Mike Johnson's Bad Bones
Heidi Siegmund Cuda looks beyond the mild-mannered exterior of US Speaker of the House to find connections to religious extremism, Russian oligarchs, violent rhetoric, and sexual assaulters
“The kingdom of God allows for aggression, and there’s a time to every purpose under heaven. From the time of John the Baptist until today, the kingdom of God has been advancing by forceful men and forceful men take hold of it, that’s what the New Testament says.”—Mike Johnson
In watching archival videos of Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican second in line for the presidency after the Vice President, I notice some curious tics. Although a seasoned lawyer with a polished delivery, he sits tightly hunched in his chair, toes repeatedly pointing skyward, heels remaining on the ground. He tilts his head coyly, side to side, while smoothly creating a house of mirrors — homophobes as victims, Christians as the persecuted. His mannerisms give the appearance of a child who really doesn’t want to be there, like a boy in church when the sermon drags on. He seems forced to perform, but for whom?
The video is from 3 February 2015, before the collective cash from billionaire Trump backer and democratic wrecking ball Robert Mercer, the Koch cadre, and a trio of connected Russian oligarchs aimed to secure him a seat on Congress. By then, he’d cut his teeth as the go-to lawyer for defending religious extremism, and aiming to criminalize being gay. He was closely tied to two Council for National Policy presidents — Tony Perkins, an avid homophobe, and Paul Pressler, trailed by four decades of child sexual assault allegations and a $450,000 settlement in 2023.
Watching and listening to Johnson, pre-Speaker, I am reminded of Jeff Sharlet’s The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. He goes to the places we rarely see, to try to document and record the Trumpocene, to understand the coordinated attacks on human rights and the simmering violence. And wherever he goes, there are traces of Mike Johnson’s handiwork.
Despite Johnson’s coy boy head tilts, he is a deepening threat to America and our allies. Currently, he is withholding aid to Ukraine in fealty to Trump, while attacking Biden on X/Twitter each day by shitposting of immigrant boogeymen. He attempted Constitutional sleight-of-hand to prevent the certification of the 2020 election — and when that failed, he voted against certification, thus attempting to deny Americans their rightful vote.
‘The Warrior Christ Tradition’
While watching a video of him from a decade ago, I feel like I have entered an alternate reality. The subject matter of the 2015 video is a lawsuit against the state of Kentucky over a creationist theme park, initially denied a tax rebate due to discriminatory hiring practices. The museum boasts a giant Noah’s ark and promotes biblical mythology as real history, while ensuring guests are reminded that a vengeful God will damn all sinners to eternal hell.
“God will judge this wicked world once again, but this time it will be by fire … God always keeps His promises – judgment will come,” notes the Ark Encounter website. Unrepentant sinners will be treated to “everlasting, conscious punishment in the lake of fire.”
Employees must abide by a 46-point faith statement, ensuring anti-gay propaganda is adhered to.
Bad Bones
At the Ark Encounter, as part of creationist beliefs, small dinosaurs comprised of fake bones were added to the ark — imagining that people and dinosaurs lived together at the same time. According to Answers in Genesis, the fundamentalist organization that created Ark Encounter, the museum’s aim is to “expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas.”
And just when I feel I’m descending into flat earther hell, I’m rescued by a comment from a sane person on X/ Twitter:
“The Ark Encounter in Kentucky is absolutely incredible because it’s hard to believe someone would make something so stupid,” wrote an unenchanted visitor.
This, in a nutshell, is Mike Johnson’s very creepy world.
In an interview on 9 September 2015, as the chief counsel for Freedom Guard — a legal firm that offered pro bono services to homophobes — Johnson breezily defended a county clerk from Kentucky who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay nuptials. Again, he deftly creates an upside-down world where the clerk is the victim — not those whose rights she is denying.
In the interview, he says “the kingdom of God allows for aggression… the kingdom of God has been advancing by forceful men and forceful men take hold of it.”
Again, I hear echoes of Sharlet’s Undertow. He calls it the “warrior Christ tradition.”
“On January 6, 2021, we enter the age of martyrs with the death of Ashli Babbitt, and that centrality of martyrdom, what the Nazis called ‘blood witnesses.’ And that unleashes a whole new level of violence,” Sharlet said. “And we're seeing it in Trump's rhetoric, which has grown actually more violent. And I don't want to diminish how violent it was all along.”
As Trump now talks of ‘bloodbaths’ and mild-mannered Johnson has gone on record saying the Bible applauds violence, I think about the Church of Glad Tidings in Yuba City, California, where there are no crosses, where former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn was gifted an AR-15 and said, “Maybe I’ll find someone in Washington, DC.”
“They've decided that the cross is weak tea,” said Sharlet in an interview. “It's too wimpy. Instead, you have a pulpit made of swords, this is war time theology, right? What's dropping out in these churches is Jesus. They don't talk about Jesus too much. There is a warrior Christ tradition that they can tap into and right now, we see the surge also in a very poisonous masculinity.”
So is mild-mannered Mike a wolf in sheep’s clothing, delivering us to evil in the form of a poisonous toxic masculinity?
“The kingdom of God allows for aggression… the kingdom of God has been advancing by forceful men and forceful men take hold.”
And if so, how did he become the anointed wolf?
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