Jim Jordan's Opprobrium: The Chickens Finally Came Home to Roost
Jim Jordan, the loud and cranky Representative from Ohio's Fourth Congressional District, finally got the message. He is not held in much esteem by his fellow Republicans, who certainly didn't want him to be their Speaker.
His Republican colleagues, in three separate votes, essentially said, "No, No, and No”—20 against, then 22 against, then 25 against. Then, it took a clear majority of the entire Republican caucus voting by secret ballot before Jim Jordan finally got the message. One hundred and twelve of his Republican colleagues secretly voted against him. In effect, they said, just go away, you've done enough harm...and take Matt Gaetz with you.
Representative Gaetz, who sandbagged Kevin McCarthy, had the audacity to complain that Jordan was "knifed by secret ballot, anonymously, in a closed-door meeting in the bowels of the Capitol. This was truly swamp tactics on display," he complained. Matt Gaetz complaining about "swamp tactics." Imagine that.
Jordan's chronic and tiresome hectoring, his blatant connivance in the 2021 effort to overthrow an American presidential election, and his utter lack of legislative accomplishment were too much baggage for many of his Republican colleagues to bear. The chickens had finally come home to roost. Songsters of CHICAGO fame, Kander and Ebb, could have been writing about Jim Jordan. He Had it Coming.
Understand this. Jim Jordan was complicit in the Bannon-Trump plan to savage an American Presidential election and the US Constitution. He tried to stop the counting of the ballots on January 6th, 2021. That was to be his role in the attempted coup. His decision to seek the Speakership of the House, which would place him second in succession to the Presidency of the United States, is breathtakingly arrogant. Jim Jordan plotted with the insurrectionists, and everyone in the House knows it. That any House member supported his run at the Speakership is, in itself, scandalous. It speaks to the frailty of our Constitutional order and the unmitigated arrogance of many of those we send to the People's House to conduct the People's business.
The spectacle of Jim Jordan running for the Speakership and scores of his fellow Republicans supporting his candidacy is historic, and not in a way history will treat kindly. It will be prominent in tomorrow's history books when students read how the curtain almost came down on American democracy.
Jordan was in direct contact with former President Trump before and during the attempted coup. However, he claims he doesn't remember precisely when he and the former President spoke during that awful day.
Selective amnesia.
When asked about what he and Trump spoke on that awful day, he answered with a straight face, "I mean, look, I got nothing to hide. I got nothing to hide." Yes, he was in touch with Trump during that fateful day, but he just couldn't remember when they spoke or precisely about what they spoke.
Listen to him: "I spoke with him that day, after? I think after," Jordan said. "I don't know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I just don't know. I'd have to go back. I don't know when those conversations happened." He just couldn't remember.
While none of the 2021 election deniers can point to any evidence of any material election fraud, clinging to the illusion of election fraud has been the price of admission to the Republican inner circle. Most House Republican Committee Chairs are, or pretend to be, election deniers. Think of that!
It seems to be the price of admission to the club. Jordan, who chairs one of the most important committees in the House, will not acknowledge that Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He can't. No Republican can acknowledge Biden's election win without incurring the wrath of Trump, and few of them have the spine to put up with that. Jordan lost the support of Representative Ken Buck from Colorado, as solid a conservative Republican as there is, simply because he couldn't acknowledge publicly that Biden had won the election.
The stolen election farce is the holy grail to every Republican who still covets Trump's endorsement or fears his wrath. Jordan stuck with Trump's stolen election farce, secured the former President's endorsement, and lost anyway. Sooner or later, the Jordan lesson will sink in. Trump's support isn't the key to the kingdom nor worth the self-degradation it demands.
Jim Jordan schemed with the former President to abort the peaceful transfer of power in the United States. He ignored subpoenas to testify truthfully before the bi-partisan January 6th investigative committee, and he lost the support of 112 twelve members of his own party in his audacious and failed grab for the House speakership. Farcically, this coup schemer remains Chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee.
Meanwhile, like the late New York Daily News columnist and novelist Jimmy Breslin's "Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight," the GOP, besotted by the likes of Trump and acolyte Gaetz, has become the gang that can't legislate. They can't even pick a Speaker. Since this week's thumbs down on Jim Jordan, several Republicans are maneuvering for a run at the vacant Speaker's chair. Take your pick from among those who, according to the New York Times, are known to be considering a grab for the gavel. There's Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Byron Donalds of Florida, Jack Bergman of Michigan, and Austin Scott of Georgia.
This chaos, this spectacle of incompetence and paralyzed government, is little more than a self-inflicted, festering wound inflicted on the People's House by the Katzenjammer crowd running the United States House of Representatives.
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You are correct regarding Jordan's behavior of late and before. I do not understand how some representatives continue to get elected - even if their shenanigans to not match with the majority of their constituents.
I have one of those representatives in my NW Florida district - Matt Gaetz. He has gotten re-elected solely because he 'brags' and claims responsibility for continued funding of military installations in the district. He also has benefitted from poor candidates running against him. Hopefully that will change.
WHY do YOU and media ignore the obvious, clandestine CCP purchase of Dominion voting machine company just before the election for a reported $400 Million ? ...and then tried to deny it also using wall street shell corporations to wit ? Such EVIDENCE would NOT sit well in any court of US law and would be deemed damning circumstantial evidence of election tampering ! I do NOT expect an answer.