Before Rep Jordan’s (R-OH) nomination to be Speaker of the House shuffles off the coil, it’s worth taking a look at the clashing opinions of how his Speakership might have gone. First up, far-right Erick Erickson prior to Jordan’s failure:
Finally, Jim Jordan may come out on top. I have pushed for Jordan as Speaker for a long time. I think he’d be a great Speaker who could unite the conservatives and build bridges with the moderates. As a conservative, he built enough bridges to get Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. …
But the response is that Jim Jordan is a good man who had plenty of players stand up and defend him, and the voters of Ohio have assessed the allegations against him and rejected them.
Given the Jordan propensity for obstruction, a propensity that earned scornful words from former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Erickson’s statements are a little hard to reconcile. His inability, or lack of interest, in major legislation, also marked a major flaw in his bid for the Speaker’s seat. And the out and out mis-statement of Erickson’s concerning the Judiciary Committee, when it was clearly part of the hard-ball price paid by former Speaker McCarthy (R-CA) rather than a mark of Jordan’s diplomacy, almost makes me think Erickson was paid to make that statement.
Steve Benen gives the liberal view:
By some measures, Jordan has earned the label of Congress’ Worst Member. Sure, there are other radicals from the GOP’s insurrectionist wing who appear overtly hostile toward democracy. And yes, there are other conspiracy theorists. There are also others on Capitol Hill who’ve failed to pass legislation, who’ve overseen failed investigations, who care more about Fox News appearances than governing, and who don’t appear the slightest bit interested in the substance of policymaking.
But the chairman of the Judiciary Committee stands out because he checks each of the boxes. Jordan was, and is, uniquely unfit to serve as a constitutional officer.
House Republicans knew that.
And academic conservative Andrew Sullivan gives his view of Rep Jordan from behind a paywall:
The leading candidate for the Speaker, who keeps running and keeps losing, is Jim Jordan, the apotheosis of Republican nihilism: he has passed no legislation in his time in office — zero! — and he was up to his neck in the attempt to overturn the last election and in the storming of the Capitol on January 6. He has launched investigations into every Trump prosecutor. His supporters have run intimidation campaigns, including death threats. He is entirely a negative, howling artifact of ideology.
The point? Erickson, as representative of the far-right desires, is either a bad judge of the general view of Jordan and others, even from within the Republican Party, or he’s willing to put a dishonest spin on people in order to promote the far-right. I do not read Erickson a great deal, but there’s often something very odd in his interpretation of worldly events, even if I can’t put my finger on it.
Meanwhile, the liberals and smart conservatives seem to have seen this coming, and that suggests a better grasp of what’s what in the political atmosphere. I have yet to change my opinion that, eventually, the far-right will be ignored or even tossed out by the moderates in the Republican Party, and they’ll negotiate a power-sharing agreement with Minority Leader Jefferies (D-NY). I don’t know if that’ll be the final straw for the Republican Party’s far right wing, or merely another step on the way to breaking away, but it’s part and parcel of the Gingrich Dictum of never giving the Democrats a victory. To most Republicans, compromise is an unacceptable evil – not only with Democrats, but even members of their own Party.
The Big Rip, a cosmology concept, may be coming to the Republican Party soon enough.
