House Speaker Mike Johnson looked at a 40-seat midterm bloodbath and decided the problem was the voters — proving once again that Republican leadership would rather scold the country than reckon with its own failures.

The GOP lost both chambers of Congress last Tuesday, with Democrats winning at least 254 House seats to the Republicans' 165, with 16 races still uncalled. Rather than ask what his conference did to earn that rejection, the outgoing speaker told CNN the voters made "the wrong choice." Working Americans sent a message, and Johnson's response was to tell them they didn't know what was good for them.

"I'm sorry that the voters made the wrong choice. I really do believe that this next two years is going to be a bit of a circus. It's going to be chaos... and that's a great tragedy," Johnson told CNN's Manu Raju. He dismissed any suggestion that Trump should change course: "I'm not going to tell the president how to do his job. We have an incredible record."

Incredible record? Voters handed Republicans a historic rebuke. David Axelrod noted the irony: "This is the Speaker who's had to adjourn Congress because he couldn't manage his caucus or control the floor." Fox News host Jessica Tarlov put it plainly: "Mike Johnson out here blaming voters and not the GOP circus that drove them away."

Johnson isn't alone in dodging accountability — he's just the most shameless about it. Vice President JD Vance pointed the finger at the Iran war. Trump alluded to gas prices driven up by the conflict. Only Ron DeSantis came close to naming the real problem, blaming "corporatist Republicans" for driving young Americans away from the party's message.

The word "corporatist" is doing the work there. Voters didn't reject populism. They rejected a party that talked populist on the trail and delivered for the lobbying class in office. That's the bipartisan failure Johnson can't admit.

Now House Republicans meet Tuesday behind closed doors to pick a new leader. The choice is between Steve Scalise — the No. 2 Republican since 2023, a decade-long leadership insider pitching "conservative and consensus-driven" continuity — and Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus co-founder telling colleagues that "offense, not defense, wins elections" and taking a direct swipe at the Johnson-Scalise leadership team. "For too long, we have operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us," Jordan wrote.

NPR reports more than 70% of the incoming GOP conference was elected after Trump's first term. These members didn't come to Washington to manage the establishment's decline. The question is whether Jordan's pugilistic style translates into actual delivery on populist priorities — or just more noise.

Meanwhile, Democrats are planning their offensive. Hakeem Jeffries vowed he's a "hard yes" on impeaching Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, claiming he "abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran." The resolution is being spearheaded by Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Johnson called it "cheap tricks" and warned impeaching a cabinet secretary during hostilities abroad would be "a terrible look." The same speaker who presided over Mayorkas's impeachment — charges the Senate dismissed as unconstitutional — now clutches his pearls about the process.

Johnson has already ruled himself out of the minority leader race. Small mercy. The man who couldn't hold his caucus together, couldn't deliver on populist priorities, and couldn't take responsibility for the result is walking away — and still insisting the voters were wrong. The real question for Scalise and Jordan is whether either of them understands why.