'Secretive networks' of the right groomed Mike Johnson for speaker's job: religious expert

Mike Johnson owes his position in Congress to a group of “secretive networks” working to strengthen power held by the right-wing in America, an expert on White Christian Nationalism revealed in an interview published Thursday.

And the new House speaker is fully committed to their agenda, he warned.

“Johnson’s entrance into politics was made possible by his participation in the foundational structures of White Christian nationalism in the United States — from the churches he preaches in to the secretive networks that form the backbone of the American Right,” Bradley B. Onishi, president of the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement and the writer of, “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism," told Salon.

“When Mike Johnson wakes up in the morning... my guess is that he's thinking, how can I advance the mission of God on earth?" Onishi continued. "How can I make God's vision for the country a reality? And so yes, he does want to be in a place of power. Yes. He does want to be in a place of influence. But he's a true believer in the sense that he seems to do those things based on a desire to implement and create a Christian nation.”

Onishi suggested that Johnson was adopted by the powerful organizations promoting that Christian nationalist ideal, and has had his career guided by them. Essentially, he was groomed for the position of power he holds now.

“White Christian nationalists want to return to a social order where all those voices, all those people who clamored and protested and marched for representation and rights in the sixties and beyond, go back to a time of Jim Crow, back to a time of patriarchal marriages, back to a time when interracial marriage was outlawed in many places: when women were financially restrained by prejudice; when redlining was ubiquitous; when there had been no Black president,” he said.

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“For Mike Johnson, that means participating in networks like the Council for National Policy; hanging around with the Koch brothers; speaking at events, such as the National Association of Christian Lawmakers; and looking up to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council."

“These are the people that made his career. Because these are the people who share his values, he has always looked up to them and wanted to be one of them. For Johnson to now be speaker of the House feels as if it is the apotheosis of his political career and aspirations."

“His loyalties are to those right-wing organizations and networks and funders not only because they have made him the politician he is today, but because in his mind they are the ones trying to create and live out the Christian worldview that he so militantly professes.”