He’s losing by a bigger margin in Round 2
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Voting is about a quarter done and, not only are there already far more Republican votes for non-Jordan candidates that he’s already lost but several who voted for him yesterday have defected. He’s toast.
Update from SLT:
Going in the wrong direction (source: NYT):
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Small victories, but still worth enjoying. Even if the appearance of a bit of a spine in the Republican menagerie is probably fleeting and illusional, who knows? Maybe the bulk of the Republicans in Congress will start to realize they DON’T have to cave in to the bullies all the time.
I can dream!
The moderates have grown spines.
I’m going to withhold judgement until it’s over. Remember it took McCarthy four days.
And I even if it ends up being someone other than Jordan I don’t think it indicates actual spines. It would just indicate they judged him finished and therefore unable to hurt them.
Jordan now has more no votes than McCarthy ever did during his 15 round battle earlier this year. And it’s trending in the wrong direction. If he dares to hold a third vote, he will probably lose 40 total.
It remains astonishing to me that Republicans even *nominated* him.
Isn’t there anyone–ANYONE–in the House Republican conference that is intelligent, strategic, effective without being an @sshole, and who, say, doesn’t have allegations of looking the other way while students were being assaulted as baggage?
These really don’t feel like they should be high barriers to clear, and yet here we are…
@Jen:
These (intelligent, strategic, effective without being an @sshole) really don’t feel like they should be high barriers to clear, and yet here we are…
Perhaps it’s that those are not the qualities modern Republican’s are looking for. Especially that last bit.
So far as I know, Scalise and Jordan are the only two who even ran for the office.
Why would anyone want that job at this point? This stretches as far back to Boehner when it became clear that the House GOP can’t be led if there is a Dem in the White House.
The thing is Gaetz and the Krazy Kaukus will demand the same concessions from Kevin to vote for him. Then motion to vacate him after he refuses to shut down the government again. Assuming he refuses. He may just be spineless enough to cave.
It’s time to shatter the paradigm and try the unprecedented. Pick someone the bulk of the GQP conference can live with whom the Democrats will also accept (“Is there a unicorn in the House?”)
So far as I know, Scalise and Jordan are the only two who even ran for the office.
Wow. Well, that explains it, but, I mean…just…WOW. Second in line of succession, leading the House, a substantial amount of power (if you are an effective politician)…and no one wants the job. YIKES.
Tell me the Republican caucus is ungovernable without telling me the Republican caucus is ungovernable…
ETA: I’m tempted to insert a “well, one reaps what one sows” comment here. Encourage the crazies and they can’t be surprised when that’s what they get.
@Kathy:
Jordan’s a fool if he thinks otherwise. In fact, they’ll be able to get even more insane concessions out of him because of the last sh^tshow and his dismal failings right now. The nuts are likely going over their fantasy wish lists right now with glee. The moderates’ spines will also disappear once the goodie bag has enough candy in it – the only question is what do they want enough to cave?
(I maintain the expulsion of a nut – likely Gaetz – should be on the moderates’ demand list. It will appeal to Jordan’s authoritarian side at least. Try that with me and see what happens!)
Can I just take a moment as a damn furriner to ask:
“Hey, Republicans! WTF?”
This seems to be the consequences of a two-party political system where instutionalised primaries allow the lunatics to take over the asylum. So the electeds and officials increasingly either are loonies themselves, or pressed hard to pander to them.
As the old proverb about directions to destination goes: “Don’t start from here.”
One interesting part about this is the institutionalized Role of Republican negotiations. Republicans are always expected to Negotiate somehow with their far right whereas Democrats are expected to throw the far left overboard.
It’s also definitely true that Republicans objectively aren’t interested in governing… except we don’t hear the same people who otherwise place responsibility on Democrats now rightly blaming Republicans for the R interest in breaking stuff. It’s as if because Democrats want things to function, the entirety of that function is on them.
Who’d have ever thought that the combination of being a bully and not sponsoring a single piece of successful legislation since entering the House in 2006 would lead to not being promoted to leadership?
@KM:
[the nuts]’ll be able to get even more insane concessions out of him because of the last sh^tshow and his dismal failings right now.
