"I want to tell all of my colleagues here what I told my fellow Republicans in that room last night. I don't believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible is very clear. That God 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 at this specific moment in this time. This is my belief." 

—Mike Johnson, in his first address as Speaker of the House

On October 25, after several weeks of heated disputes, failed nominations, and bitter accusations, congressional Republi-fascists unanimously selected Mike Johnson to be the new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. (One Republi-fascist was absent the day of the vote.) This is one of the most powerful positions in the U.S. government. The U.S. Constitution puts the Speaker of the House second in line of succession to the presidency, right after the vice president. 

This means that Johnson, a Biblical literalist (someone who believes every word in the Bible is true) and a diehard fascist election-denier will be president if for some reason or by some cause Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were both to become unable to serve. The prospect of an openly fanatical Christian fascist president is, as the saying goes, a couple of heartbeats away. 

A Fascist Power Move

About a month ago, a small hard core of congressional Republi-fascists initiated a move to oust Kevin McCarthy—himself a fascist—from his position as Speaker of the House. This was unprecedented in U.S. history. So was the bitter three-week fight to replace McCarthy. It ended in total victory for the most aggressive, MAGA affirming, election denying fascists, with the full support of all leading Republicans. 

The bitter three-week-long battle was not a bratty squabble between “hard-core conservatives” and “traditional Main St. Republicans,” as the major media portrayed it. They’re fascists, one and all. No decent person had a “dog in the outcome of this fight.” But no one should be indifferent to the fight itself. 

Johnson didn’t just support schemes to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president after Biden won the 2020 election. He was an architect of the congressional Republicans’ efforts to overturn the election and install Donald Trump as president. Above all else, this and Trump’s endorsement made him a powerful candidate who brought together different elements of feuding Republicans. 

Johnson’s selection as house speaker means that Christian fascist Republicans dominate and control two key parts of the federal government—the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives. They also completely dominate numerous state governments across the country, and are powerfully positioned within the federal judiciary, the military, and other institutions. 

They don’t intend to stop there. They are hell-bent on retaking the presidency, one way or the other, on or maybe even before the next scheduled election in November 2024. They are positioning themselves for “the big takeover”—a Christian fascist re-making of all society. With the leadership of the House of Representatives, the Presidency (if Trump is elected), and the Supreme Court all controlled by fascists, this would be very close to complete control of the United States government.

MAGA Ascends, Democrats Play by the Rules 

The Democrats continue to act as if all this is “normal” and play by the rules of BEB—bourgeois electoral bullshit. Their electoral strategy to stop the fascist onslaught seems to be to run candidates against Republicans in a handful of “swing districts” and thus “retake the House.” A common—and ridiculous—sentiment among Democrats was that Johnson is “not part of the mainstream of political or legal thought,” as one Democratic congressman said, and that this would damage a “sinking Republican Party” in next year’s (scheduled) elections. This indicates the level of denial and outright wishful thinking engaged in by way too many people—like the “decent” Germans who, as Hitler and the Nazis rose to power, thought, “Oh, don’t worry about Hitler, he won’t even last through the summer.” 

Matt Gaetz, who spearheaded the drive to oust McCarthy, clarified the meaning of the rise of the previously little-known Mike Johnson. After Johnson became speaker, Gaetz crowed that “MAGA is ascendant … moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this [fascist] movement, and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies …” 

Joe Biden met cordially with Johnson soon after his elevation to speaker, a meeting Johnson described as “productive.” “I enjoyed my visit with the president,” he said. The disgusting camaraderie between Biden and a guy who helped orchestrate a coup against him demonstrates that there is no limit to the desperate hopes of Democrats to try to hold together a framework that the Republi-fascists are relentlessly destroying. 

And it all is further indication of how, as Bob Avakian wrote, divisions and fights like these within and between the rulers can’t be resolved within the framework that has held this country together since the end of the Civil War in 1865:

the crisis and deep divisions in society now can only be resolved through radical means, of one kind or another—either radically reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive means or radically emancipating revolutionary means.

