With High Hopes For Speaker Mike Johnson -- A Decent Man, Maybe A Great Speaker
Dismissing him as a religious loon -- or a seditionist -- misses the mark
You can tell a fellow survivor by his handshake.
So it was with now Speaker Mike Johnson when I first met him in 2018.
Johnson’s handshake was firm but tentative—as if he was happy to meet me but cautious about getting too close.
A wise course of action, I thought. I am a thought criminal. Here is a man who is control of himself, I said to myself. How decidedly not Louisiana of him, I reckoned. He was not a babbling Cajun but a disciplined Baptist. His Louisiana is not the Mardi Gras type.
I mentioned that I had family in Shreveport. “Family is very important to us in Shreveport,” he said. I thanked him for his leadership against the tech companies. He thanked me for taking time to attend a congressional committee. A Christian gentleman, I thought.
Let’s begin with the obvious:
Speaker Mike Johnson is a deeply religious man. As with all deeply held beliefs there’s a question of sincerity. “Does he really believe that stuff? Is it all an act?”
I can’t peer deep into his soul — though I am a good researcher — but I suspect our Speaker Johnson really does believe it.
Let’s turn to a profile of Mike Johnson in 2008 in his local paper.
When Johnson was only 12, his father, Shreveport Assistant Fire Chief Pat Johnson, was badly burned in an explosion at Dixie Cold Storage Co. Inc. in September 1984.
Pat Johnson and Assistant Fire Chief Percy Johnson responded to an ammonia leak at the site. As they were trying to fix it, a spark ignited an explosion, killing Percy Johnson and badly burning Pat Johnson on 80 percent of his body. Many thought would die as well, but he didn’t.
“The explosion was such a pivotal thing in my life,” Mike Johnson said. “From a young age, I saw that prayer and faith are real, tangible things. I watched God work a miracle and save my father’s life.”
In July, as Mike Johnson was driving his family down Louisiana Highway 1, a large vehicle crossed the highway in front of them, causing a huge accident and totally the family van. Mike Johnson and his three children — Hannah, Abigail and Jack — escaped without serious injury.
His wife, Kelly, however, was not so lucky. She broke her neck.
“It was what they called a ‘hangman’s fracture,’” Mike Johnson said. “It was similar to the kind of injury Christopher Reeve had. We were expecting paralysis. It was a miracle the rest of the family was spared.”
The paralysis never came, however, and Kelly Johnson is making a remarkable recovery.
Considering how strong Mike Johnson’s faith is at home, it should come as no surprise that it plays a big role in his career as well.
There’s not a hint of self-pity in Johnson’s description of family misfortune. In fact he later said this after his father’s suffering:
The community really rallied around our family and helped us out. I’m the beneficiary of a lot of good , caring people in this community who encouraged us along the way and helped our family. I own a great debt of gratitude to the people here. for that reason.
Running for Congress was a way to “pay back that debt.”
Johnson doesn’t see his family tragedy as the sort of thing needing therapy or sympathy but God’s mercy and the love of a community. Wow.
There’s undoubtedly some pain there as there is with all people who must reconcile the world as it is with how we wish it might be. This is a romantic not an ideologue. I can get behind that. I, too, have personal tragedy, as do we all.
Johnson’s parents divorced when he was but a boy. He got a “covenant marriage,” which is a sort of answer to no fault divorce. OK, fair enough, Mike.
Even his admittedly unorthodox and unofficial adoption of his black son is the is sort of thing that small town America does. Haven’t you seen The Blind Side? No, I haven’t either but you get the gist.
Now I’m decidedly a moderate on abortion but were I the product of an unplanned teenage pregnancy — and not the son of overeducated entrepreneurs — I might take the abortion issue rather personally. Men and women of good will can and do disagree.
Now I’m in no danger of becoming a preacher anytime soon and though I consider myself a Christian I’m not one for the holy rollers.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits,” the Good Book says.
So what are Speaker Johnson’s fruits? He has left us a trail to consider. My personal favorite? His 2016 Democrat opponent praising him. “Mike Johnson is a good man and I have nothing but positive things to say about Mike,” said Marshall Jones. “I absolutely disavow any such statement about my colleague Mike.”
All politics is local and all sins are personal. Johnson led the charge against the encroachment of bad actors in his community.
Here is Johnson arguing for regulations against strip clubs. Not barring them, mind you, merely regulating them.
Here is Johnson in 2006 trying to regulate seedy sex shops.
Here Johnson describes himself as being opposed to gambling and sees it as a “cancer” changing his hometown. Do you think he will be the Sin City’s step and fetch like the criminal Kevin McCarthy was? It’s hard to imagine he would be.
In other words Johnson is an anti-mob crusader but someone who still respected the rule of law.
Naturally the mob world sees him as an enemy. Judge a man by his enemies, I’d say, and Speaker Johnson and I share some similar enemies.
In that case I’m happy to be in the trenches with my fellow Johnson against David Sacks, who married into the Italian mob, and who is working to imperil America on behalf of Netanyahu and Xi.
You know what they used to call Christians in Action, don’t you?
And you know what David Sacks is, don’t you? He’s a pirate. And not in a fun way.
Sometimes a Halloween costume reveals a lot. Here’s David Sacks and his mobbed up wife Jacqueline dressing as pirates.
Yes, I will take the son of Shreveport educated at LSU over mobsters from South Africa educated at Stanford all day every day.
So Speaker Mike, if I may, let me suggest a few thoughts on how you might bring the nation back together.
If you’re about regulating the vice industries as a means of disrupting criminal syndicates I’m with you. We may not share a world view but I do believe in stopping the dark world.
I agree with you that America ought to be a law and order place but I’d like to hear a bit more about why you didn’t vote to certify the election. Was it a counsel of darkness? Would you do it again today?
Will you reform the Congress? If so how?
To be sure, you’re not set up for success. The experts say you’ll need to raise $250m for the conference and that you, having never raised more than $1m in a cycle, don’t have it in you. Are they right?
You have eighteen Republicans sitting in seats that voted for Joe Biden. How do you plan on protecting the Republican majority? What are your big ideas? And if you have no ideas, would you be open to considering a few?