Considering that the Freedom Caucus (of which Gymbo is a founder IIRC) is the leading edge of insanity from conservatives in Congress, what are the nuts going to ask for that Gym won’t support?
@JohnSF: You can if you want, but in the brave new world of the conservative singularity, we’re all damn furriners.
@Kathy:
The pic reminds of Jon McNaughton’s work. Grandiose Much-Ado/Absurd.
I suspect demonstrating an ability to set Hanni-tard MAGAs to sending death threats to colleague’s wives might have backfired on Jim. Bad move.
@Gavin:
Republicans are always expected to Negotiate somehow with their far right whereas Democrats are expected to throw the far left overboard.
Not that hard to understand. Back in the Golden Age, the “far left” really may have been beyond the pale–they were communists, after all who thought capitalism was evil and wanted to turn the US into Russia fer gosh sakes! (I grew up in a family where we didn’t give to the United Good Neighbors [United Way] or CARE and sent children who were trick or treating for UNICEF away without any spare change–or candy either!–because those agencies gave money to socialist causes and helped communist countries survive.) Eugene McCarthy was going to go on his knees to Hanoi, if necessary, to end the war. This stuff was what propelled Democratic Leadership Council to work on triangulating the progressives “radicals” out of the conversation in American liberalism–which was at the time hailed as a progressive move, go figure. It’s still fueling the “reach out to the moderates” climate as the Overton Window tilts to the point where some Republicans are saying Saint Ronnie is just another RINO.
There’s no similar history on the right. Everyone on the right is a “real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July” brand patriot (except for the ones who get shoved into the center as the window shifts and become Marxists Antifa agents). This phenomenon creates the problem you’re noticing in that if someone is too far left, it’s not because the demands of the far right are unreasonable (or in contemporary terms “bat sh!t crazy”), it because the demands of the far right are where America should be headed. So, the goal becomes to figure out a mid point that addresses the flaw that the “only real” Americans see as needing correction.
Liberalism had this problem earlier–in the 20s and on–as it needed to address the emerging Marxists to hold it’s component factions together. I think the difference between then and now is that capitalisms/corporatism has always been a stronger/more durable economic theory than more communitarian theories. Since the far right are still capitalists, they may be harder to exclude–triangulate out. Until they can be, negotiation with them will be necessary and the far left and the various non-conforming social/lifestyle offshoots will have the place under the bus that they were given in the 80s.
@KM:
I haven’t seen a list of “no” votes. How have the Krazies voted? If they’ve been voting for Gym, then they already got their concessions or don’t feel a need for any.
If Gym withdraws tomorrow and Kevin runs, I expect the Krazy wing to provide the decisive “no” votes.
@Kathy: Here’s the NYT vote tracker.
There were two Republicans who voted for someone “other” on the first round but voted for Jordan on the second round, and another who appears to have been absent round 1 and voted for Jordan in round 2. There were four who voted for Jordan on the first round but voted for someone “other” on the second round.
The “no” votes in this situation are not the standard Clown Caucus, they are Republicans in moderate districts, or close friends of McCarthy’s or Scalise’s.
The crazies are all supporting Jordan.
The “Dems in Disarray” party have all consistently voted for Jeffries.
@Kathy:
You wonder how who voted, by ideology. Lots of graphics and names here:
Gift link covers votes for Jordan and McCarthy.
https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-toxic-pests-of-angry-right.html
Recently I had a conversation with a woman about her 1970s college days. She told me that a very unpleasant aspect of that time was dealing with men who felt they were absolutely entitled to go out with her or sleep with her, simply because they wanted to. Over the years I’ve had my consciousness raised about sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking by ex-partners, but I hadn’t really thought about this and how common it is. It may not rise to the level of criminal behavior, but it’s annoying and exhausting even when it’s not intimidating and frightening.
I’m thinking about that conversation as Jim Jordan persists in his campaign to be Speaker of the House. Today he subjected the House to a second vote, even though he was no more likely to win today than yesterday. (He just lost again, getting fewer votes than on his first try.)
