Mike Johnson says son treated differently ‘because of the color of his skin’: Far right cries foul

Mike Johnson is a Trump loyalist, election denier, anti-abortion and ant-LGBTQ+ absolutist, but he also has an adopted Black son, and because Johnson, the new House Speaker, acknowledges that the world treats his son differently because of his race, that means he’s a radical Leftist.

“Is he an undercover Democrat?” was the response of Lara Loomer, the far-right conspiracy theorist best known for being banned from the kinder, gentler social media sites because of her vitriol.

Johnson’s sin, in the eyes of Republicans, is saying the quiet part on race out loud, and that’s making things uncomfortable for many in the Republican Party, which is trying to rewrite American history to pretend that slavery and Jim Crow never existed.

The issue being raised by the likes of Loomer has to do with an interview in 2020 in which Johnson talked about his adopted son, Michael.

“Michael being a black American, and Jack being white Caucasian, they have different challenges,” Johnson told journalist Walter Isaacson in the interview. “My son Jack has an easier path. He just does. The interesting thing about both of these kids, Michael and Jack, is they’re both handsome, articulate, really talented kids, gifted by God to do lots of things.

“The reality is, and no one can tell me otherwise, my son Michael had a harder time than my son Jack is going to have simply because of the color of his skin. And that’s a reality. It’s an uncomfortable, painful one to acknowledge, but people have to recognize that’s a fact,” Johnson said.

Wow, right?

It does get a little deeper.

“What should we do about that?” Isaacson asked Johnson.

“I think that we need, we really do need systematic change. I think we need transformative solutions,” Johnson said.

“Systematic change.”

Pretty profound, based on his lived experience.

Makes you wonder what Johnson might think about abortion and LGBTQ+ issues if he had some lived experiences there.

His perspective on his sons, and comments earlier in the interview, conducted in the days after the death of George Floyd that sparked weeks of protests nationwide in the late spring of 2020, in which Johnson acknowledged that Floyd’s death was “an act of murder,” are controversial enough to his fellow Republicans.

One new Mike Johnson critic, Matt Walsh, a far-right journalist, author and podcaster known for his work with Daily Wire, called Johnson’s comments on race “a full-fledged endorsement of the Left’s racial narrative.”

“It’s even worse than it looks when you see the full context,” Walsh wrote on Twitter. “He went on PBS a week after George Floyd’s overdose and called it an ‘outrage’ and ‘objectively an act of murder,’ and then went on to fully endorse BLM’s talking points and policy prescriptions.

“Completely disqualifying. Every conservative celebrating this guy needs to watch this interview,” Walsh said.

Pedro Gonzalez, a far-right commentator with a following on Substack, also flagged the comments on Johnson on race, citing them as evidence that “the new GOP House speaker has completely internalized left-wing racial libel about white supremacy and privilege.”

Loomer built off her musing about Johnson being an “undercover Democrat,” asking on Twitter, “What type of MAGA Republican says something like this?”

“George Floyd was a drug addict and a criminal. Yet the new Speaker of the House said his heart broke for George Floyd. I’m really MAGA. You know who my heart breaks for? Derek Chauvin. Derek Chauvin is an innocent man. He was sacrificed to appease the violent BLM mob that was enabled by liars like Mike Johnson.”