Mike Johnson managed to do something Kevin McCarthy couldn’t: Ignore the far-right Republicans

On Tuesday morning, something remarkably unremarkable happened: The House and Senate Appropriations committees and congressional leadership announced they had crafted a deal to keep the government open for the rest of the fiscal year.

Congress had already passed six congressional spending bills earlier this month. But the final six were always going to be tougher to pass, specifically because of the fact that it would include funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which would give hard-right Republicans the ability to extract demands from the White House and a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Indeed, on Monday evening, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good of Virginia — who helped oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker last year — sent a letter along with 41 other conservatives to House Speaker Mike Johnson, demanding changes to immigration policy. It also demanded that the government end diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the Pentagon.

But Johnson seems to have channeled his inner Michael Corleone and responded that “my final offer is this: nothing.”

Johnson standing up to the Freedom Caucus folks who torpedoed his predecessor might surprise some people. He still has to navigate a thin majority; indeed, McCarthy’s exit at the end of the year and Ken Buck’s decision last week to leave the House means he has an even thinner margin to navigate than McCarthy himself.

Where McCarthy shifted his politics to suit the moment — going from reasonable dealmaker in his days in the California legislature to servant of Donald Trump later in his tenure — Johnson is far more ideological. He sells himself as a pious, Bible-believing Christian whose politics are an extension of his deeply conservative faith. Indeed, after he