Yes, you read that headline right. And as Nicole Wallace would say, “This isn’t The Onion.” I don’t know how that worthy publication stays in business, or how Andy Borowitz makes a living. Satire requires exaggeration and a step into the absurd to be any good and we live with not only the absurd but the flat out unbelievable on a “normal” basis. Did you ever think you’d see Trump take a bulldozer to the East Wing? But this comment of Mike Johnson’s simply eclipses anything he’s ever said, it is so stupid and ungrounded in either truth or reality.
If you’re just now tuning in, Hakeem Jeffries received a credible death threat from a J6 protester who was part of Trump’s en masse pardon. Local and federal law enforcement officials took steps to arrest the man who made the threat. It was incumbent upon Speaker Johnson to address the matter and bring unity and hope (in a best case scenario) but Johnson doesn’t have it in him. He is a shallow, vapid, hollow, stuffed suit of a man. Nancy Pelosi called Kevin McCarthy a “stuffed suit” but McCarthy was William Jennings Bryan by comparison to Johnson.
The best thing that can happen for Johnson and for this country, truly, is when he hands the Speaker’s gavel to Jeffries after the 2026 election and simply fades into the woodwork. And you want to know something? I think nobody wants that to happen more than Johnson himself. He knows how miserably miscast and woefully inadequate he is at his job. He only got the job because he had fewer enemies than anybody else and after round after round after round of voting and failing to get the right number, an exhausted conference gave up and said, “Give it to the wimp.”
[34-year-old Christopher] Moynihan is the first pardoned Capitol rioter to be rearrested over alleged political violence, but he’s not the only January 6er to run afoul of the law since they were granted clemency. In February, former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was arrested by Capitol police after a woman accused him of attacking her. In May, Zachary Alam was arrested for allegedly breaking into a home in Virginia.
However, given the chance to elaborate on his statement about Moynihan’s recent attack, Johnson chose to throw the responsibility back at America’s ideological left.
“I will tell you this, the violence on the left is far more prevalent than the violence on the right,” Johnson said Tuesday. “The assassination culture that’s been advanced now—this is the left, in almost every case that is advancing this, and not the right. Let’s not make this a partisan issue, you don’t want me to go there.
“The rhetoric that you saw on display Saturday, we highlighted yesterday, it plays into this. There are people that get triggered—there are deranged people in society when they hear elected officials participating in a rally that was paid for by [George] Soros and sponsored by Communists, with signs and placards and mantras that were repeated that, ‘We should bring death to fascist politicians.’ They call every Republican a fascist now,” Johnson said, referring to the peaceful No Kings protests that took place across the country this past weekend. […]
Historically, political violence has been far more common from the right, and 2025 marks the first time there has been a significant spike in violence from left-leaning individuals in more than 30 years, though it still remains at a much lower level than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing attackers, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
I am particularly upset with Mike Johnson on this occasion because of the severity of the threat against Leader Jeffries. If somebody is going to target Jeffries, what makes Johnson think he won’t be next? And the solution for this grave situation, particularly in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, is not to blame the other side. It is to look at the entire picture.
A sitting president who has bragged that he could “shoot somebody to death on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote,” and who himself has been the target of one credible assassination attempt (I’m ignoring that “second” attempt, the fiasco on the golf course) highlights how out of control political rhetoric is in 2025. And it is Trump’s “satire” that is the most out of control and the most responsible for ginning up the lunatic fringe.
This is not the fault of the Left. It is the fault of MAGAs, Johnson amongst them, who simply refuse to take the necessary step of depicting America as one place and one people and arguing a point in favor of all Americans. That point is the necessity for peace and unity. Johnson is a mindless puppet, who when you pull his string, recites his retinue of canned phrases about how evil the Left is. Johnson is not part of the solution. He is part of the problem. When he’s out of power it will be a great day for America.
