When Mike Johnson put his hat into the ring for Speaker of the House, I noticed that Republicans didn't immediately go into their rooms and commence firing again. McCarthy, Scalise, Jordan: the cannonading was immediate and unceasing. Then--Who is this guy?--we were all asking that, Dems and Repubes alike, didn't know anything about him, looked like an intern, he was calming. And then the motherfucker gets elected with unanimous or near-unanimous Republican support. No drama.
But then, Matt Gaetz (rhymes with rapes) effused. "MAGA Mike" Johnson, and I thought oh hell. Johnson was a blank slate for all of us, you could have written anything on it and we would have been like, "Oh." But then when Johnson shepherded many early stopgap funding bills through Congress I started reading some Dems, like one of them a Black Dem from the South if I remember correctly, saying things like, "He's been pretty honest, it'd be a shame if we let them (the phascist wing) take him hostage." That guy, if I recall, went on record by name (I don't recall the name) but there were other stories that like a secret cabal of Dems all named Jacques was communicating by hand signals and encrypted notes hidden in flower pots on windowsills, about working with Johnson, saving his Speakership if push came to shove, Gaetz came to Greene, as it were. Last week it almost did, or did, but in a proxy war.
Ahead of a full budget vote in the House, Johnson met with PoJo, Harris, Schumer, Jeffries in the White House and pledged, to them in their meeting and afterwards to the press that the government would not shut down on his watch. He brought the budget to a vote and the damn thing passed and everything :o PoJo signed it into law.
But Johnson did it with Dems. A majority, not a frigging Gang of Eight, not the goddamned Taliban, a MAJORITY of House Republicans voted against their own Speaker's bill. Almost all Dems voted for it, that's how Johnson got it passed and that was the only way it could get passed.
So push came to shove and Greene filed a motion to vacate the Speakership. Here we go agayne, but no, it wasn't the same motion that Gaetz filed against McCarthy that called for an immediate vote. This was like a trap-gun motion to vacate. It set the trigger but the trigger didn't get pulled. Only if Greene (or some other phascist) called for an immediate vote would the weapon fire.
And immediately after Greene did her thing, reporters asked Repubes who had voted to dump McCarthy what they thought and there was no real stomach to eat shit again. Which was surprising.
Now the thinking is, if some phascist pulls the trigger Greene set Dems will vote to save Speaker Johnson if he will agree to some modest demonstration of good faith such as a vote on aid to Ukraine. We shall see but lawd we have come a long way in a year.
