Exhaustion is a hell of a drug

On the election of a new House Speaker.

The House (finally) has a Speaker.

Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson was elected to the top job in a Wednesday afternoon vote, winning 220 Republican votes.

So, how did he do it? After all, bigger names — Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and even Tom Emmer — had faltered at various stages of the speakership process over the past 3 weeks.

And, Johnson is neither particularly well known or particularly distinguished in his first four terms in Congress. He’s probably best known, nationally at least, for his role as a chief architect of a legal explanation for Donald Trump’s attempted overthrow of the 2020 election results.

What Johnson had going for him that none of the other candidates for Speaker did, however, was that he was a warm body at a time when House Republicans were tired and fed up.

“I think Mike Johnson is going to probably win today simply because they are all exhausted,” predicted former Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Charlie Dent in an interview on CNN earlier today.

This is best understood then as less an affirmative vote for Johnson — and what he stood for — than a tacit agreement that this public blood-letting had to end. And that Johnson was the guy in the right place at the right time.