Replaced by Something Even More Bizarre and Inexplicable

I joked with friends when Kevin McCarthy was ousted as House Speaker that he would be replaced by worse, actually I quoted Douglas Adams (see title).

Rather unsurprisingly I was right, the right wingers in the Republican Caucus got what they wanted, and elected insurrectionist Christo-Fascist nut Mike Johnson (R-LA).

In addition to the nuttiness listed above, he is also a passionate supporter of independent legislature theory, which gives state legislatures the unreviewable ability to declare the winner in federal elections, has proposed a nationwide ban on abortion, a national "Don't say gay" law,  is implacably opposed to LGBTQ rights, etc.

The cherry on top is that upon securing the Speakership, he said, he was anointed by God. (As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know.")

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana won election on Wednesday to become the 56th speaker of the House of Representatives, as Republicans worn down by three weeks of infighting and dysfunction turned to a little-known conservative hard-liner beloved by the far right to end their paralysis.

The elevation of Mr. Johnson, 51, an architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election and a religious conservative opposed to abortion rights, homosexuality and gay marriage, further cemented the Republican Party’s lurch to the right. It came after a historic fight that began when the hard right ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Oct. 3, and raged on as the divided House G.O.P. nominated and then quickly discarded three other candidates to succeed him.

Exhausted from the feuding, which unleashed a barrage of recriminations and violent threats against lawmakers, both the right wing and mainstream Republicans finally united to elect Mr. Johnson, 51, in a 220-to-209 vote.

There was no uniting, it was just that the slightly less insane members of the Republican Congressional Caucus capitulated.

………

Evoking his evangelical Christian faith, Mr. Johnson repeatedly referred to scripture in his speech from the House floor.

“The Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority,” he said. “He raised up each of you, all of us. And I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment.”

In a nod to the simmering frustrations among the hard-right flank of the party that ultimately deposed Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican, Mr. Johnson pledged that his office “is going to be known for decentralizing power.”

(emphasis mine) 

I do not believe that Johnson will be devolving power from the speaker.  Pretty much every speaker has promised this since Newt Gingrich created the imperial speaker, and none of them have done it, because that's not how people react to power.

This is probably good news for the Democrats, but it's bad news for the country.