NOVEMBER 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Ohio Republicans.  Ohio voted 56% to 43.4% to put the right to abortion in its state constitution. The very next day, Republicans were vowing to overturn that election. Overturning elections is a growing Republican Party trend, but it’s possible that even Donald Trump would hesitate to try it with a 13 percentage point margin of victory where the top election official was a Republican.

Ohio Republicans are in the “throw things at the wall and see what sticks” phase of trying to undo what their state’s voters did, as a press release from the Ohio House of Representatives Republican newsroom clearly shows.

There’s the “ignore the margin, the election was stolen anyway” argument, which state Rep. Jennifer Gross made. “Foreign billionaires don't get to make Ohio laws,” she said, adding, “This is foreign election interference, and it will not stand.” She’s talking about money from the George Soros-backed Open Society Policy Center. Soros was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1961, the expenditures were made according to U.S. law, and if a few million dollars could reliably swing elections toward progressive issues or candidates in Ohio, it’s safe to say the past few elections would have gone very differently. Ohio voters made this Ohio law. They’re adults who made up their own minds.

Then there are some Republicans gearing up to pretend that this amendment doesn’t mean what it says and that it needs the legislature to step in and say what it really means. “Issue 1 doesn't repeal a single Ohio law, in fact, it doesn't even mention one,” according to state Rep. Bill Dean. And that’s the opening he hopes to exploit, or, as he put it, “The amendment’s language is dangerously vague and unconstrained, and can be weaponized to attack parental rights or defend rapists, pedophiles, and human traffickers.”

While there are significant issues left to litigate, with the courts needing to decide which current abortion restrictions are allowed following the Issue 1 vote and which ones to strike down, state House Republicans are clearly very nervous about how that will go in the courts. According to their press release:

To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative. The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.

How’s that for an announcement of a planned power grab? They lost big in August on the vote attempting to make it more difficult to pass abortion rights. They lost big in November. Now, they’re looking ahead to losing in the courts—so they’re laying the groundwork to steal this election by stealing power from the courts.

2. New Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La). The elevation of Rep. Johnson to House speaker was a shocker. Not since John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate has a heretofore little-known politician been lifted so quickly to a position of prominence and importance. Though Johnson now is second in the line of presidential succession, we’re still finding out basic and important facts about him and how he sees the world. This includes his alarming record as a hardcore conservative cultural warrior, motivated by a Christian fundamentalist belief, who has fiercely opposed gay rights (comparing homosexuality to pedophilia), called for a total nationwide ban on abortion, proposed the end of no-fault divorce, and urged a return to “18th century values.” One more significant thing I’ve discovered is that Johnson appears to believe in a religious litmus test for politicians.

This weekend the news broke that Johnson and his wife, Kelly Johnson, a self-described Christian counselor, a few years ago created a seminar that promoted the premise that the United States has been a “Christian nation.” A video of one of these sessions they held in 2019 at the Baptist church they belong to in Bossier City, Louisiana. shows Johnson declaring from the pulpit that “biblical Christianity”—that is, a literal reading of the Bible as fundamentalists interpret it—is the only “valid worldview,” and nothing else makes sense. (This worldview includes creationism—believing that the Earth was created by God in six days 6,000 years ago—and the denial of evolution.) Mike Johnson called for “biblically sanctioned government.” In this venue and many others, including a podcast they have hosted together, the pair have contended that there is only one truth: “Jesus’ truth.”

The Johnsons are diehard fundamentalists who believe every religion other than their brand of Christianity is false and that whatever is written in the Bible should dictate all conduct, rules, policies, and laws. In 2016, Johnson exclaimed, “We’re living in a completely amoral society.” The only way out, according to him and Kelly, is to abide by the Bible.

This is a lot to absorb. We’re often uncomfortable discussing a politician’s faith. But in this case, Johnson acknowledges that his fundamentalism determines his politics and policy positions. As he said during a Fox interview, “I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, 'It's curious, people are curious: What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?' I said, 'Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview.'"

As to applying this worldview to politics, Johnson advised:

You better sit down any candidate who says they’re going to run for legislature and say, “I want to know what your worldview is. I want to know what, to know what you think about the Christian heritage of this country. I want to know what you think about God’s design for society. Have you even thought about that?” If they hadn’t thought about it, you need to move on and find somebody who has...We have too many people in government who don’t know any of this stuff. They haven’t even thought about it.

Johnson, of course, is free to follow his values, back politicians who are fundamentalist Christians, and press others to do the same, believing that only people who follow his take on Christianity are worthy of holding elected office. But doing so demonstrates a narrow and rigid view of life and suggests that he yearns for a theocracy—a government run only by Christian fundamentalists who base all their decisions on what they consider to be the “absolute truth” of the Bible.

The issue of climate change offers a good example of how Johnson’s faith affects his approach to public policy. He contends that the demand for action to address the climate crisis “defies the created order of how this is all supposed to work.” He explains that the Bible presents an order to life: There’s God, beneath God is “man,” and below that all the animals. Humans are to follow God’s command to “take dominion of the Earth. You subdue it...We’re supposed to eat those animals.”

Johnson noted that environmentalists ignore God’s word, and he compared them to the devil:

When you take God out of the equation, and you remove absolute truths...you got to make all this stuff up. So, what they’ve done is, as the devil always does, they take the truth and they turn it upside down. So, the radical environmentalists—they actually believe that the environment is God.

