The ascension of Mike Johnson to the post of speaker of the House marks the latest and perhaps the most consequential event to date in the alliance of white evangelical Christians with the Republican Party.

Thereafter, Trump did put an endorsement for Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, one of the several candidates who would be nominated to succeed McCarthy but unable to get a majority of the whole House to elect him.

Johnson, a junior member of leadership little known outside Louisiana but a champion of Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020, suddenly stood tall.

The group had such impact on the 1994 elections that gave the GOP control of Congress that Time magazine featured the 33-year-old Reed on its cover with the headline “The Right Hand of God.”

Although not an evangelical himself, and not known for religious devotion prior to his political career, Reagan appealed to these voters as an anti-tax conservative who opposed abortion and excessive federal power.

Reagan famously asked the throng of delegates at the Republican National Convention in Detroit in 1980 to bow their heads and pray with him as he accepted their nomination for president.

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