I agree that The Speaker seems suddenly to have changed. Blackmail has often been discussed as a tactic used by Democrats (when you arrive in DC) I’ve been hearing those rumors for 4 decades.
I heard Johnson on Levin’s radio show, and he made a logical, reasoned, and compelling argument on how we ‘had to win’ first, to be able to do things... then I realized he made a logical, reasoned, and compelling argument- for selling out his base.
You can ‘win’ every time, if you always vote with your opponent.