As my friend and colleague Jennifer Van Laar reported on Friday, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson won the speakership of the House with the first vote. This was something that seemed dicey at first, but probably not as turbulent as you might have been led to believe.
As Jennifer wrote, there definitely were hurdles, but they were overcome seemingly easily:
The vote was not without drama. Initially, Johnson received 216 votes to 215 votes for Jeffries; three representatives (Massie, Norman, and Self) voted for others. After about 30 minutes, Johnson, Norman, and Self exited the chamber, presumably to talk about how to move their votes to Johnson's column.
About 20 minutes after that, Norman and Self changed their votes to Johnson, bringing his total to the magic 218 number.
After the chaos surrounding the continuing resolution battle in December, numerous GOP members proclaimed a change in House leadership was needed. As of Friday morning, roughly a dozen GOP members were undecided on whether they'd vote for Johnson or not, while GOP whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) said he was confident that Johnson had the votes to win. By the time the vote began, that number had allegedly been whittled down; Reps. Eli Crane and Greg Steube told CNN as they entered the House chamber that they were going to vote for Johnson, and Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) signaled that she, too, would vote for Johnson.
Johnson was also backed enthusiastically by Donald Trump, who called him a "fine man" and well respected. With Trump sending clear signals as to who he wanted in that spot, it wasn't hard for many Republicans to fall in line.
To be sure, many who seem to be untrusting of Johnson and wished for a more firmly conservative leader in the House don't have reservations for nothing. I wouldn't say Johnson has a perfect record and has, even recently, given conservatives reason to not like him. However, as odd as this sounds, I'm not entirely sure this should be exclusively used to judge the man.
For one, the left would love that for the Republican Party. With Trump just 17 days away from taking office with both the Senate and House in Republican control, the Democrat's best tool would be to stoke what Republicans are prone to, which is vicious infighting. Moreover, a Republican Party at its own throat may make a Democrat Party actually suffering a similar but worse problem look like the adults in the room.
My friend and colleague Joe Cunningham put this well on his substack blog:
The narrative of a fractured Republican Party feeds the media’s appetite for conflict. But the reality is simpler: Johnson has the support he needs. Influential groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition have voiced their confidence in his leadership, and party heavyweights like Reps. Scalise, Emmer, and Jordan have closed ranks around him. The media’s portrayal of disarray ignores the steady consolidation of support behind Johnson.
But it does provide a helpful distraction from the chaos happening behind the scenes in the Democratic Party, which is still struggling to understand how it could have lost in 2024. It has led to internal fighting, such as the AOC wing taking on the Nancy Pelosi wing for committee assignments. The far left and not-as-far-left are fighting over the corpse of Joe Biden’s party, and the reality for the Republicans is that their infighting, while less significant, is being used as a distraction.
Democrats have everything to gain from feeding oxygen to a flame that's not burning as the media says it is. Yes, Johnson might not be ideal, but he's hardly the worst option, and moreover, we're entering a new era where Johnson doesn't have to navigate things like he did previously.
I'm generally in agreement with Massie about everything, but I will say that this time around, he's putting the cart before the horse. I think we should see how Johnson performs in this new Republican era before we make judgements. This might be a Johnson that actually gets the job done and Trump seems to have confidence in the man in this regard.
If that's the case, then the ease of which this happened should be a good sign of party unity going forward, which should scare the hell out of the Democrats who are, at this very moment, struggling with internal power grabs of their own.
The bottom line here is that, I'm going to watch Johnson like everyone else will. We've proven that if he steps out of line, we're more than capable of putting him back in it, but I will withhold judgement until I see that happen. The Democrats don't want that kind of patience from you. They want you angry and ready to revolt. They want you to become the hurdle to your own will.
Lambaste Johnson when he gets out of line, but only then, and handle his missteps one at a time... but let him misstep first.
