Representative Mike Johnson is evidence that the cynical maxim, “nice guys finish last,” might apply some of the time. But not all of the time. Sometimes nice guys finish first. As happened last week when the largely unknown Republican Congressman from Louisiana became, against all odds, Speaker of the House.
How did this happen – or more to the point, why did this happen? Johnson is now second in line for the presidency. But until he was elected Speaker, unanimously, by every one of the 220 House Republicans, he was not only obscure, but without any significant leadership experience. Moreover he’d been in Congress for only six years, fewer than any other Speaker in recent history.
Johnson is a Christian Conservative whose views on every aspect of American politics and culture are relentlessly hard right.
- He has sought to defend gun rights – and to expand them.
- He has called abortion a “holocaust” and voted for a national abortion ban.
- He has referred to homosexuality as “inherently unnatural” and a “dangerous lifestyle.”
- He has argued that “teachers, professors, administrators and left-wing media” were trying to force gender transitions among young people.
- He has called climate science into question and voted against all clean energy legislation.
- He has maintained that Congress has a “moral and constitutional duty” to balance the budget.
- He has been a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and was prominent among Republicans who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
What enabled Johnson to snag every single Republican vote for Speaker – including those of the few Republican moderates – is not immediately clear. The reasons given most often were embarrassment and exhaustion. Republicans were mortified that the leadership circus had gone on as long as it did. (After previous Speaker Kevin McCarthy was tossed out early this month, also rejected were three others, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer whose quest for the brass ring lasted all of four hours.) And Republicans were drained and demoralized by their repeated failures to agree on who should lead them – sick and tired of the mess of their own making.
Still, why Johnson? Why not someone else, one of his more seasoned colleagues? The answer seems to be – last week we repeatedly heard it – that Johnson’s a “nice guy.” Unlike, for example, another Republican Congressman, Jim Jordan, who had also been up for the Speakership but who is notoriously bellicose and belligerent, Johnson is apparently unfailingly affable. He is “truly humble” and “mild mannered.” He is inoffensive, low-key and well-liked. Or, maybe better, he is not disliked. He is not disliked by Trump – and he is not disliked by effectively any of his colleagues who seemed to calculate that Johnson was a leader they could, at least, stomach.
Johnson’s likability is not to be taken lightly. In one of my earliest books, The Political Presidency: Practice of Leadership (still available on Amazon), I wrote that in the American political system, which is fundamentally anti-authority, the ability to be ingratiating is an important, a very important, political skill.
Here’s how I defined it: Ingratiation is a behavior designed to influence another person concerning the attractiveness of one’s personal qualities. Ingratiation tactics include: 1) preempting problems; 2) giving advance notice; 3) rendering favors or providing services; 4) agreeing; 5) flattering; and 6) behaving in such a way as to increase the likelihood of being judged appealing and, or, decent and, or, simply, nice.
By every measure, in recent decades Americans have become ruder and coarser, more divisive and argumentative. There is something to be said then for a leader who is a gentleman – a gentle man as opposed to a street fighter, a gentle man even as opposed to one with sharp elbows.
Speaker Johnson is of course wholly untried and untested. Who knows if his moderate manner will extend to his politics? All we know now is that more than anything else it is his niceness that explains his sudden, remarkable rise to the top of the leadership pole.