House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke via video to the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand activist conference Saturday. As he prepared to hit the campaign trail for Republican House candidates, Johnson repeated his assertions that God will bless Republicans by increasing their majority in the midterm elections. He also previewed his messaging strategy for the next five weeks: demonizing Democrats as communists.
FRC President Tony Perkins introduced Johnson by telling activists who might be discouraged about current polls to remember that Johnson’s leadership role is a sign of the “tremendous progress” that religious-right activists’ prayers and political efforts have brought about.
Johnson agreed, saying:
We have gained ground, and thanks be to God, we won unified government in 2024. And remember, if you remember, even up to the night before that election, the pundits were saying that we would not keep the House majority and that we might lose the Senate and that even President Trump couldn't win, but we know the outcome. And so Republicans were given control again at the White House, the Senate, and the House—unified government.
Johnson cited the Republicans’ tax cuts, which heavily benefited the wealthiest Americans, as one piece of evidence that “God has been gracious to us and answered those prayers and we’ve delivered on our promises.”
But, he said, this election is not just about policy differences:
It's not just a contest right now between Republicans and Democrats. As everybody in that auditorium knows, this is a contrast between two completely different worldviews, visions for America, who we are and what we're going to be. And that's what's on the ballot in 37 days.
When Perkins said that Johnson and others “expressing their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ from positions of leadership” is “emboldening the church across the nation,” Johnson responded, “I hope so. I mean, that’s the objective.”
And when Perkins described the upcoming elections as “communist versus common sense,” Johnson agreed, saying that “the insurgent left is taking over the Democrat Party.” He said about 38 or 40 “radical leftist Marxist ideologues” have won Democratic primary elections, adding, “And we have to defeat that ideology because it is anti-American. And frankly, it is anti-God.”
Johnson made it clear that he and the MAGA political machine will try to paint all Democrats with the same brush:
The most dangerous candidate for Congress right now is not the openly avowed Marxist socialists because they tell you what they're about…They’ve calculated, Tony, that over two or three election cycles they can elect enough Marxists to quite literally take over everything…And what I was going to say is that the most dangerous candidate for Congress right now isn't the person waving that flag. It's the Democrat running as a so-called moderate. When we know very well that that moderate Democrat wing is not going to exist anymore. They’ll have no power because the energy, the excitement, the grassroots, is on the side of the insurgent left. And they will move that party off the cliff. That’s what’s gonna happen.
Johnson promoted a propaganda and fundraising website that is funded by his campaign committee, contrastforamerica.com, that calls the midterms a contrast between “common sense and crazy.”
“Socialism is the first step to communism, and throughout history every single attempt at socialism or communism has failed—leaving populations starving and countries gutted,” the website warns. Its examples, of course, don’t include the successful social democracies of western Europe.
