What MAGA's torching of the House tells us about them — and their chances in 2024

As I began to type this, the despicable Ohio congressman, Jim (Gym) Jordan, made a third attempt to garner enough votes to become our 119th Speaker of the House of Representatives. By the time I was done, he lost, and our media continued to normalize this dangerous abomination and his anti-American political party.

Whether Jordan continues to beat his thick head on the Speaker’s lectern by calling for more votes this weekend, or finally relents and slithers back into his hole, the damage to America will have been done.

Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Jordan is nothing but an unguided missile, who in 16 years in the House had never passed a single piece of legislation. Lately, his only role in Congress has been to carry the polluted water of one Donald John Trump, the twice-impeached, America-attacking convicted rapist, who either spends all his time these days in court battling his 91 felony charges, lying about his score while punishing some golf course into submission, or as a high-paid lounge act attacking Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the truth in some Iowa cornfield.

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The good news here, if there’s any at all, is that Jordan’s bid is stalling because a small gang of Republicans have somehow stumbled up to a line that even they won’t cross. All of these 20-or-so faux patriots are better at mathematics than Jordan, and can count the votes in their swing districts, where the Ohio mauler is seen by the majority of voters as the lowlife he most certainly is. Support for Jordan would be taking a torch to their political futures.

Which brings up another interesting point that I’ll wade into here very quickly: If Jordan is not popular in these swing districts, and he is the traitor, Trump’s, handpicked candidate, what does that then say about the popularity of the burnt-orange menace himself, who would need to win these districts if he were to have any hope of securing the presidency?

At the end of my best days, this is what ultimately helps me sleep at night. Trump has proven time and again in places like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin that every candidate he pushes ultimately ends up at the bottom of a dark well. Say, have you heard anything from Herschel Walker lately?

Of course the minute I write something like that, I also feel the need to point out for the record that the guy belongs as far away as possible from any power, and absolutely needs to be playing Connect the Dots in jail for the rest of his miserable life.

That is another thing I am not seeing near enough in the press. When you are facing 91 felony charges and counting, you are almost certainly going to do some significant jail time. The odds of beating 91 felony charges are lower than Eric Trump’s single-digit IQ.

Why doesn't every single story reporting on the guy’s nuclear-powered shakedown of his supporters point this out? I read a lot of these stories and they simply don’t. Seems like a top-line issue to me, either right above or below the fact that he fueled an insurrection that we all watched live on TV.

Trump will either go to jail, or if God forbid is elected, will pardon himself. This would mean we have officially fallen into fascism, and our democratic republic would be no more.

This is probably not a startling revelation to you, but that makes it no less historic in context. It is also the most consequential development in our nation’s history since the Civil War, and could stand a helluva lot more ink and airtime.

And because Trump is the most dangerous guy in the world, many of the 20 or so Republican defectors on the Jordan Speakership have faced credible death threats.

There is also news today that a radical right-wing group that helped fuel the January 6 attack is organizing threatening rallies around the country outside the offices of these spine-growing GOP lawmakers.

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican centrist who is voting against Jordan, told the press that his terrified wife has taken to sleeping with a loaded gun by her bedside because of the threats.

“Bullying don’t work,” Bacon said defiantly.

The Bacons aren’t alone. In fact, every single lawmaker who has voted against Jordan has received threats of some sort for their betrayal to the thugs in the MAGA party.

This is obviously disgusting, but very on brand for these MAGA Republicans. It also begs yet another question: Why did it take threats against their families for these Republican “heroes” to finally see the danger imposed by these Trump homegrown terrorist groups? This has been going for years now, and in one horrible instance, resulted in the near beating death of Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

Why have we seen so little reporting on these “good” Republicans reluctance to speak out against these unrelenting threats? Why is it OK for MAGA to threaten whoever they like as long as it is not one of their family members?

Predictably, as I end this piece, none other than Kevin McCarthy is nominating Jordan for a third time. McCarthy, who long ago proved he is a complete coward by throwing himself in heap at Trump’s fat little feet, just howled that “Jim Jordan is an effective legislator!”

The man who never passed a single bill is an “effective legislator.”

What he really is, Kevin, is a loser, because like you and Trump, he just lost the vote again.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough