Speaker Mike Johnson must be destroyed.
However, there are a few things this objectively true statement does not connote. For instance, it does not mean that he must merely have his political career come to an end, nor does it mean that he must be merely exiled from the pro-Trump GOP. However desirable and good both of the aforementioned outcomes are, they simply aren’t severe enough consequences for the enormity of Johnson’s crimes.
No, Johnson must be ruined, not only as a politician but as a person. He must not be allowed to leave Congress and then become fat and happy as a lobbyist or in some fake make-work job with a defense contractor (the obvious payoff for his treachery). No, he must leave Congress only as a shattered and defeated human being, one whose sanity has been brutally beaten out of him (metaphorically speaking, of course!). Johnson’s tiny dispensationalist goo brain must be allowed to liquify even further until it has the consistency of a fine, artisanal applesauce. His destination after Congress shouldn't be K-street, but rather be convalescent home.
If this doesn’t happen, if Johnson isn’t constantly and ruthlessly jeered and booed any and every time he makes a public appearance, whether it’s addressing a group of conservatives or simply walking to Starbucks, it will all but be a formal admission of surrender from the dominant MAGA wing of the party. If he doesn’t find himself blacklisted and shunned, if his personal life (which some people have claimed is not particularly functional!) isn’t laid bare on the front page of the National Enquirer every other week, then it will serve as a signal to the world that genuine pro-Trump conservatives simply aren’t serious about their own political movement.
The harsh reality is that if Johnson isn’t held accountable for his unbelievably vile betrayal, then it will serve as a major signal to all of MAGA’s enemies, which includes both the Democratic Party and the old GOP establishment (which is still trying to wait out Trump), that the movement can be easily attacked and subverted from within, with little to no consequence.
The fact that a GOP Speaker was allowed to openly scheme with a Democratic party that is actively at war with the American people while passing a bill that amounts to little more than a complete financial scalping of the American taxpayer in order to fund a corrupt and openly fascist government in Ukraine—the very same government that had in the past paid off the President’s crack-smoking son—is simply beyond belief.
While astute observers have pointed out the troubling new reality that, thanks to a slew of recent early congressional retirements among Republicans, ousting Johnson from the speakership is no longer a viable option, As it is almost certain that if patriotic members were to take such an action, one of the more liberal-leaning “Republicans” in the House would almost certainly retire, paving the way for a Democrat majority and speaker. An outcome that would, in reality, be significantly worse in the short term than letting Johnson finish out his term.
Still, while this unfortunate state of affairs may be the current reality, if Johnson isn’t forced to face the most severe consequences possible for his mind-blowing treachery, then it will be a sign that MAGA cannot maintain control of its own party nor enforce its own agenda, however beneficial it may be for the American nation at large. A state of affairs that, if allowed to come to pass, will bode ill for the future of the Republic. Whatever is left of it.
