Mike Johnson, the 51-year-old lawmaker who won the Speakership late last month, is making Republican senators nervous.. The early media coverage of his sudden ascension to power has focused on his outspoken stances on abortion, gay rights and the role of religion in public life, and Republicans don't need that kind of publicity. Via The Hill:

Johnson called abortion a “holocaust” in a 2005 newspaper op-ed and earned an A+ ranking during his congressional career from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group. In 2021, he co-sponsored the Heartbeat Protection Act, which would subject physicians who perform an abortion on a fetus with a heartbeat to criminal penalties, and a bill to implement a national ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for when then mother’s life is endangered.

This year, he co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which declares “the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization.” He introduced legislation in February to criminalize the transport of a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion without satisfying parental involvement law.

A major question at the start of Johnson’s Speakership is whether he will insert Congress into the national abortion debate by bringing to the House floor bills to restrict abortions in various circumstances nationwide or insert abortion-related policy riders to must-pass spending bills. Johnson suggested after winning the Speaker’s gavel that it was ordained by God, telling colleagues “that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority.”

Here's the thing. There are a lot of fundamentalists who believe God is speaking directly to them. (And NFL players, who believe Jesus is calling their plays.) That requires a certain amount of.... humility, I guess, to discern the difference between your own willfullness, and signs from above. Assuming you even believe in God!

You have to have a personality defect of some kind to assume that God is quite coincidentally giving you direction to do the EXACT SAME THINGS you already want to do. Hmm.