You can’t win if you don’t show up to play
David Rothkopf described new House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana as representing “a movement that is actively seeking to institutionalize the religious beliefs of evangelical Christians into law.” Rothkopf was just getting warmed up (Daily Beast):
The term Christofascism may seem inflammatory. It is not. It is intended to provide the most accurate possible definition of what Johnson and those in his movement wish to achieve. Like other fascists they seek to impose by whatever means necessary their views on the whole of society even if that means undoing established laws and eliminating accepted freedoms. Christofascists do so in the name of advancing their Christian ideology, asserting that all in society must be guided by their views and values whether they adhere to them or not.
Johnson has ties, Rothkopf claims, to the Christianist New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and Seven Mountains Dominionism. Read more at Daily Beast. David Corn has another chilling account of Johnson’s beliefs at Mother Jones. Men in Afghanistan who don’t think the same things as Mike Johnson think the same way. Fundamentalists are universally rigid, dogmatic, judgmental, uncompromising black-and-white thinkers. Fundamentalism is not about what you believe but how.
David Pepper yesterday explained where the Mike Johnsons come from. Gerrymandering is “fueling the insane and extremist behavior of the U.S. House and so many of the American statehouses.” Johnson has risen to Speaker of the House running either unopposed or in uncompetitive, lopsided districts where his extremist views were never really challenged in election after election. “He’s spent his entire career in a world devoid of democracy—devoid of accountability.”
But gerrymandering is only one reason. Democrats’ writing off rural America to focus on federal races handed Republicans the power in those statehouses to gerrymander them:
Democrats focus so much on federal offices in a few swing states, we have decided it’s acceptable to let the young Mike Johnsons of the world, or the Tennessee Republicans of the world, or the book banners, or the abortion banners (no exceptions), and so on, do all the damage they’re doing in statehouses, and not even face opposition in elections that could be referenda on their extremist actions if we made them that.
The Louisiana map above is an object lesson. Of 64 Louisiana parishes in 2020, only 11 Democratic committees had a website, active Facebook page, or published email address for For The Win or the public to contact. Random newspaper stories suggest some exist, but how would anyone know or find them?
Run everywhere, Pepper insists. Don’t let Republicans walk into seats of power unopposed! Bring accountability.
Until we do, all this will keep happening. Mike Johnsons and Jim Jordans and MTGs will keep emerging everywhere, along with hundreds of others like them we will never hear of, we will not run against, but who will be doing great damage every step of the way, while rising through the ranks.
Run everywhere, yes. But running everywhere is easier said than done. At my 2022 review, roughly one-third of Georgia’s 159 counties had no Democratic committees, no party infrastructure to either recruit or support potential candidates willing to make local elections at least nominally a contest. Democrats Joe Biden, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won in Georgia statewide in the 2020 cycle on the strength of Atlanta and environs, but Republicans hold a trifecta in state government.
Pepper insists:
Of course they’re going to be extremists when they thrive in a world where they CAN be extremists, never facing any real opposition (often no opposition at all) despite taking positions that only a few years ago were soundly rejected by their own party.
Ending the GOP’s hold in state governments and ultimately in Congress may seem a prospect as slow as eroding the Appalachians, but without making that effort, we could be living before then in the United States of Ameristan.