Mike Johnson owes "the secretive networks that form the backbone of the American Right" big time

On Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump is disqualified from the presidency and should therefore be removed from the ballot in that state because of his role in the Jan. 6 coup attempt, which is an act of insurrection as determined by the United States Constitution. This ruling will be used by Trump and his White Christian followers and other cultists as more evidence that Trump is a divine figure who is being "persecuted" by his enemies in the "secular world" and "deep state."

Trumpism, like other forms of fascism and authoritarianism (and today’s version of conservatism more broadly), is a type of religious politics where the Great Leader is viewed as a type of divine figure on Earth who commands a historic movement that is a force of destiny. Much to the consternation of rational outsiders, there are no appeals or interventions based on fact, reason, and empirical reality that can effectively counter such magical and delusional thinking. Trump instinctively knows and understands this to be true. Moreover, because of his demonstrated fabulism and apparent megalomania the idea that he is a tool of “god” is self-evident to him. Fulfilling that role, Trump announced at a rally several weeks ago that he is basically the Chosen One and a type of prophetic figure and emissary of God and Jesus – which means that Trump’s plans to be a dictator are blessed by supernatural beings who are going to intervene on his behalf.

Trump’s statements are carefully calibrated to his audience. Public opinion polls and other research show that White Christians do in fact view the ex-president and dictator in waiting as a type of prophetic figure and tool for their God. In that role, Trump will be a weapon to impose a Christofascist plutocracy on the American people.

In all, Trump and the American neofascist movement, anchored by the Christian Right, is an existential threat to the country’s multiracial pluralistic democracy and society. This danger has been greatly increased by how the Christian Right, as the result of decades of careful movement-building and strategizing, now has key figures in great positions of power throughout the United States government and across society. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is one such leader.

As has been widely documented, Johnson is a Christian Nationalist (which in practice means a White Christian supremacist) who holds such odious and cruel beliefs as gays and lesbians and transgender people are some type of abomination that should be removed from American life, women are the de facto chattel and property of their husbands and should not have control over their own bodies, birth control and abortion should be illegal, and that White Christianity should be the official religion of the United States and only “Christians” should be allowed to hold public office.

In an attempt to better understand Speaker Mike Johnson and his relationship to the (White) Christian Nationalist movement and how those malign forces are central to the Age of Trump and the country’s escalating democracy crisis, I recently spoke with Bradley B. Onishi, president of the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement and the Founder of Axis Mundi Media. In 2023 he published, “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism." He is also a faculty member in Religion and Philosophy at the University of San Francisco.

Onishi’s commentary essay (with Matthew Taylor), “The Key to Mike Johnson’s Christian Extremism Hangs Outside His Office,” was recently featured in Rolling Stone.

This is the first of a two-part conversation.

Who is Mike Johnson? What does he represent?

Mike Johnson is a Christian nationalist whose career has been aided and contoured by influential right-wing organizations. He is a lifelong culture warrior - a true believer in the retrograde worldview he professes. Johnson slots firmly within the more hardline evangelical wing of the Republican coalition. He holds extreme positions on abortion, thinks that America is in crisis because 25% of young people identify as queer, defends young earth creationism, traces school massacres to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and questions whether church and state should be separate.

If we think about his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, that is certainly a guy who professed a Christian faith.  But it is one part of his identity. In my mind, Kevin McCarthy wakes up in the morning thinking about what Kevin McCarthy is going to get that day, how he's going to achieve more power, more success. And he's going to do that by going to church, by talking about Christian values, by talking about his family as living out what might be deemed a Christian life. But ultimately it comes down to Kevin McCarthy.  

Mike Johnson is a different political animal.  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?  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 live out to implement and create a Christian nation. In a way that for some of his fellow Republicans and fellow Christians in Congress or other places of leadership are merely part of an identity puzzle, where for him, that is the whole ballgame. 

How does Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's ascent fit into the White Christian political and social project?

All of the sociological studies tell us that white Christian nationalists, like Mike Johnson, see the United States as in decline. For them, returning to a time when the country was in obedience to God is the key to national renewal. When asked about what that time would be, they often point to the 1950s. So, the 1950s represent a time of American renaissance. And everything afterward represents American decline. Well, the sixties are what gave us the civil rights movement. The Voting Rights Act, immigration reform. Queer liberation movements. Women's liberation movements. I could go on and on and on.  

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. Back to a time when white Christians had control of the social order and everyone else knew their place.  

Mike Johnson is a product of a certain kind of Christian nationalism — White Christian nationalism. And his understanding of the United States is in decline since the sixties fits perfectly into what the sociological data tells us about the narrative that these folks tell about our country.

What are Johnson’s loyalties? What do we know about his politics and vision?

Mike Johnson comes from a background where his loyalties are to creating a country and a world dominated by God. This is why I think of him as a true believer. Now in practical terms, that means that his political life has been shaped by the institutions and the organizations who adopted that mission.  

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.

What is Johnson’s relationship to Donald Trump, MAGA, and the neofascist movement?