Johnson’s amenable persona is a cover for his extremism. He sees himself as part of a small band of righteous Christian soldiers combatting an “amoral” society. For Johnson, this is truly a war for the soul of the nation. With a Bible in his hand, he and a small slice of Americans are up against dark and Satanic forces. Still, Johnson is a happy warrior—albeit an intolerant one who believes that only he and his fellow faith-keepers possess the truth and deserve access to power. He cannot accept the religious and cultural diversity of this nation and the world. He is much better suited to be a preacher than a leader just two heartbeats away from the presidency.

3. More Speaker Mike Johnson. In case you’re still not convinced of the of the ignominiousness of our new house speaker, take a gander at this: Johnson doesn't seem to have done himself any favors when he catapulted himself from a non-legislating backbencher to one of the most prominent positions on Capitol Hill. Until now, reporters had little interest in combing through Johnson's life before Congress. But now that he’s speaker, a video of him casually suggesting to a crowd that he and his 17-year-old son monitor each other's porn-viewing habits becomes a story worth—wait, hold on, back up there.

Per Rolling Stone:

“It sends a report to your accountability partner. My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17. So, he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice. I’m proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate.”

Right off the bat, having an "accountability partner" monitoring your “objectionable” content is, ew,. Second of all, making your teenage son your "accountability partner" is a double-layered ew since that seems about the worst choice for an “accountability partner”—and look, I'm sorry, I'm just not going to be able to get that horrifyingly loaded phrase out of my head, nor rid myself of the notion that this is all a very roundabout way to make sure any porn sent to your device as unwanted spam, phishing attempts, or for any other reason immediately gets forwarded to your teen son.

Johnson was promoting an internet monitoring app called "Covenant Eyes," which when installed reports visits to naughty websites, where "naughty" is whatever is put on a list by people who throw around words like covenant. According to Johnson’s description of the service, it blocks pornographic sites and appears to take regular screenshots of your devices. So, it's a standard child-monitoring app but with a bonus of, uhhh, the children can also monitor what the parents are doing if you want them to? To build mutual trust, I guess? Because sure, that’s a task you want to share with your children: weekly checkups on everybody’s possible porn usage.

The monitoring service costs around $15 a month, which means Johnson, who has no known bank account, is dropping some serious coin on this Family Porn-Sharing Plan.

As for his 17-year-old son's "clean slate" on never wanting to see anything pertaining to sex ever ever ever, it's likely that preachy politician Johnson would lie his tan pants off about that, especially to all his churchy friends. At best Johnson has discovered that his teen son is at least clever enough to stick to the paper-and-ink versions rather than risking the alarms of the Parental Porn Monitorbot 3000.

But mostly, I can't shake the feeling that this software and its "accountability partner" feature is a way for Very Christian fathers and sons to send each other their favorite porn links without letting the rest of the family in on it?

"Son, I see you've visited a page titled 'Family Camping Trip XXX Hot MILF Carnal Sins' 27 times in the last three days, so I went to check on it as your accountability partner."

"You should, Father. And as your accountability partner, I see you visited 'Ted Cruz porn original link' three times, so I investigated it but I think ‘Family Camping Trip’ is better."

"Yes, well, consider yourself monitored. If anyone asks, I'll be telling them you have a clean slate again this week. Also, can I borrow another $15?"

"Sure, Father. Have a good time being speaker of the House today."

4. Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert. On Wednesday, a House select committee heard from Oren McKnelly, executive counselor of the Social Security Administration. On the committee was none other than the world’s worst theater goer, Rep. Lauren Boebert. Boebert attacked the agency, saying that the backlog of cases is proof that Social Security workers are lazy.

“You all are allowing delinquent employees to sit on their sofas at home instead of actually getting to work and doing their jobs. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

McKnelly responded, “Our employees are working, whether they are in the office or at home.” Boebert attempted a gotcha question about remote workers not being monitored (they are), and then made the mistake of asking a substantive question.

BOEBERT: Then why is the backlogs for Social Security applicants increased from 41,000 to one-hundred-and-seven-hundred thousand? [Editor’s note: That is what she actually said.]

McKNELLY: Because we've been historically underfunded for a number of years.

Republicans are trying to cut the federal budget by 30%. This includes sizable cuts to the most successful government program: Social Security. Standard operating procedure for conservatives has always been to argue that government agencies are a massive waste of money and resources. Republicans seize upon this perception of waste in order to cut the budgets of services that help the most Americans.

Boebert’s clumsy attempt to score political points here matches her general ignominiousness as a person and as a lawmaker.

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And the November IGGY winner is:

At the risk of being called anti-Christian for criticizing the evangelical Mike Johnson (akin to being called anti-Semitic for criticizing Israel), let alone concluding he is evil enough to warrant the title “ignominious,” I’m going forward with my selection of the religious bigot as the November IGGY recipient. His beliefs and policy prescriptions portend painful consequences for millions of Americans, Christians as well as non-Christians. The charming do-gooder may be likable, but underneath this thin veneer lies a sinister moralist—a perfect fit for Trump. I might add that Hitler portrayed himself as a nice guy, especially to kids.  It is recorded that he told his propagandists that he wanted them to see him as Walt Disney.  Mike Johnson?