Mike Johnson melts down after House proxy vote failure exposes MAGA's "pro-family" lie

[marmar]

Mike Johnson melts down after House proxy vote failure exposes MAGA's "pro-family" lie
The House speaker's latest tantrum shows how the "pro-family" MAGA GOP just wants women back in the kitchen

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published April 3, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., once famously said that, to understand his "worldview," all one needs to do is "pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it." A few months into Donald Trump's second term, however, Johnson has displayed a lot of tolerance for injustices that would outrage the Jesus of the Bible: redentioning innocent men to a torture prison in El Salvador, falsely accusing grandparents of being "frauds" as a pretext to take away their Social Security checks, and condemning children to die of preventable diseases like HIV and measles. None of this has perturbed Johnson, who backed Trump throughout the spiraling sadism of the administration.

This week, however, Johnson found one policy he cannot abide by: allowing representatives to serve their constituents while simultaneously caring for their newborn infants. On Tuesday, Johnson attempted to block a bipartisan bill to permit House members to vote by proxy, aided by technology, when on parental leave. Even though the speaker has extensive control over what bills come up for a vote, he couldn't stop this one. Nine Republicans crossed the aisle to help Democrats meet the threshold to force the bill onto the floor. After it passed, Johnson was so irate he canceled all congressional activity for the week and sent members home.

....(snip)....

But it's not quite right to attribute this to hypocrisy. Johnson's behavior is perfectly consistent with the renewed Republican enthusiasm for pushing women out of public life and back into the kitchen. As David Graham at the Atlantic wrote in a recent article on how Republicans are implementing Project 2025, the party under Trump has made the "effort to restore traditional families" a priority. "In this vision, men are breadwinners and women are mothers," he writes, pointing out how the Project 2025 blueprint spells out different policy ideas to force women out of the workplace and into roles as stay-at-home wives.

....(snip)....

This is a piece of a larger Republican Party revolt against the work-from-home culture that rose during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of Trump's first actions when he returned to the White House was to issue an executive order forcing federal workers to cease remote work and show up at the office, whether their jobs required it or not. He justified this by falsely accusing remote workers of "not working" but "playing tennis" or "playing golf." Part of this is his usual psychological projection, as Trump spends an inordinate amount of his work week on the golf course. Part of it was the Project 2025 and Elon Musk's agenda of making the job so miserable that people quit. But Johnson's tantrum is a reminder that another central Republican concern is that work-from-home policies might help women's equality. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/03/mike-johnson-melts-down-after-proxy-vote-failure-exposes-magas-pro-family-lie/

[Irish_Dem]

1. Johnson is one of the most evil men in DC.

But pretends to be one of the most righteous.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. "spiraling sadism" is a good way of looking at the Trump administration /nt

[yardwork]

3. Those Republican women in Congress better watch out.

The Republican men want to send them back to their kitchens.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Hypocrisy. Mike believes mothers should be at home,

and not in The House.

[Norrrm]

5. The traditional republican family where Mike lives with a gay guy rather than his wife.

???

Where does Melania live?