Fewer than half of House Republicans bothered to attend Speaker Mike Johnson’s retreat

It’s wild what a few short months of actually getting to know a person can do to your opinion of them. That’s what House Republicans seem to have learned since October, when they replaced the glad-handing Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., with smarmy fundamentalist Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., for the Speaker of the House role. Johnson’s election was treated like a big win at the time. Republicans were unified in cheering and chanting “Mike! Mike!” like they were celebrating a championship-winning quarterback, instead of a guy who serves creepy youth pastor vibes.

Johnson’s popularity lasted as long as an embarrassing dance craze, however. It hasn’t been five months and already Johnson’s colleagues are pulling the Mariah Carey “I don’t know her” bit. Tuesday, CNN reported that fewer than 100 House Republicans bothered to RSVP for their congressional retreat in West Virginia this week, meaning that less than half the caucus showed up.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Note that Ken Buck is a Tea Partier. He’s tapping out because MAGA is too shit-for-brains even for him.

    The author of the “Blue Lives Matter bill” said these motherfuckers are the worst.

    • Jesus@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I wonder if the State of the Union was the tipping point for him. You had MTG, looking and behaving like Randy Marsh at a kid’s baseball game. That’s where the party is now.

  • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    These same people were griping to Politico last month that Johnson’s presentation at the last weekend retreat ignored pertinent-to-members issues like how to win re-election and grow their majority. Instead, “Johnson effectively delivered a sermon” about “declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity.” They’re just mad that they have to suffer the lives they’re seeking to forcibly inflict on the rest of us.

    After fifty years of pushing for theocracy these dim bulbs have finally actually thought about the ramifications.

    • whereisk@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      They don’t give a shit about theocracy or anything else, they only care about power and money, there is no core idea they won’t abandon and their rhetoric is as bendy as a wet noodle - they simply didn’t sign up to lose, and this guy doesn’t look like he’s helping them win.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      except that one guy that…uh… did something. Uh.

      never mind. maybe he’s just an imaginary sock puppet.

      oh well.

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        4 months ago

        Even the Republicans that have been primaried for not going along with the MAGA cult are terrible people who just hit their limit of being terrible.

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The Republican brand is hatred, and has been as long as I’ve been alive.

    Not exactly stable bedrock for fostering cooperation.

  • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    It was never a good thing that everyone else had a monopoly on this. Sadly I think this self loathing still won’t cause the need introspection.

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    4 months ago

    In a pit such as the GOP, it’s hard to know where one snake ends and another begins. But I’m all for it devouring itself all the same.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    I was reading this professionally published article seriously until it referred to the “vibes” that are being “served” by one of the most powerful politicians in the country.