On the Election of Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House

This is the text of a letter I sent on October 25, 2023, to the Everett Herald, my local newspaper.

On October 25, 2023, every Republican in the House of Representatives voted to make Representative Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) Speaker of the House. In doing so, they confirmed and strengthened Donald Trump’s control of the Republican Party. They confirmed that the most radical wing of the Republican Party, one that seeks to make abortion illegal nationwide and to dismantle Social Security and Medicare, is what the entire Republican Party has become. They have locked in 2020 presidential election denial as the litmus test of an acceptable Republican. They have reenforced the conviction many of us have that the Republican Party is no longer a legitimate American political party. It is an authoritarian, ultra-right wing movement subservient to one man, Donald J. Trump, who has been indicted four times for multiple felonies and who uses the MAGA movement only for his own benefit. The election of Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House is a symptom of how far the American political system has fallen. I can only hope and pray that by one year from now enough Americans will have woken up enough to the threat the Republican Party poses to American democracy and to common decency to deny them both the White House and control of either house of Congress. If they have not, we can kiss American democracy good-bye.