Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio began his Tuesday with high hopes of becoming the 56th Speaker of the House of Representatives by the end of the day. Sadly, not only did his dream fall far short of coming true, but it was an epic failure.
Politics :
Rep. Jim Jordan has spent the bulk of his professional career being somewhat of a political “antichrist.” He’s always been that guy who has taken great pride in gumming up progress and actively making deals fail. Now, all of his old tricks are coming back to haunt him and, it’s a wonder he (of all people) is now gunning to become the next leader of the entire House of Representatives.
Does he intend (as speaker) to present legislation to the floor, only to muck it all up via his usual methods? Is he completely unaware that the only way for anything to pass in a Congress where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority is to make deals with members on the other side of the aisle? Has anyone informed him that Democrats control the US Senate as well as The White House — and that all legislation must go through those Democratically-controlled branches of government to pass?
Apparently not!
That might explain why the completely clueless and “one-trick-pony” Jordan attempted to strongarm the 5 or 6 Republican hold-outs into electing him speaker — only to realize that the “Anybody But Jim Jordan” crowd of Republicans had grown to 20 by the time the vote made it to the floor.
Yes, with 217 votes needed to become speaker, Jordan was only able to convince 200 members that he was the right candidate for the job. Or, in other words, instead of being about 5 votes shy of becoming the next speaker, Jordan was a full 20 votes short of his goal. Then, as if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries actually ended up with 212 votes — 12 more votes than Jordan, despite Republicans being the majority party.
Jordan’s bully tactics may have worked when he was a mere Trump flunkie among the general membership. However, it proved to be a deadly error when trying to become the next speaker. In fact, members of his own have since party publicly said so.
When asked if Jordan’s scheme to bully members into voting for him was considered a “turn-off” by members of the party, GOP Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida begrudgingly admitted that it was.
“I don’t think that’s what we should be doing right now.,” Donalds told Fox News’ Sandra Smith. “And listen, for all of the voters in our country, I think it’s important for members to hear your voice, and I totally respect that. But I think that there are members up here who they want to be able to make this decision on leadership and then move forward. I think some of the pressure campaigns have backfired — they have not worked. And so I think that right now, under the leadership of Jim Jordan, you know, I would request that people just take a break, take a pause. Let the members work and figure this out amongst ourselves.”
Other Republicans echoed his sentiments.
“I truly believe these intimidation techniques … are not acceptable,” said GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana. “I didn’t like what Kevin [McCarthy] did last time. And I hope Jim [Jordan] is going to change his views on that.”
“If anybody’s trying to get my vote, the last thing you want to do is try to intimidate or pressure me because then I close out entirely,” GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart told reporters.
Interestingly, Democrats would love for Jim Jordan to become the new House Speaker, since they’re convinced he would maintain the Republican clown show and lead his party to failure in the 2024 election.
“The choice of Jordan as their next speaker shows that House Republicans are intent on ignoring the issues Americans care about to focus on an extreme right-wing agenda that voters have rejected at the ballot box time and time again,” wrote Sam Cornale, executive director of the Democratic National Committee. “His election to become Speaker of the House and the face of Republicans in Congress will drag the GOP down nationwide in 2024.“
Democrats may be on to something.
According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll of 1,675 US adults, a full two-thirds (66%) now say conservative Republicans deserve at least “some” blame for “the current gridlock in Washington” (up 7 points since January), while nearly as many (64%, up 11 points) are saying the same about moderate Republicans.
The GOP will resume the process of selecting a new speaker on Wednesday. However, if voting is anything like it was on Tuesday, Republicans will be guilty of Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.
OK WASSUP! discusses Politics:
The embarrassing Jim Jordan ‘speaker’ debacle.
Regular readers may know what I’m about to say.
Jim Jordan is trash. Pure garbage. This joker has pretty much failed at everything he’s done in his adult life except get himself elected to Congress where he has proceeded to Fail at every turn.
He hates government, has no idea how government should work and as DJ points out in his post, Jordan has done nothing while being in Congress except try to destroy government. But now he has the unmitigated gall to want to be “Speaker”!?!
You really cannot make this stuff up..smh!