A Brief Update on the Worst Job in the World

Being a Republican Speaker of the House is constant misery and shame.

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All things considered, my professional life has been relatively tolerable thus far. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend “freelance magazine journalist” to anyone, I did play video games for a couple hours today and conduct most of my job via various messaging apps. It’s all good, in other words. I’ve worked good writing jobs and bad writing jobs but all told, not a terrible line of work.

That said, I’m pretty sure I have identified what is maybe one of the worst jobs in the world: Speaker of the House in a Republican “controlled” Congress. Ever since Donald Trump rode down that escalator in 2015 the Republican party has been dominated by a particularly desperate sort of politics that largely seem to mimic the hierarchy of a mediocre high school baseball team with an alcoholic coach and an unlimited supply of Zyn. Everyone is a Chad unless they’re a Cuck, half of the people speak only in incoherent internet memes, and there are a couple guys that everyone thinks are closeted.

Anyway, here’s some quick headlines about current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Trump looms over fight to oust Speaker Johnson - CNN

Marjorie Taylor Greene stands by threat to oust Johnson after "passionate" meeting - Axios

House Speaker Mike Johnson to deliver remarks with Trump on 'election integrity' - NBC

What’s going on here? Let me explain.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a 100% fascist lunatic, is trying to oust Mike Johnson because he didn’t sufficiently kill a bill to provide more aid for Ukraine (MTG wants that money to go toward “the border” because that’s the far right’s whole thing right now). Marjorie Taylor Greene was also incredibly close — like close close — with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted by her erstwhile ally/frenemy/fellow lunatic Matt Gaetz late last year.

Let’s check back in with that briefly:

McCarthy blames Gaetz's ethics problems for his ouster

Speaking at an event at Georgetown University, McCarthy said that the only reason he is not speaker is because "one person wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old."

Those are definitely not the words of a man who is bitter that he got kicked out of the third-highest office in the United States by a guy who potentially slept with a 17-year-old.

The takeaway here is that this job is cursed. It’s fucked. There is absolutely no way to win as a right-wing speaker at the moment, because while your members are largely united around their desire to see Donald Trump as president again, everything else is a squalling mess at all times, which leads to situations like this:

Why? Who can say? Then you might also have to announce something deeply stupid, like this, in order to placate on particular lunatic and also buddy up to the lunatic in office. Per the NBC story linked above:

House Speaker Mike Johnson will travel to Mar-a-Lago Friday for remarks on “election integrity” with former President Donald Trump, two sources directly familiar with the plans confirmed to NBC News.

Asked by NBC News what his press conference with Trump will focus on, Johnson said, “You’ll have to see. ... I look forward to going down there."

When asked to elaborate on “election integrity," Johnson said: “free and fair elections."

Nonsense. The man now has to fly all the way down to the Winter Court in Florida to kiss the ring and do some bizarre photo-op where he insists that Donald Trump Will Win and Also Already Won and Any Other Outcome is Fake. Cursed!

Meanwhile, Johnson’s only actual political maneuvering of late is filing his now-delayed impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which he pushed back at the request of Republican senators who didn’t want to do too much work before a long weekend. Cursed! Cucked! Confounding!

What a horrible job to have. You couldn’t pay me enough to do that job. The salary is $223,500 a year which, honestly seems low. If he really hustled I’m sure Mike Johnson could probably crank that out doing sponcon for defense contractors or something even more humiliating, like a podcast for The Hill. There are options out there Mike! Let it go!