Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was recently in our area to throw his weight behind John Braun, the Republican candidate for Congress in the Third District.
It was a brief stop, and pulling up a chair to their roundtable cost a cool $3,500. The next time Speaker Johnson comes to Southwest Washington, don't check your mailbox for an invitation — democracy for working people ends where the four-figure cover charge begins.
Who actually got a seat? Big donors, corporate PACs and anyone with a spare $3,500 to lobby for special interests.
Do you think they spent that time talking about the everyday economic pressures squeezing working families like yours in Lewis County? Hell no.
Where does Braun fit into this world? According to financial watchdog estimates by organizations like Quiver Quantitative, his net worth sits near $29.7 million. Do you genuinely believe someone with that kind of personal wealth understands the stressful kitchen-table decisions ordinary families make every month?
What does John Braun offer the people of Southwest Washington? Stripped down, a vote for Braun is a vote for Donald Trump’s agenda:
• It is a vote for continued tax giveaways to corporations and top earners.
• It is support for energy- and water-guzzling AI data centers that strain our local infrastructure.
• It is an assault on basic affordability for the shrinking middle class and a blow to our most vulnerable neighbors — the working poor, the sick and seniors on fixed incomes.
• It is a vote for inflationary policies: huge deficits, higher grocery bills, steep interest rates and soaring fuel costs driven by reckless overseas military adventurism.
• It is an endorsement of division, chaos, and rubber-stamping party bosses.
Where does Braun stand on the broader consequences of that agenda? Did he oppose reckless military escalation abroad? No. Has he called for meaningful accountability and constitutional oversight of aggressive ICE enforcement tactics? No. Has he stood up for our regional economy against damaging trade wars with historic trading partners like Canada, or opposed across-the-board tariffs that consumers ultimately pay?
Absolutely not.
Trump has publicly and enthusiastically praised authoritarian communist leaders like China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — regimes that criminalize Christianity and ruthlessly suppress religious liberty.
As my mother used to tell me: “If you hang out with the wrong crowd, you become one of them.”
Where is the moral outrage from either John Braun or his new friend, Speaker Johnson? Their silence speaks volumes.
Working people in Lewis County need a representative who is one of us, who listens to us, who can relate to our struggles, and who is willing to fight for us — not a multi-millionaire trading access for $3,500 checks.
KP Gillan
Centralia
