Let me say this first: I have NO idea if Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan will be able to rally 217 Republicans behind his bid to be Speaker of the House.
In fact, I kind of doubt it.
But, if I am being honest, Jordan — more so than any other member of the Republican conference — should be put in charge of his party in the House. Because he best represents the modern, Trumpian incarnation of the Republican party. He is who the GOP is today.
Consider:
Jordan — both before, during and after the 2020 election — pushed conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being cheated out of the election. “Something doesn’t feel right here,” Jordan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “Our president got 9 million more votes this time than he did four years ago, and yet he comes up short.” (For much more on Jordan’s election extremism, read this.)
Jordan was one of 147 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election.
Jordan, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has led the probe into Hunter Biden —and what he alleges is systemic corruption within the Justice Department.
Jordan has long been an advocate of shutting down the government in order to extract concessions from the Senate and the White House.
Jordan was one of a handful of Republican members who forced their way into a House impeachment hearing on Trump in 2019.
Jordan refused a congressional subpoena to cooperate with the select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
There’s more. But you get the idea. Since Jordan was first elected in 2006, he has spent the vast majority of his time agitating against leadership. He has been, purposely, the fly in the ointment of the establishment. He’s been a pain in the ass. A rabble rouser. Someone ready and willing to go further than almost any of his colleagues.
“I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart — never building anything, never putting anything together,” said House Speaker John Boehner of Jordan in 2021.
Jordan also understood, early on, the power of Fox News to drive his popularity among Republicans nationally — and how that translated into power within the Congress.
As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump wrote recently:
Jordan has been a regular on the channel for years, making frequent appearances on Fox News programs, particularly in the heavily watched primetime hours. An analysis from Media Matters puts him at 268 primetime appearances on the network since August 2017, nearly half of his 565 total appearances.
Over the past three years, he is consistently been more of a presence on Fox News than was McCarthy, despite McCarthy being the leader of the Republican caucus. An analysis of Internet Archive data by the Stanford Cable Television News Analyzer shows that Jordan was seen on Fox News more often than McCarthy in 13 of the past 24 months.
So emblematic is Jordan of the rise of Trumpian populism within the GOP that Trump himself gave the Ohio Republican the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2021 — praising the Ohioan’s “effort to confront the impeachment witch hunt.”
And, like Trump, when confronted with serious allegations — in Jordan’s case that he knew of sexual abuse within the Ohio State wrestling program — he has denied denied denied.
“Congressman Jordan never saw any abuse, never heard about any abuse, and never had any abuse reported to him during his time as a coach at Ohio State,” his office said in a statement released in 2018.
In every possible way then, Jordan fits what the Republican party has evolved into since this happened in 2015:
Here’s another way to think about all of this: Jordan is of the populist movement that Trump now champions. That is where his roots are. Where he has always identified politically.
That’s very different than, say, Kevin McCarthy or Steve Scalise.
McCarthy, by nature, is a pragmatist, a deal maker. Yes, he put on the skin of the Trump movement — even going to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring post January 6 — but he did so out of political necessity.
But, McCarthy was never a bomb thrower. He was the consummate insider — playing the game and climbing the ladder until he got his chance (after 15 ballots!).
Ditto Scalise. While the Louisianan is more naturally conservative than McCarthy, his politics are fundamentally establishment and institutional. He is a careful climber — as evidenced by the fact that when he pulled out of the Speaker’s race on Thursday, he made clear he would hold on to his role as House majority leader.
Neither of them have Trumpian populism, true Ultra MAGA stuff in their bones. Jordan does. He was MAGA before Trump ever uttered that slogan.
Which, candidly, is where the majority of the Republican base is today. Need evidence? Look no further than Trump’s massive lead in the 2024 Republican presidential race.
None of the above ensures that Jordan will be the next Speaker of the House. There’s already people lining up against the idea. And, like I said above, if I HAD to guess, I would say Jordan winds up coming up short of the 217 votes he needs.
But, it’s clear to me that Jordan — more so than any other House member — now represents the true nature of this Republican party, particularly as it is manifested in the House. He is the modern GOP. Why not let him lead it?
I am guessing this was written as satire? If this was April 1, I might have laughed... Is it a Friday the 13th thing? Or maybe a script plot line for Saturday Night Live, which I am not sure even they would touch?
I understand the concept he should try to lead the circus (cesspool?) he has helped to create - would serve him right to be on the other side of all of the arrows he has spent his congressional career shooting at the leadership - I think Boehner would be delighted to see him in the role and try to manage the caucus. I even understand the concept put forward by Brendan Buck this morning https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/jim-jordan-house-speaker-maga-hardliner-republican-rcna119252 that Jordan would be best able to gain the support of the ultra MAGA right members.
Yet, it is all of us, everyone outside of the beltway, who would suffer. This is not a man who can be trusted - just his actions as leader of the so-called "weaponization" committee should be proof positive enough. The risk to the nation and the ability of the government to operate or function is at stake - who knows how long a shutdown might last based upon Jordan's leadership, a man who has never been known to compromise. And this is but one issue he will have to manage through.
Yes, it might be a hilarious show to watch him try to manage the house - absolutely - however, to me, the cost to America is way too high - forgive the language, however, I fear it would be nothing but a horrendous sh** show.
Jordan is probably right that he knew nothing about the sexual abuse. If I was an athlete on that team who had been abused by that doctor, the absolute last person I would tell would be the Biggest Asshole on the team.