Democrats should NOT save MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson from Marjorie Taylor Greene

"Don't catch a falling knife"

There’s an age-old adage when it comes to the stock market: “Don't try to catch a falling knife."  The idea behind this Wall Street axiom is that if a stock is badly dropping in price, don’t buy the stock until it hits rock bottom because it could keep dropping—potentially even going bankrupt.

That’s exactly how I feel about the prospect of House Democrats stepping in to save the job of MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion on Friday to remove Johnson from his position. My advice to Democrats is: Don’t catch a falling Republican. Instead, hope the GOP keeps plummeting in value to the point of bankruptcy. (After all, the GOP Is already morally bankrupt.)

What got us here is that Greene—who loves media attention almost as much as her beloved terrorist Donald Trump—told a gaggle of reporters Friday, “Today, I filed a motion to vacate after Speaker Johnson has betrayed our conference and broken our rules.” Greene was especially angry that Johnson passed spending bills to keep the government open on Friday with the support of far more Democrats, 185, to only 101 Republican votes, saying we need to “find a new Speaker of the House that will stand with Republicans in our Republican majority instead of standing with the Democrats.”

The earliest the vote to remove Johnson will take place is after the two-week recess that began Friday—but Greene noted she may not press for her motion to be voted on immediately upon their return. However, Greene—who has a long history of spewing bigotry as well as downplaying the Jan 6 attack on our Capitol-made it clear that “the clock has started. It’s time for our conference to choose a new Speaker.”

You might be thinking: Didn’t we just go through this a few months ago when GOP Rep Matt Gaetz led the charge to remove then GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his position?! Yep, you are correct. That led to chaos in the House with in essence a three week stoppage of work as Republicans—who control the chamber—held failed vote after failed vote because they could not agree amongst themselves on a new speaker. That is what led to the little-known Johnson ultimately being elevated to Speaker.

Now Greene is threatening a replay of that the same type of disfunction--which is very possible given under current House rules since it only takes one member of the House to force a vote on removal of the Speaker.  Democrats can, however, save Johnson’s job by voting as a block along with Republicans to prevent his removal. In fact, a few Democrats have suggested they are open to this. But they should not—for many reasons. 

First, Johnson is a far-right election denier. After the vicious Jan 6 attack on our Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to keep Trump in power despite losing the 2020 election, Johnson returned to the House and voted to not certify President Biden’s victory. In other words, Johnson was doing by way of a vote what the Jan 6 attackers sought to do by violence.

But Johnson—who was endorsed by Trump for Speaker—did far more than simply vote against Biden’s win. He personally recruited other GOP House members in December 2020 to sign onto an amicus brief he drafted that he then filed with the US Supreme Court in support of a Texas lawsuit to overturn Biden’s wins in the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. At the time, Johnson posted on social media, “President Trump called me this morning to let me know how much he appreciates the amicus brief we are filing on behalf of Members of Congress. Indeed, ‘this is the big one!’” That lawsuit was swiftly and unanimously rejected by the US Supreme Court.

Then there are Johnson’s extremist views on abortion, including supporting bans on abortion on day one of conception. The real world result of these laws—which have been enacted in numerous GOP controlled states--is that women are barbarically forced to carry a fetus to term against their will. And as studies have shown, women in states with these types of abortion bans are “three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after giving birth.”

Johnson doesn’t care. Instead, he supports these women killing measures and more, including making it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for a legal abortion. And after the GOP controlled US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Johnson took to social media to celebrate a  law in Mississippi that imposed a criminal penalty on anyone who performed an abortion of “hard labor for 1-10 yrs.”

All of this led to Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries declaring a short time after Johnson was elected Speaker, “Mike Johnson, probably more so than almost any other member of the House Republican conference, wants to criminalize abortion care and impose a nationwide ban.” (Jeffries has not indicated if he would be open to saving Johnson from removal since Greene announced her motion to vacate.)

Why would any Democrat vote to keep a person with that record as Speaker of the House, placing them only second behind the vice president in the line of succession to be President?!

Beyond that, Democrats should use Greene’s motion to remove Johnson as a way to further remind voters that they should not trust the GOP to govern any chamber of Congress—nor the White House—since all they bring is chaos and ego driven infighting.  Even GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma—a former House Member—told CNN that if Greene is able to remove Johnson it will hurt both GOP House incumbents and GOP challengers seeking to flip seats “because chaos in the House is 100% on us at this point.”  Mullin is right.

If Republicans led by Trump’s ally Greene want to remove Johnson, Democrats should not save him.  No Democratic member of the House should ever vote to keep a Trump backed, election denying, women killing, anti-abortion extremist in power as Speaker of the House. Not now, not ever.

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