The adults finally showed up. By derailing Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid to become Speaker of the House (at least until January, when he might run again), Republicans appear to have dodged a massive bullet on Thursday.
Sure, it was a small band of Republicans (22 on the second ballot) who rallied to stop Jordan—a man who was involved in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election—from becoming speaker. But it was a much slimmer minority of Republicans who made Jordan’s ascension plausible in the first place.
And let’s be honest: If Jordan had managed to win the speakership, we’d be rightly lamenting that “the Trumpification of the GOP was now complete with a Big Lie promoter becoming Speaker.” So, it’s only fair to give credit to Republicans who pumped the brakes.
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It couldn’t have been easy. Jordan’s team tried to bully holdouts into submission. One GOP member, who voted for Jordan in the first round but against him in the second, even received “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls.” And she wasn’t the only member who said they received threats this week.
The pressure campaign backfired. For once, the center held.
Normie pols who are interested in governing, comity, and institutions usually lose a game of “chicken” against nihilists or political arsonists. But this time, the normies stood firm.
They didn’t just fight hard; they fought smart.
Some of Jordan’s Republican adversaries, for example, told CNN’s Melanie Zanona that “they’ve been purposely staggering their ‘no’ votes over multiple ballots—a strategy designed to show Jordan’s speakership opposition is only growing.”
If true, this was a shrewd way to hinder a narrative suggesting that Jordan was inching towards victory. If anything, it demonstrated that he was losing momentum. They bled him, and it worked.
This is a long way of saying that, for the first time in a long time, the GOP “establishment” has earned our respect. And while this does not mean the GOP has totally redeemed itself, it does mean that they have taken a crucial step back from the abyss of an almost entirely MAGA-dominated Republican Party.
I would also argue that, aside from all the potentially serious governing problems that a Jordan speakership might have entailed (a failure to keep the government open, potentially not helping to fund Ukraine’s defense against Russia, etc.), Republicans have also avoided a serious political threat in 2024: The likelihood that Jordan, as speaker, would have reinforced Joe Biden’s plan to run against MAGA, not just Trump.
Think of it this way: If voters show up in Nov. 2024 and are thinking about inflation or which candidate is too old, Biden will likely lose. So Biden needs to ensure that there is some other, more worrying, topic to focus on, instead.
As such, Joe Biden wants the 2024 election to be a referendum on MAGA chaos, coups, and a fear of losing liberal democracy itself. In the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, abortion also remains a potent issue for Democrats to wield against Republicans.
If the voters’ main focus is on these issues, Biden wins and Trump loses.
But what does any of this have to do with Jim Jordan?
Speaker Jordan would have symbolically reinforced the very issues that would cause House Republicans—and Donald Trump—to lose in 2024.
As noted above, Jordan was involved in advancing Trump’s Big Lie, as well as in attempting to stop the certification of Biden’s presidency. And during the nominating speech for Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Tuesday, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) noted that Jordan was responsible for “authoring the very bill that would ban abortion nationwide without exceptions and inciting violence on this chamber.”
The ads write themselves. Perhaps this is why Democrats were so gleeful at the prospect of a Speaker Jordan. “Democrats think Jordan will cost Republican seats in 2024, opening up a path to the majority,” reported The Washington Post on Tuesday. “They are likely to tie Jordan to Trump, who is leading in the presidential Republican primary by double digits, and paint the entire party as MAGA extremists, multiple Democrats say.”
By stopping Jordan’s speaker bid, 22 House Republicans have undermined this Democratic talking point.
Now, if you are an accelerationist who buys into a Leninist “worse is better” theory of politics that says that the only way to save America is for Republicans to go completely off the rails, or that all Republicans are equally evil, then Jordan not becoming speaker is bad news.
But if you (like me) think that it’s incumbent upon us to prevent election deniers from obtaining the upper echelons of power, then this development is worth celebrating.
Chalk one up for Team Normal. It’s a rare win for them. Here’s hoping it’s the first of many.
