“America Wants Me!” Gym Jordan’s Delusion of Grandeur

Congress’ #1 Flaming-sh*t-bomb-thrower “Gym Jordan has convinced himself HE is the person American demands as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the second in line for the Presidency in the order of succession. Wow. For all his time in Congress (thanks to one of the most ridiculously gerrymandered districts ever) he’s never authored/passed a single piece of legislation. He’s always been a worse version of what Newt Gingrich was, and Gingrich was smarter and more capable than Jordan. Not that that’s saying much but keep in mind Gingrich always wanted to be Speaker (until now Jordan has never voiced such ambitions) yet poor Newt wound up out of his depth when his dream came true. Jordan would do well to take a lesson but hell, this is Gym Jordan we’re talking about!

What matters at the moment is that in the weird, dysfunctional House of Representatives and the larger U.S. government is that Jordan, who’s been useless as a legislator, has fellow Republicans grumbling over his “bigly” “get Joe Biden via Hunter Biden” committee leadership has fallen flat thinks America is hoping, even ready to demand he be elevated to Speaker! (Memo to Trump. If you want someone as delusional as you to make you feel better, although Jordan is a guy and doesn’t have big hooters you can ogle he’s YOUR kindred spirit!) How in the HELL have we wound up at such a crazy point?

As you know the House of Representatives has been paralyzed since Matt Gaetz’s hissy fit over former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s preventing a govt. shutdown led to to get McCarthy removed. Given the godawful display they put on this past January (How bad? Even though they’re Republicans THEY were embarrassed by it!) the promised that really, truly they’d do better this time. Not that with only that 45 day Continuing Resolution (to keep the govt. funded) and other pressing matters to deal with taking a week to elect a new Speaker seemed both too long to wait, it was also many believed wishful thinking. As in if there wasn’t a clear choice already lined up the rest of us, and probably a boatload of House GOPers knew what happened in January was only a warmup for what was to come this time.

Sure enough, those of us (most people) were correct and that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell we’d have a new Speaker on Wednesday like Republicans oh so sincerely promised, but not this week. At the moment there’s no telling when we might see this resolved and with a new war, in Israel of all places breaking out due to Hamas’ massive terrorist attack what was urgent before has become critical. The House cannot function without a Speaker, and because of that our government is hamstrung in providing assistance to contain this war and help Israel.  And also help the millions of Palestinians in the Gaza strip who had no choice in Hamas being installed to “govern” that tiny piece of land. However, an Interim House Speaker can ONLY gavel open a session of the House and ONLY for the purpose of choosing a new Speaker. He/She can’t bring legislation to the floor and that means no aid package for Israel with every single House Republican claims to fervently support. (To which I call bulls**t)

Now, on the surface it looked as though yes indeed the House Republicans would have an orderly process instead of a free-for-all. Two well known names announced they’d run and a third who wasn’t well-known but seemingly respected said he probably would do so. Well, that third guy (Hern) dropped out but Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio seemed civil enough over the weekend as reports of them making calls to and visiting offices of colleagues to lobby for the job of Speaker managed to get into the news. Then came the big closed door (with cell phones confiscated) meeting where the vote would be held. Although Trump had publicly advocated for Jordan, ole “Gym” LOST to Scalise. Not by a lot but more than a few. What many didn’t notice however was that even if one through all of their support to the other which appeared to happen later on, it still didn’t add up to the magic number of 217 that would be needed.  So the House gaveled into session and turned right around and gaveled into recess when the moment came to put things to a formal vote. It seems that since that caucus vote Scalise lost support! Ouch.

Now keep in mind we were given a picture of unity when Jordan publicly announced he was dropping out after losing to Scalise in that vote, and telling his supporters to vote for Scalise. It still wouldn’t have solved the math problem of their combined vote still not reaching the magic number of 217. But it doesn’t matter because Jordan was never serious about throwing support to Scalise. As Politico reports:

Some Scalise backers are particularly incensed over how Jordan handled losing to the Louisianan after the internal election this week.

“Absolutely not,” Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), a Scalise ally, said when asked if she’d back Jordan. “Yesterday in conference, he gave the most disgraceful, ungracious — I can’t call it a concession speech — of all time. There were gasps in the room.”

Doesn’t seem to square with the rosy image House GOPers painted of their deliberations and the aftermath. But things get better, or perhaps worse depending on how you look at it. Jordan it seems knew damn well that there was no way Scalise would get 217 votes, in part I’m sure because whatever he said publicly he (Jordan) would sabotage his whole public “I’m supporting Steve Scalise” message. And that he’d make sure others in the conference knew it. Hence Scalise actually losing support which makes sense since so many we thought might be ready to show a bit of independence from Trump are still plenty scared of him. So we have Jordan pretty sure Scalise wouldn’t get the needed votes on the first ballot, and he had a plan.

It seems less than an hour after Jordan lost to Majority Leader Scalise in that secret ballot they had a little meeting in the latter’s office. The aforementioned Wagner wasn’t in the actual meeting but was just outside Scalise’s office and saw the aftermath as it unfolded:

According to Wagner and other House Republicans briefed on the meeting, Jordan said to Scalise: “You get one ballot. And when you go down, you will nominate me.”

She said Scalise pushed back, arguing he had won by the conference rules, to which Jordan replied: “America wants me,” before storming out the door.

Remember that Wagner was outside Scalise’s office so she could see Jordan and his demeanor for herself. Naturally there has been spin to counter this narrative, claiming it was a cordial meeting but I call bullshiite.

Jordan had major butt-hurt fee fees after that conference vote. As our own Murfster noted it was a secret ballot which gave many enough cover to say no to Trump’s chosen one and ole Gym isn’t known for being calm, cool and collected. I honestly doubt that prior to McCarthy’s downfall Jordan ever seriously considered being Speaker but once it happened and given how badly his “get Biden” committee stuff was flopping he figured why not take a shot? Trump’s endorsement probably had him feeling he was a lock for the job!

Except it wasn’t.

So now we know Jordan set about sabotaging Scalise’s chances from the get go. By get-go I mean the moment in that conference when the vote totals were announced! Jordan will fight like hell to screw over anyone else’s chances too. Our government and country is still facing a fiscal crisis, and two of our allies are at war but none of THAT matters to Jordan. He’s decided not only that he wants to be Speaker, but has convinced himself that the country believes he should be Speaker as fervently as he and Trump.

We, Israel and Ukraine (not to mention others and other issues) can’t afford this kind of crap. I hate to keep saying this but I fear things are going to get worse before they get better. Journalists could stop this Jordan lunacy if their big bosses would allow it. With that trial back in Ohio back on the tracks the time will come when Jordan is called upon. EVERY question to him and EVERY Republican can and should include a question about Jordan’s having looked the other way rather than listen to the please from the young men under his charge to stop the team doctor.

I don’t know who might turn out to be acceptable, that can get the 217 votes. I’ll say it again to fellow Democrats STOP fantasizing about a Speaker Jeffries. But maybe some type of power sharing deal that would allow some bi-partisan cooperation to get much needed stuff through the house might be possible. I sure as hell hope such discussions are underway.

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