Having lost the first vote to become House speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan will try again on a decisive second ballot that will test whether the hard-edged ally of Donald Trump can win over the holdouts or if his bid for the gavel is collapsing, denied by detractors.
Ahead of Wednesday morning’s voting, Jordan made an unexpected plea for party unity, the combative Judiciary Committee chairman telling his colleagues on social media, “we must stop attacking each other and come together.”
But a surprisingly large and politically diverse group of 20 Republicans rejected Jordan’s nomination, many resisting the hardball tactics enforcing support, and viewing the Ohio congressman as too extreme for the powerful position of House speaker, second in line to the presidency.
Their version of “come together” always has been “We get everything we want and get to continue shitting all over you while you get to sit there and thank us for it”. Even within their own ranks.
The holdouts most likely realize that Jim Jordan’s word is about as valuable as dogshit, and there’d be nothing they can do about it the minute he tells his own allies to go pound sand. This is also why the Democrats should not be supporting any kind of “consensus” speaker, because they would have exactly zero leverage to enforce whatever deal they strike, and there would be nothing stopping any GOP speaker from reneging on the deal and telling the Dems to fuck off.