Would They Really Dump Their Speaker Again? Geepers, Creepers, MAGA Mike, We Hardly Knew Ye

The Give Will Be Trump Calling Him RINO Mike Instead Of MAGA Mike

"Who's In Charge?" by Nancy Ohanian

I doubt Marjorie Traitor Greene is humming the Irish lament by Joseph Geoghegan, “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye,” when she rants and raves, threatening to vacate/fire MAGA Mike.

While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo

While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo

While goin' the road to sweet Athy,

A stick in me hand and a drop in me eye,

A doleful damsel I heard cry,

Johnny I hardly knew ye.

With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo

With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo

With your drums and guns and drums and guns,

The enemy nearly slew ye

Oh my darling dear, Ye look so queer

Johnny I hardly knew ye.

Traitor Greene? Not even The Clash’s version from Give ‘Em Enough Rope. But vacating the chair is getting more imminent by the day, although... the Democrats taunt him with a rescue in return for Ukraine aid. Imagine how he’d feel being speaker with support from 200 Democrats and 50 Republicans! And Traitor Greene could bring up a vacate resolution every week… every day?

Yesterday, Olivia Beavers noted that MM is “beset with political challenges” and that the House is already considering a future without him! She talks to these people… so she knows. But this is going to be up to Trump. Traitor Greene is his dog and if he says “down,” she sits. If he says “attack,” she starts salivating. Beavers wonders if he’ll last out the year. I wonder if he’ll still be speaker on mt birthday, February 20. “A growing number of House Republicans,” she wrote, “are increasingly frustrated with Johnson’s leadership and whispering about whether he can hang on to his role after 2024— if he even makes it that far. Despite serving barely three months as speaker, the Louisianan is already facing an immediate threat from Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who is openly disparaging him and suggesting she may try to boot him from the speakership. ‘I don’t think he’s safe right now,’ Greene said, adding: ‘The only reason he’s speaker is because our conference is so desperate.’” Can you imagine, a thing like Traitor Greene, basically a conspiracy theory imbecile who sleazed her way into Congress and has been a laughing stock ever since, ousting a speaker?

No one particularly wants to follow her as a leader. But, reported Beavers, “more than 100 of them signaled frustration with Johnson’s approach to government spending by opposing a funding patch on Thursday, including House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who briefly served as interim speaker, delivered a blunt warning Thursday night that “we’re sucking wind” under Johnson’s leadership, urging the speaker to broaden his circle of advisers and avoid kowtowing to his right. And still other Republicans are privately predicting that unless Johnson can hang onto their thin majority this fall, his time atop the GOP conference could expire. Interviews with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers revealed a consensus that Johnson would have serious trouble staying in power after an electoral defeat. These days, some lawmakers who embraced Johnson — after the failure of three other aspiring successors to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy— openly acknowledge that the Louisianan would get the blame for any stumble at the ballot box this fall. ‘It’s up to him to win or lose. And if he loses, he will leave,’ said Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, a former National Republican Congressional Committee chair. Sessions, who had his own short-lived bid for the gavel in October, predicted that if Republicans do not hold the majority, then Johnson ‘isn’t going to stick around— I mean that.’”

Johnson’s difficult position is partly a product of what one McCarthy ally described as the “bad hand” he inherited from the ex-speaker, a politically exhausting series of legislative challenges that are piling up as the House GOP majority shrinks to two seats at full attendance. It’s hard to see any Republican leader emerging unscathed from brutal, lengthy negotiations over border security, aid to Ukraine and Israel and government funding.

Despite McHenry’s criticism, McCarthy did his own catering to his right flank, particularly during his initial speakership bid. Yet Johnson’s vulnerability also reflects his relatively thin political operation and short time in office, not to mention in leadership.

Unlike McCarthy, Johnson did not enter the speaker’s suite surrounded by a powerful fundraising and campaign infrastructure— or the same type of long-standing relationships that his No. 2 and No. 3, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, spent years developing.

Which leaves, for some House Republicans, a clear connection between this fall’s election and their future leadership team. If the GOP hangs onto the House, Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) predicted no “substantive change in the leadership structure.”

“But if you lose the House, then I think all bets are off,” he added. “And there may be a desire and discussion about starting over or coming up with a different leadership team.”

…Broadly speaking, if House Republicans put up a lackluster showing this fall, there’s no guarantee that any member of their leadership— including Johnson, Scalise and Emmer— would be safe.

“If we go back in the minority, do we need to take a different direction as we go forward as a conference?” asked Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), chair of the Republican Study Committee, who also ran for the speakership. “I think the entire leadership team would be looked at.”

Asked about Johnson’s standing if the party loses the majority, one senior House Republican quipped that speculation about it is “happening now.” This Republican added, granted anonymity to speak candidly: “It’s a new year. You can smell it in the air.”

… Johnson allies argue that skeptics are underestimating him, pointing to his quick progress assuaging concerns that he couldn’t keep up with McCarthy’s torrid fundraising pace. The more he helps with the 2024 campaign and candidate recruitment, the more Johnson can form some of the deeper connections to incoming members that helped McCarthy survive a grueling speakership race last January.

Even so, Republicans are openly admitting that they’re worried about November. Which is never a good sign.

“We’re in real jeopardy of not winning the White House and not winning the House,” said Rep. Richard McCormick (R-GA), who argued the party is not focused on voters’ top issues.

“The Federal Reserve is going to cut [interest rates] probably at least twice, if not five times this year. The gas price always comes down during an election. And the border will be secured before November. It’s gonna happen, right? It’s gonna be part of some package,” McCormick mused. “What are the three things that are the Achilles heel of Biden? Those three things.”

"Speakers of the House" by Nancy Ohanian