Republican Rep. Mike Johnson was elected speaker of the House this week. The vote on Wednesday for the Louisiana lawwas 220-209.
«The people’s House is back in business,» newly-elected Speaker Mike Johnson declared to Republican applause in his first speech after weeks of contentious politicking.
The people’s House may indeed be back in business, but with Johnson holding the gavel, social conservatism is back from a decades-long forced exile as well.
While Christian views on marriage, abortion, and other issues have long served as campaign fodder for Democrat attacks on Republican candidates, few Republican presidential candidate and even fewer Republican leaders have actually made these values central to their agendas. Sidelined for decades by war hawks and libertarians, social conservatives have long been the least popular guests at the Grand Old Party, paid plenty of lipservice but rarely finding champions in power–and often taking the blame for electoral losses.
That’s why President Donald Trump was so popular with the social right, much to the astonishment of outside observers and a few weak-kneed insiders. Americans might be surprised to learn that he was the first sitting president to attend the annual March for Life, given all the Democrat attack ads tying Republicans to the pro-life movement–and all the Republican promises to stand with them.
Three years earlier, the brash New Yorker had become the first Republican presidential nominee to go on the offensive on abortion on the national stage, describing the grisly reality of the late-term abortions his opponent Hillary Clinton defended (but tried not to talk about).
Secular observers and even a couple of culture war veterans struggled to understand Christian voters’ enthusiasm for Trump, a man who clearly had not previously thought deeply on his faith over decades in public life.
The reason for the support, however, was obvious: Christian Republicans were tired of loyalty to a party that didn’t return is. They were unsatisfied with decades of operating as a controlled opposition. They wanted at least as much respect as the war hawks who sent their children abroad, or the rich men who spent their political capital cutting taxes for income brackets far higher than most families’ earnings.
Christians have long formed a voting bloc essential to Republican victory, but long been forced to take a back seat to Republican power. In Washington, they are an inconvenience at best. Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would much rather talk about inflation, block campaign finance reform, and sending more money to foreign wars.