Mike Johnson was at the arrow’s tip of congresspeople working to overturn the 2020 election for Trump. He claimed that the vote count in Georgia was rigged and that Democrats had changed the rules late in the game to ensure Trump lost. He collected signatures for a brief supporting a Texas lawsuit alleging, without evidence, irregularities in election results and then played a central part in trying to prevent Biden’s win from being certified.  Johnson also touted Trump’s conspiracy theories about election fraud, even saying, “You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that.” To this day he is reticent to admit that Joe Biden won the election. 

Does this make Johnson a fascist? No. However, he does have troubling connections to a Christian movement that was the spearhead of mobilizing Trump supporters on January 6th. 

What is Johnson’s relationship to the institutions and other centers of power and influence (and affluence) on the Christian Right?

As Anne Nelson has reported at length, Johnson entered the pipeline of the Council for National Policy as a young lawyer where his mentors were Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Paul Pressler, architect of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, and Morton Blackwell, co-founder of the Council for National Policy and founder of the Leadership Institute, among many others. He described himself as the “bag man” for these figures. Johnson is not someone whose faith is useful as part of a political persona; his Christianity is not one dynamic of his identity; it does not fit alongside a profile of, say, a former military vet or successful businessman-turned-politician. 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. 

You recently had a very important article on Johnson and Christian nationalism appear at Rolling Stone. There you focused on the Christian Nationalist flag that Johnson displays outside of his D.C. Congressional office and what that reveals about the new Speaker’s politics and beliefs. Can you elaborate?

The flag is called the Appeal to Heaven flag. And it's a very simple design. It's white with an evergreen tree in the center.  And at the top, it says, “An appeal to heaven.” This flag was used in the Revolutionary War as a banner. It was commissioned by George Washington. It's still used as a Naval flag in Massachusetts. The idea of the appeal to heaven goes back to the philosopher John Locke. However, despite that history, the flag has been reappropriated over the last 10 years. It now symbolizes a certain brand of militant Christianity based on spiritual warfare.  

The man who made it popular is named Dutch Sheets. And he's not nearly as recognized as people like Jerry Falwell or Tony Perkins or others on the religious right. But he is very influential. His books have sold more than a million copies. He has millions of followers in his ministry. 

In 2013 sheets was given this flag and he started to think about it as a symbol for spiritual warfare. He wanted to see Christians taking part in American politics and society in a way that would result in a revolution. He published a book called “An Appeal to Heaven.” And he's been using this symbol over the last 10 years to create the urgency for this Christian revolution in the United States.  

When Trump was not reelected and Biden was proclaimed the winner, Sheets went into a full mobilization of his followers, his millions of followers, to reinstate Trump as president. 

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If you look closely at January 6 the Appeal to Heaven Flag is right there. There are dozens and maybe hundreds of them alongside the other flags and symbols. In other words, the Appeal to Heaven flag, while it may have historical significance going back to the Revolutionary War is now a symbol of the desire for Christian revolution based on spiritual warfare. As we show in the Rolling Stone article, Mike Johnson has direct ties to Sheets and his spiritual warfare apostles. Johnson does not admire Sheets’ theology from afar. He is an active participant in this Christin movement. It's troubling that Mike Johnson, who surely knows what the flag symbolizes today, flies it outside of his office. 

What was the reaction like to your Rolling Stone piece?

In some sense, it was positive. Bill Maher did a short segment on a recent show, and other media figures and leaders have taken notice of just how extreme Johnson is as a person and politician. I am glad these issues are reaching more mainstream channels. However, I also received more hate mail than ever before in my career. Many of the messages claimed that the Appeal to Heaven Flag can’t be a symbol of militant Christianity because of its history going back to George Washington and John Locke. The appeal to history is of course a fallacy. But it’s amazing how many Christians will wish you and your family a slow death when you criticize one of their symbols, you know? 

Flags are just fabric and colors. A flag’s power comes from symbolism and the community and values it represents. What is that world for Johnson and the other people who honor the Appeal to Heaven flag?

 The flag represents a lot of things, but one of the things that I'll highlight is the idea of a Seven Mountains Mandate. Dutch Sheets and the apostles and prophets that he aligns with often talk about how human life is divided into seven domains: religion, family, government, education, arts, and entertainment, media, and business. The mandate is a call by God for his followers to take dominion over all of these domains in earthly society. In other words, the idea behind the Seven Mountains mandate is that Christians would enable God to have dominion over every aspect of human life; or they would enable God to dominate earth in every possible way. In one video Sheets talks about overtaking and occupying earth in the name of God. 

When I think about Mike Johnson, what this means is that he adheres to something like this mandate. When Johnson advocates for the overturning of the election, and the reinstating of Donald Trump as president, I see a person who wants a figure, in this case Trump, at the top of the government mountain to be in charge in order to dominate for God.  When I think of those rioters on January 6 flying the Appeal to Heaven flag, I think of people who are trying, once again, to dominate earthly society for God. The world of this flag is a world in which Christians are the heads of every part of earthly life. This is not a theological vision based on pluralism or negotiation or dialogue. It's not about interfaith communication. It's not about a multi-religious society. It's about Christian supremacy.