A Weird Theocracy Has Already Spread Through the U.S. Government

Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.

—Luke, 19:46.

This week in your highly secular republic, there was a meeting of the Republican majority over the ongoing budget wrangle. Speaker Moses was pitching his plan to his caucus, which contains several people who are opposed to it—and, one suspects, to him as well. Things got a little heated. Then they got a little biblical. From NOTUS:

While at least two members who attended the White House meeting immediately flipped their votes—Reps. Greg Steube and Ron Estes—other Republicans were less convinced. “There are significant people who are still opposed,” one GOP member who attended the meeting told NOTUS. . . . In a closed-door meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday, a handful of lawmakers—including Rep. Jim Jordan—pushed Johnson to conference the two budgets, according to a source in the room. Johnson has said he opposes that idea because it would take too long. But as Johnson tries to wrangle the votes for the Senate-adopted budget, there is another larger problem for the speaker: He’s losing goodwill among House Republicans.

According to three sources, Steube went off on Johnson during Tuesday’s meeting, calling the speaker a liar and saying, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!”

Holy god, you should pardon the expression. He thinks he's The Exorcist.

While Steube’s outburst was related to how Johnson handled a discharge petition to allow new parents to vote by proxy—Steube did not agree with how Johnson tried to kill the petition—the episode illustrated an anger with Johnson that’s spreading within the conference.

The episode illustrates to this reporter that a very weird form of theocracy already has spread within the conference. Speaker Moses is lucky that Jesus wasn't taking requests that day.