In the end, there were no normies left.
Last week, every Republican in the House voted for a man The New York Times described as “the most important architect” of the attempt to overthrow Donald Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat.
And yet, for a few naive days, it appeared that the center might actually hold.
And yet, for a few naive days, it appeared that the center might actually hold.
After all, nearly two dozen GOP “moderates” had braved the bullying and threats from MAGAworld and blocked Rep. Jim Jordan from the speakership a few days earlier.
Some of these Jordan holdouts were institutionalists, who couldn’t stomach elevating someone that former Speaker John Boehner had described as a “legislative terrorist” to House leadership; others appeared to draw a line at election denialism and participation in the January 6 insurrection. Others simply couldn’t stand Jordan’s performative obnoxiousness.
As Mitt Romney notes in the new book by McKay Coppins, there are plenty of Republicans who know Trump is deranged and say so in private. And it appeared, briefly, that these lawmakers might actually take a stand in public. There was even some scattered buzz about working with Democrats on a bipartisan power-sharing deal.
It was easy to mistake all of that for principles. But, in the end, those normies simply folded.
Ken Buck on CNN: "I don't want someone who was involved in the activities of January 6 … There's no way we win the majority if the message we send to the American people is we believe in the election was stolen, and we believe that January 6 was a tour of the Capitol." pic.twitter.com/GitVZB1Z6R
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2023
Just a week earlier, Rep. Ken Buck declared on CNN: “I don’t want someone who was involved in the activities of January 6 … There’s no way we win the majority if the message we send to the American people is we believe the election was stolen, and we believe that January 6 was a tour of the Capitol.”
On Wednesday, like everyone else, he fell in line behind the fifth-strong choice, Rep. Mike Johnson.
Of course, we’ve seen this movie before. Over and over.
While Rep. Matt Gaetz and his right-wing confederates were filled with passionate intensity, the “moderates” once again lacked the conviction to the stand against them.
After three weeks of chaos, every “moderate”— Reps. Buck, Mike Lawler, Kay Granger, Don Bacon, Tony Gonzalez — all joined with Gaetz, Jordan and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and elected a new ultra-MAGA speaker.
And make no mistake about it: This new speaker is not a run-of-the-mill Trump toady.
Make no mistake about it: This new speaker is not a run-of-the-mill Trump toady. Johnson was a central player in pushing a lawsuit that would have thrown out tens of millions of votes in states that Trump lost. Even worse: Johnson touted some the wooliest of the Kraken-level conspiracy theories including the bizarre lie that voting software came from “Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.”
Those were the kind of lies that cost Fox News $787 million, and resulted in guilty pleas from Trump co-defendants Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro. And now those lies have propelled Johnson into the presidential line of succession. On Tuesday, Trump and the MAGA caucus helped torpedo Rep. Tom Emmer’s speaker bid, seemingly in large part because Emmer had voted to certify President Joe Biden’s election win. The Big Lie is now a litmus test for leadership in the GOP, and every last Republican is going along with it. When a reporter tried to ask Johnson about his role in the coup, fellow Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx shouted “Shut up!” while others booed. The Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio wrote: “That’s the whole party in one clip. There’s Johnson, smug at having been not merely absolved by his colleagues for abetting a coup attempt but commended for it with their nomination for speaker.” In destroying Emmer and elevating Johnson, Trump emphatically reminded wavering Republicans that he remains the party’s apex predator — even while facing multiple criminal indictments. And what about the “moderates”? In the best-case scenario, they may have avoided another government shutdown and won a short-term reprieve from the chaos. But their defeat was as thorough as it was humiliating. The head of the inaptly named “Problem Solvers Caucus” was reduced to claiming that Johnson was “temperamentally” a moderate. But on one issue after another — abortion, gay rights, and slavish loyalty to Trump — Johnson has staked out positions far from the mainstream. That stark reality was on full display this week. “If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention,” Gaetz crowed on Steve Bannon’s podcast. He’s right. The MAGA-fication of the GOP is complete. And the moderates? Who will ever take them seriously again? Because it turns out that there are no normies left.
Charlie Sykes is an MS NOW contributor and the author of the newsletter "To the Contrary." 
