Dope1: Nobody's heard of this guy until last week. Of course, that does explain the NPC smear campaign.

Well, Johnson is the least experience Speaker in 140 years. He is in his fourth term and has never served in a senior leadership position or even as a full committee chair. But for republicans, inexperience is a feature, not a bug.

And what "smear campaign"? You just wrote, "Nobody's heard of this guy," and reporters are now taking a close look at the guy who's number two in line for the presidency. And all they're doing is quoting his own words.

For example: the guy believes Noah's Ark is historical fact. Johnson provided legal representation for the Ark Encounter creationist theme park and successfully secured $18 million in tax subsidies from the state of Kentucky for the park, saying: "The Ark Encounter is one way to bring people to this recognition of the truth, that what we read in the Bible are actual historical events."

Johnson blamed school shootings on the teaching of evolution: "And people say, 'How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?' Because we've taught a whole generation, a couple generations now of Americans, that there's no right or wrong, that it's about survival of the fittest, and you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there's nobody sacred to whom it's owed. None of this should surprise us."

Johnson was the key architect of Trump's effort to steal the 2020 election. About three-quarters of Republicans supporting Trump's election challenge relied on his argument that several states had improperly changed their voting rules in response to the pandemic, thus nullifying their results and allowing the Republican House to select the winner.

Johnson spent eight years working as a senior attorney and national spokesperson for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed ADF as a hate group. He has spent the past twenty years arguing for the criminalization of gay sex and against the legalization of same-sex marriage.

He is an advocate for "covenant marriage."

Johnson does not believe in the separation of church and state: "The founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around." Interesting for a "constitutional scholar".

He advocates for the federal ban of abortion nationwide and has said he is open to banning abortion beginning at fertilization.

So people are taking a close look at Johnson now, as we should, and are writing about his beliefs and legislative positions to inform the public.

And educating the public about what Johnson has said and argued to become law is not a smear campaign.

nymag.com - House speaker mike johnson not fun facts