Opinion | The House GOP is a circus. The chaos has one source.

The Washington Post ^ | September 18, 2024 at 7:15 a.m. EDT | Dana Milbank

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Republicans spent two years sabotaging the U.S. House. Another two years would be ruinous.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Six weeks after his improbable rise from obscurity to speaker of the House in late 2023, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson decided to break bread with a group of Christian nationalists. He gave the keynote address (at the Museum of the Bible) to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a group whose founder, “proud” Christian nationalist Jason Rapert, has said: “I reject that being a Christian Nationalist is somehow unseemly or wrong.”

Rapert’s organization promoted the pine-tree “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which was among the banners flown at the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021 — and which, by total and remarkable coincidence, was proudly displayed outside Johnson’s congressional office.

Confirmed speakers and award recipients for the gathering Johnson addressed included: a man who proposed that gay people should be forced to wear “a label across their forehead reading, ‘This can be hazardous to your health’ ”; a woman who blamed gay people for Noah’s flood and more recent natural disasters; and various adherents of “dominionist” theology, which holds that the United States should be governed under biblical law by Christians.

“I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here,” Johnson teased the group, unaware that his hosts were streaming video of the event. Johnson informed his audience that God “had been speaking to me” about becoming speaker, communicating “very specifically,” in fact, waking him at night and giving him “plans and procedures.”

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I love the smell of deranged left-wing extremist gaslight, Astroturf, projection and lies in the morning.

[Honorary Serb]

Democrats Lie in Darkness!

[kiryandil]

LOL Dana Milbank LOL

[SaxxonWoods]

Trying to distract from the chaos in the White House.

[Agatsu77]

So much hate!

[No name given]

And so far it’s not fooling me one bit.

[God luvs America]

didn’t know he was still around...

[ComputerGuy]

In order for the Post to be unhappy with Johnson, he must be doing something good for our side. What could that be?

[Jonny7797]

I highly doubt God is telling this loser to continue the reckless spending.

[jmaroneps37]

“Opinion | The House GOP is a circus. The chaos has one source.”
Wapo any questions?

[Joann37]

I’m sorry; can someone please tell me this “one source”? I started reading a couple sentences of this drivel and can’t take it anymore!

[Ann Archy]

Dontcha just LOVE when a JEW, Dana Milbank, PUTS DOWN A CHRISTIAN in PRINT??? /s

[rktman]

Who? This is the first I’ve heard of it. LOL! Certainly using lots of “the words” to help further the lie. Did I miss project 2025 or did DUHana leave it out.

[Third Person]

no-shame fully discredited Dana dipshit Milbank up to his usual tricks

[metmom]

It smells like the dairy farms we used to live near.

[Son-Joshua]

One of the lefts weapons. Blame your opponent for what their side is doing. These people have the morality of a snake.

[Pearfect]

So says the WASHINGTON DEMOCRAT POST.

[daniel1212]

If WaPo is against it, then it must be good. Bezo's bombast would not be at home in a majority Christian America.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859. French political thinker and historian; best known for his two volume, “Democracy in America”) — The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God...Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same...

In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth...

There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated, In Europe almost all the disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of home is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, and fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous passions that frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the state exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image of order and of peace...

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live...

Thus religious zeal is perpetually warmed in the United States by the fires of patriotism. These men do not act exclusively from a consideration of a future life; eternity is only one motive of their devotion to the cause. If you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to hear them speak so often of the goods of this world, and to meet a politician where you expected to find a priest.

They will tell you that "all the American republics are collectively involved with each other; if the republics of the West were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot, the republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean would be in great peril. It is therefore our interest that the new states should be religious, in order that they may permit us to remain free." (Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII, 1835; http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

• There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all the outward duties of religion with fervor.

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. (Democracy in America, [New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331, 332, 335, 336-7, 337; http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

A quote often attributed to Tocqueville but which is not documented by any early sources, states,

• Not until I went into the churches of American and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790. One of the Founding Fathers; leading thinker; author; printer; statesman; postmaster; diplomat, and a non-Christian deist) — ...serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country. (Benjamin Franklin, "Information to those who would Remove to America" In Franklin, Benjamin. The Bagatelles from Passy. Ed. Lopez, Claude A. New York: Eakins Press. 1967; http://mith.umd.edu//eada/html/display.php?docs=franklin_bagatelle4.xml. Also, John Gould Curtis, American history told by contemporaries .... Volume 3, p. 26)

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[gopno1]

Dana Milbank...the 2024 version of Bill Pess.