I am less bothered by the fact that Mike Johnson was one of the major election deniers than by his religious zealotry.

This buggers the imagination:

‘Scripture is very clear’: New House speaker tells Congress that God has ‘ordained’ him

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, in his first remarks after being elected Wednesday afternoon, told members of Congress that “Scripture” and “the Bible” are clear that he has been “ordained” by God.

“I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night,” Speaker Johnson declared. 

“I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a manner like this. I believe that Scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. 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 this time. This is my belief. I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today, to use the gifts that God has given us to serve the extraordinary people of this great country, and they deserve it.”

I see his support of Trump as transactional. He knew that Trump needed to maintain his support among evangelicals to win. He knows that Trump is a godless heathen and probably in private moments a blasphemer.

He has two daughters who apparently are studying to be lawyers. I wager that he would want them to keep their distance from Donald Trump if he managed to meet with them in private.

This is from Wikipedia:

An ideological member of the Christian right faction of the Republican Party,^[1] Johnson is known for his strong support for a nationwide abortion ban^[2][3] and opposition to same-sex marriage. He has called for the Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges to be overturned and for medical marijuana to be restricted, referring to the latter as a “gateway drug“. In December 2020, Johnson signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election. In January 2021, Johnson voted to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania.^[4] Johnson has cultivated close ties to Protestant fundamentalist groups Louisiana Family Forum, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Focus on the Family.^[5][6] Prior to his career as a politician, he worked with them to “represent churches, pastors and congregants whose vision of religious freedom conflicted with government regulations”.^[2] Johnson supports ending American military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.^[2]

Listenening to his remarks on accepting the results of the vote he sounded like an evangelical preacher.

He has to know that if Trump could have religious bones in his body he’d be gelatinous mass since he’d wouldn’t have a single one.

Johnson is being called MAGA. He’s not MAGA the way Trump and his supporters want to define it. He’sMAGA in the his own way.

If he’s going to wear any baseball cap I assume it will look like this:

I can’t claim to know much about Pope Francis but from a few articles like The Guardian view on Pope Francis 10 years on: a vital progressive voice I wonder if he’d be a better Speaker of the House than Mike Johnson. For example:

Meanwhile, on issues ranging from same-sex relationships to the status of divorcees and the remarried within the church, the pope has sought to emphasise pastoral engagement and empathy over doctrinal rigidity, and mercy over judgment. Most famously, when questioned by journalists on the subject of gay relationships, Francis responded: “Who am I to judge?”

Update: The more we know the more this seems like a comedy – consider “Were there baby dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark? New House Speaker Mike Johnson worked for organization that pushes extreme creationist claims.“

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