A Hard-core Christian Fascist

Johnson is a Christian fascist. He describes himself as "a Christian, a husband, a father, a life-long conservative, constitutional law attorney and a small business owner, in that order." He is a Biblical literalist—he believes every word in the Bible is true. He is out to impose a Christian fundamentalist theocracy—a government run according to religious rule and governed by religious authorities. On October 26, when asked about hateful comments he made about LGBTQ people, Johnson replied, “I am a Bible-believing Christian. … go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it—that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe and so I make no apologies for it.” 

As Bob Avakian (BA) wrote, “[W]ith profound reason and justification, it must be said that the Bible, taken literally, is a horror. And the fundamental question demands to be posed: Is what the Bible portrays about people and their relations—how those relations ought to be, how, according to the decrees of God, they have to be—is that really the kind of world we want?” In this article, BA delineates numerous atrocities upheld in the Bible, such as slavery, male domination of women, homosexuality as an “abomination” deserving of death, and many other horrors.

That is exactly the kind of world Mike Johnson and other Christian fascists not only want but are actively putting in place, here and now. He has written that homosexuality is “inherently unnatural,” a “dangerous lifestyle” that could possibly destroy “the entire democratic system.” He supports a complete, nationwide ban on abortion. For decades he has sought to end “no-fault divorce,” which enables one party in a marriage to initiate a divorce without having to prove something such as adultery or violence. No-fault divorce laws were mostly passed in the 1960s and ’70s, and “were monumental in furthering women’s financial, social, and professional independence, as well as their safety.” Johnson disputes well-established science about climate change, and has “voted against dozens of climate bills and amendments.” (People should read BA’s article, and the book the quote is from, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, to get a fuller exposure of the horrors these Christian fascists are pursuing.) 

A “Late” WAKE UP CALL to Urgently Get Organized for Revolution

The hour is late, the election of Mike Johnson is a significant leap towards a terrible future.

Bob Avakian wrote:

Because of big changes in this country and the world overall, one part of the ruling class, represented by the Republican Party, has become fascist: they no longer believe in or feel bound by what have been the “norms” of “democratic” capitalist rule in this country. And the other section of the ruling class, represented by the Democratic Party, has no real answer to this—except trying to maintain the “normal way” that the oppressive rule of this system has been enforced for hundreds of years, while the fascists are determined to tear up those “norms” and rule through more openly and aggressively oppressive means, without the traditional disguise of supposed “democracy for all.”

The elevation of the fascist Mike Johnson to Speaker of the House underscores the importance of a scientific understanding of this extreme and dangerous moment which because of that extremeness also holds the potential for a radically different and far better future. A time in which the possibility of a complete fascist takeover and makeover of the government loom as one possibility, but repolarizing society now towards revolution—towards overthrowing the whole system, and replacing it with a society under the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, is another. This revolution is made more possible precisely because of the intensity of the system’s contradictions that are giving rise to all the horrors humanity is experiencing, and the even more terrifying horrors looming. As Bob Avakian wrote recently, 

This possibility may not be, and generally is not, immediately apparent, and on the contrary what is often more readily seen on the surface is the way in which, in the short term, the situation is worsening.

The point is that all this can only be correctly grasped, and acted on, with a consistently scientific method and approach.

One of the most important things that such a scientific method and approach makes clear is this: Revolutions are made possible, in the most fundamental sense, as a result of the intensification of the contradictions of the oppressive system, leading to crucial turning points, providing rare opportunities for major revolutionary advance, even potentially opening the way for the victory of the revolution. And the prospects for revolution hinge to a great extent on whether the conscious forces for this revolution not only carry out consistent revolutionary work and struggle, but more specifically whether they recognize—and on that basis act boldly and with scientifically grounded determination, to take full advantage of—these crucial turning points and all-too-rare opportunities.