Last week, when Republicans chose Steve Scalise over Jordan in an initial caucus vote on the speakership, Jordan rejected the outcome, telling his fellow Republicans, “America wants me.” I don’t know what delusion persuades men to pester women who are clearly uninterested, but I know why angry right-wingers delude themselves this way: They live in a bubble. They associate only with like-minded ideologues, their media diet is Fox News and other outlets that constitute an extremist echo chamber, and they don’t regard anyone who disagrees with them as a genuine American. They disdain Democrats, swing voters, and even supporters of “establishment” Republicans.
So they believe everyone thinks like them — and when they’re rejected, they believe the natural order of the universe is being rejected. Obviously what they want should happen!
It’s hard to know whether Donald Trump really believes he won the 2020 election, but his followers clearly believe it, and when they tell us this, they really don’t think we have the right to say no to them. Hence the insurrection.
And now Jordan and his allies are responding to “no” in an unhealthy and toxic way:
Politico reporter Olivia Beavers shared several screenshots of the text messages sent to [Reprensentative Don] Bacon’s wife from anonymous senders who refused to identify themselves.“Why is your husband causing chaos by not supporting Jim Jordan? I thought he was a team player,” read one text, to which Bacon’s wife responded, “Who is this???”
The anonymous sender then warned, “Your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappoint [sic] and failure he is.”
No means no. But the angry right will never accept that.
@James Joyner: So far as I know, Scalise and Jordan are the only two who even ran for the office.
Ummmmm… Not to be pedantic asshole*, but Jeffries ran. What is more he got more votes than Jordan did. Both times. Same for Scalise.
*Ok ok, maybe a little bit.
“Link“
Miller-Meeks Statement on Speaker Vote and Death Threats
Now Republicans are getting death threats from the right.
@anjin-san:
The inherent instability of extremists. There’s probably a ‘law’ about this propensity for authoritarians to eat their own young, but I don’t know it. I don’t think younger folks understand, even now, what a fucking boss Pelosi was. It used to be that democrats were the proverbial herd of cats. Herding the GOP House caucus is like herding scorpions.
He was so rattled, he almost forgot to blame Biden for all the problems in the country.
I think we’re in the power struggle portion of the revolution, not yet the devouring of its children. That comes when ordinary people start getting jailed, beaten, or killed for major and minor indiscretions.
The phrase comes from the French Revolution, but it’s more clearly visible in Stalin’s terror leading up to WWII. The vast majority of those arrested, imprisoned, and shot as “enemies of the people,” were committed communists.
The power struggle there, to succeed Lenin, involved mostly other powerful party officials like Trotsky and Bukharin, and their supporters. There are more Republiqan Congresscritters than high Communist Party officials, so it looks like devouring of children when it’s not.
IMO, the latter will happen if the GQP take back the White House and even one wing of Congress in 2024. Otherwise, there may be civil war among GQP voters, but not one backed by the power of the government.
@charontwo: A ridiculous stretch… and yet totally accurate at the same time.
We are living in strange times…
Jordan is toxic as they come. Joe Paterno lost his sinecure and brought Penn State football to the shores of Hades for doing the same thing Jordan did and loss his job and reputation with less evidence than there is against Jordan. What I find interesting is that there are about 80 congressmen that first supported other speakers and then decided to go Jordan’s way. The voted for the pedo-friendly candidate for nothing and I will guess many will be primaried. There are indeed a lot of dumb and spineless people in that party.
@JohnSF: “This seems to be the consequences of a two-party political system where instutionalised primaries allow the lunatics to take over the asylum. So the electeds and officials increasingly either are loonies themselves, or pressed hard to pander to them.”
Except that the Dems don’t do this.
@Barry:
That’s assuming the institution concerned is an asylum.
Perhaps Democrats were spared by the “Dixiecrat” exodus?
The difference perhaps is that Dem voters are inclined to be less cranky than the party activists, whereas the Rep tendency is to a crazy base that cynical pros are trying to manage?
Interestingly some similarity dynamic in the UK: the Corbynites stronghold was among Labour Party activists; whereas Johnson, and especially Truss, got most support from the “inactive membership”.
