Democrats Are the Big Winners After More GOP Chaos | Opinion

Yesterday afternoon, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was defeated on the House floor in his bid to become speaker when 20 Republicans voted against him, the latest in a succession of public humiliations for the GOP and its feckless elites. The inability of Republicans to choose a leader in the House is a lot of things at once—it's a tremendously telling indictment of the party's lack of interest and skill at the basic tasks of governing. It's further evidence of a widening gulf between what is now a caucus majority of radical election-deniers and the few remaining institutionalist holdouts. And it's proof that the new, cut-throat Democratic strategy of letting Republicans hang out to dry instead of coming dutifully to the rescue is the correct one—for now.

By the time you read this, it is possible that Jordan has, through a combination of unsubtle threats and pressure from the Populist Pravdas at Fox News, wrapped up the remaining support he needs to become the most unhinged and radical speaker in modern history. It also might be the case that his quest for the job is already over. Such is the level of uncertainty about where the situation is headed. Either way, 'conservatives in chaos' is a win-win scenario for Democrats.

I understand the argument that Jordan is a dangerous figure, an insider in the post-2020 election conspiracy whose elevation would mean that the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party is more or less total. For Democrats, the fact that he would be two heartbeats away from the presidency as speaker is scary but ultimately little more than a compelling argument for President Biden and Vice President Harris to never be in the same room at the same time. As for his threat to the 2024 election, his position would be much less important than any number of governors and secretaries of state, and many of the loopholes in the Electoral Count Act exploited by former President Donald Trump and his allies were closed by bipartisan legislation last year anyway.

Jordan is an unbelievably rich political target in ways that I'm not sure people appreciate. His involvement (as a complicit bystander, not as the actual predator) in a monstrous sexual abuse scandal when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University is little known today outside a relatively small group of political obsessives in both parties. And even by the standards of today's Republican Party, he is on the ideological fringe, and that extremism is on full display every time he shows up in front of a camera looking and sounding like he just drank 14 Red Bulls at a Proud Boys meeting.

Congressional leaders almost always end up being quite unpopular, given the nature of polarization and their role as the public face of whatever messy compromises emerge from the Capitol. They often, like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), lack the kind of easy charisma that presidents and presidential candidates bring to the table. But rarely are they as instantly and unambiguously repellent as the odious Jordan. He's so unlikable that even ideologically radical Republicans like Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) who have no meaningful policy beefs with him are lining up to torpedo his bid. He would be, in every possible way, a gift for Democrats to run against next year, not just because of his sordid antics but also because of the insanely unpopular policies he backs, like a national abortion ban.

But the Democratic strategy here ultimately transcends Jordan. For many years a combination of norm-abiding Democrats and moderate Republicans have shielded the public from the full consequences of GOP rule. A handful of Republican senators (and of course, all elected Democrats) saved the party from itself, for example, by sinking the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. It was mostly Democrats who just bought everyone an extra three weeks to hammer out a budget, continuing a trend dating back to the Obama presidency of GOP leaders relying on Democrats to avoid the fiscal chaos that Freedom Caucusers crave.

But as the MAGA train rolls on, there are fewer and fewer Republicans left to push back on the party's worst impulses. That's why House Republicans needed Democrats to save them from this mess to begin with, and had they thrown Kevin McCarthy a few votes, no one would be any wiser about what these Republicans want to do with their power. We would've staggered along, with spending bills passed after arduous standoffs, giving the illusion that Republicans are capable of governing.

The Democratic strategy, whoever ultimately wins the speakership (and I do still expect it to be a Republican), has successfully laid bare the complete absence of competence at the core of the Republican Party. Without their Democratic training wheels, GOP leaders are failing over and over and over again at the simplest job in all of politics - choosing a party leader for your congressional majority. It is a terrible look for Republicans, especially with multiple pressing legislative matters on the agenda. And they have no one to blame but themselves after passing the buck again and again during the Trump years instead of empowering party leadership to stand up to the crazies.

There may come a time when Democrats should work with their sane counterparts to put leadership in place in the House, if for no other reason than to avoid a prolonged government shutdown that could harm ordinary Americans. But for now, staying unified and letting Republicans flail is all upside.

David Faris is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. His writing has appeared in The Week, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Washington Monthly and more. You can find him on Twitter @davidmfaris.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.