How did we get here? The Republican Party nominated Jim Jordan to the position of Speaker of the House. This is a man who has not passed a single piece of legislation in his 16 years in the House. This is a man who has been accused of ignoring sexual assaults against his wrestlers when he was a coach in college. This is a man who has pushed a bill for a nationwide abortion ban without exceptions. This is a man who has repeatedly called for a government shutdown to use blackmail to push a rightwing agenda. This is a man who was a key player in Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. This is a man who is unapologetically an extremely loyal Trump acolyte (sycophant? choose your own word) This is a man who has not acknowledged that Biden won the 2020 election to this day. This is a man who was called a ‘legislative terrorist’ by the former Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner. This is a man, who if elected to be Speaker of the House, will be second in line for the presidency. Is this really the best the Republicans can do? If so, it does not speak well of the current Republican Party.
Fortunately, in the latest vote for Speaker, Jordan did not have enough votes and, in fact, lost two more votes than he had in the previous ballot. But the sheer fact that he is the nominee of the Republican Party speaks volumes to where the ideology of the Republican Party is these days. That is, if you can call ‘obstruction’, ‘conspiracy theories’, and ‘alternate facts’ an ideology.
We got here, in part, because the former speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was so focused on getting the Speakership and the treasured gavel that he sold his soul to the minority extremists in his party. He was blackmailed during his entire tenure because of it. When he finally grew a spine and worked with some Democrats to pass a Continuing Resolution to keep the government open for a short period of time at the end of last fiscal year, that was considered a mortal sin by the extremists of his party. Matt Gaetz made his move and McCarthy was ousted as Speaker. I can easily believe that this was part of a plan from the beginning. It is just another example of how a minority group of extremists are hell bent on gaining power and pushing an unpopular agenda on the country.
There was a time when the Republican Party was focused on policy issues. They were advocating fiscal conservatism. They were, in general, hawkish on foreign policy. They were willing to work across the aisle with Democrats to develop compromise solutions to complex problems. They advocated for law and order. They were actually interested in governing.
The current Republican Party is a shadow of its former self. Like its titular figurehead, Donald Trump, the current Republican Party is entirely transactional in nature and views the world through a zero-sum game lens. Compromise is a dirty word and there are either winners or losers. The current party advocates nationalism. The current party promotes divisiveness, bigotry, and violence. The current party continually pushes and traffics in falsehoods, conspiracy theories and laws that are repeatedly found to be unconstitutional in courts around the country. Frankly, they should just give up the charade and rename the party, The Trump Party.
It is amazing to me that so many Americans find this appealing. Trump is the leading front runner for the Republican nomination despite being impeached twice, being under indictment for over 90 felony counts in four jurisdictions and facing additional civil cases where he has already been found guilty of fraud in one of those cases. If that isn’t bad enough, now the Republicans are seriously considering electing a man like Jim Jordan to the very powerful position of Speaker of the House.
Speaker of the House is the second in line to the presidency! If Jordan were to be elected to this position and something were to happen to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Jim Jordan would be president of the United States! Think about that. If we thought Donald J. Trump was a scary man in the White House, I shutter to think what life would look like under Jim Jordan.
There are those who will just shrug this off under the ‘that could never happen’ thought umbrella. Really? No one ever believed that our capitol would be attacked in what was essentially a coup and the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power wouldn’t happen – a first in the entire history of the country. Kevin McCarthy was the first Speaker of the House to have been ousted in that manner in the entire history of the country. The ‘that could never happen’ umbrella is showing serious holes in it and if we don’t collectively wake up, we are all going to get drenched in a toxic political downpour!
I believe with 100 percent certainty that if Jim Jordan were to be elected Speaker of the House, there is someone or some group of people that would be actively plotting or thinking of a way to take both Biden and Harris out so that Jim Jordan would become president. I hate to even write that but given the radicalization and polarization that is sweeping the current political landscape, such a scenario cannot be dismissed out of hand. That is the state of politics in America right now.
“Death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” [Robert M. Hutchins’]
