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His first brush with nationwide prominence got here in April 2015, when Johnson, then a Louisiana state legislator, proposed a invoice referred to as the Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act that might have prevented “antagonistic therapy by the State of any individual or entity on the premise of the views they might maintain with regard to marriage.” Critics referred to as it legalized discrimination in opposition to married homosexual {couples}, and the invoice failed, however the media consideration acquired him on the radar of the influential FRC and its president, fellow Louisiana native Tony Perkins.
Perkins, who hosts a nationwide radio present referred to as Washington Watch, started tapping Johnson to visitor host. Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, seemed to be a pure — by December 2015, native Shreveport, La. ABC affiliate KTBS mentioned he “might have a budding second profession on the airwaves.”
The FRC and Perkins are political lightning rods amongst non-evangelicals — a few of Perkins’ stances, like his argument that pure disasters are divine punishments for homosexuality, don’t sit nicely with broad swaths of the citizens. However Johnson’s political and non secular beliefs dovetail with Perkins’ views. In a 2004 op-ed, Johnson argued that “homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural … society can not give its stamp of approval to such a harmful life-style.”
When he ran for Congress in 2016, Johnson positioned his religion on the heart of his marketing campaign, telling the Louisiana Baptist Message, “I’m a Christian, a husband, a father, a life-long conservative, constitutional legislation lawyer and a small enterprise proprietor in that order.”
His reference to Perkins — and his curiosity in evangelical radio as a political instrument — continued after he was elected to the Home in 2016. As a first-term lawmaker, Johnson introduced his bid to steer the Republican Examine Committee, a conservative caucus that at the moment counts 156, on Washington Watch with Perkins. He gained the election.
“It’s by no means been extra vital for conservatives to face up and provides voice — to be winsome witnesses — to [conservative] ideas,” Johnson advised Perkins in 2018 throughout his announcement.
Johnson has been a visitor on Washington Watch at different occasions lately as nicely.
Within the midst of the 15 ballots that it took to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaker in January, Johnson recounted on an FRC present that he acquired on his knees on the Home ground and prayed with a bunch of members, “repent[ing] to the Lord for our particular person transgressions and people collectively as a legislative physique.”
Johnson used the talents he sharpened on discuss radio and in televised FRC interviews to start out a weekly podcast in 2022 together with his spouse, referred to as “Fact be Informed with Mike and Kelly Johnson.”
Throughout the first episode in March 2022, entitled “Can America be Saved?” Johnson says that “we’ll evaluate present occasions by the lens of everlasting fact,” and famous that in every podcast they meant to include a themed scripture as a result of “the phrase of God is, in fact, the last word supply of all fact.” Visitors have included Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Charlie Kirk and Jordan Peterson.
Now and again, Kelly Johnson will tee up her husband for a solution. “Why are we the freest, strongest, most profitable, most benevolent nation within the historical past of the world, and why does each different nation on the planet look to us for management and even anticipate it of us?” she asks in a single episode. Her husband responds explaining that America is the one nation on this planet based upon a creed, or a “spiritual assertion of religion.”
The podcast’s bent is much like what’s on evangelical Christian radio, with a barely extra political angle. Whereas Johnson’s deep religion could also be a distinguishing characteristic — particularly in comparison with previous GOP audio system — he’s pretty ideologically consultant of the Republican Home majority. His DW-nominate rating, a system which tracks and maps the ideology of Congress based mostly on their voting document, places Johnson at extra conservative than 63 % of Home Republicans.
However Johnson has a strict insistence on his conservative evangelical values — he’s posted on X (previously Twitter), “[In Louisiana], carry out an abortion and get imprisoned at laborious labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K” and argued that if abortion hadn’t been authorized for many years, there could be extra “able-bodied employees within the economic system, we wouldn’t be going the other way up and toppling over like this [on social security, Medicare and Medicaid]”. These stances gained’t endear him to the Democrats with whom he’ll now have to barter, nor will his vigorous makes an attempt to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election.
After three weeks of chaos and uncertainty, Republicans have been capable of compromise on Johnson. Now, the query is whether or not he can preserve them collectively whereas additionally negotiating with Democrats. It’s a excessive wire act that may make it tougher for Johnson to carve out time to hop on the mic and document his podcast, however on condition that listeners haven’t gotten a brand new episode since Oct. 8, we’re at the least because of hear his broadcasted ideas on how he acquired right here quickly sufficient.
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