I gotta say: I’m a little disappointed in House Republicans.

Mike Johnson’s still House Speaker, and technically it only took one round of voting for Mike to retain the gavel. Recent history suggests the process should’ve played out over several unbearably arduous ballots, each one more embarrassing for Johnson, the GOP and, ultimately, for America, than the last, with the archest of arch-conservatives holding out for nonspecific demands or for no reason at all.

To be sure, the proceedings were fraught. And daft. Indicative of a Republican party riven along lines it can’t even delineate anymore. Johnson used to count as an arch-conservative himself. He was all-in on “Stop The Steal.” He was once dubbed “MAGA Mike” by none other than Matt Gaetz.

But the bar to clear to count as a dyed-in-the-wool right-winger in America in 2025 is so high that only a handful of the most maniacal personalities can clear it. Trump isn’t among them, by the way. He’s far too wayward on far too many issues to count as a dyed-in-the-wool anything, let alone an ultra-orthodox, committed conservative, assuming it’s possible to define “conservative” in the US political context these days.

Trump’s a kind of apostate ayatollah for the MAGA movement. He doesn’t always come down as hard, or even where, he “should” on key culture war issues, but he’s the Supreme Leader. Without him, Republicans would struggle to turn out the Cracker Barrel vote, which is absolutely key to overcoming what, less than 10 years ago, still looked like an existential electoral demographic crisis for the party.

Johnson first claimed the House gavel in October of 2023, when the GOP’s right-most flank — at the time led by Gaetz — delivered the coup de grâce for Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, a star-crossed tenure marred by comically bitter intra-party conflict. McCarthy famously endured 15 rounds of voting over four days to secure the gavel, only to become the first House Speaker in history ousted by a motion to vacate. Kevin left Capitol Hill altogether two months later.

If it was ironic that McCarthy became synonymous with the derogatory term “RINO,” having himself once counted as a paragon of American far-right “virtue,” the right’s shifting perception of Johnson as somehow not pious enough to lead the GOP caucus represents the Republican metamorphosis taken to its (il)logical extreme.

Johnson, you’re reminded, was an avowed election denier, served on Trump’s impeachment defense team in 2020, voted (with three-dozen other Republicans) to sustain objections to state electors the day pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol and once supported an absurdist impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. He’s also an evangelical Christian who called Roe “Constitutional cover” for the “killing of unborn children.” I could go on.

And yet, Johnson has limits. For example, he defended military aid to Ukraine last year, a no-no in far-right circles. “To put it bluntly, I’d rather send bullets to Ukraine than Americans,” Johnson said at the time, adding that “you do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may.”

McCarthy lived (and ultimately died) by a similar legislative motto as Speaker, and in the short-lived, Elon Musk-inspired chaos which briefly threatened to shutter the US government over Christmas last month, some thought they saw the end of Johnson’s speakership. But he prevailed by the slimmest of margins, retaining the gavel in a 218-215 vote after winning over two GOP hardliners.

One of the holdouts — Keith Self of Texas — later told The New York Times that Johnson “agreed to include more members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus in negotiations over the budget and tax bill that Republicans plan to pass later this year.”

Again, it’s surreal (and pretty scary besides) that Johnson no longer counts as “hard-right.” And I should correct myself. Johnson didn’t win over anyone. Rather, Trump bullied the holdouts. Nancy Mace had to call him (Trump) away from a golf game to convince Self and also Ralph Norman, who said Trump told him, “We’ve got the most opportunity we’ve ever had — House, Senate, the trifecta. You don’t get that opportunity.” In other words: “Ralph, Mike’s going to be Speaker. Got it?”

Later, Trump described Johnson’s narrow reelection “an unprecedented vote of confidence in Congress.” I’m not sure what “unprecedented” means in this context. He went on to suggest Americans can expect four years of “Common Sense, Strength, and Leadership,” all proper nouns, apparently.

Coming full circle, the whole thing felt a bit anticlimactic. Put differently, and to employ a beloved meme, I was told there’d be a farce.

If you’re like me, and you expected more in the way of slapstick internecine bickering to the detriment of the Republican party and the nation more generally, don’t worry. It’s coming. In a letter to fellow House Republicans, the Freedom Caucus said they only voted for Johnson “because of our steadfast support of President Trump.”

So, still Speaker. But only by the grace of god.