This jerk's insane stunt screams that the GOP has learned nothing

Last night, the American people screamed at Republicans at a record-breaking decibel level. Stop the games. Stop placating Donald Trump. Stop bending over backward to accommodate corruption. Stop doing nothing, then do something. Stop passing bills that enrich billionaires and the top one percent. Stop screwing with our health care. Stop pretending 2020 was a Republican win. Stop, stop, stop.

And the undercurrent to all of this screaming was another resounding message: Stop acting like jerks and creepy miscreants.

So what is the first thing the House GOP considers the morning after? Speaker Mike Johnson will step aside as Republican leader, and the man reportedly trying to elbow his way in and take his place is a jerk and a creepy miscreant — Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.

If Republicans make Jordan their minority leader, they are screaming back at the American people in a way that is as obnoxious as Jordan himself: "We didn't hear a word you said."

It's breathtakingly baffling to think that, in light of the severe drubbing they endured last night, they would choose Jordan, a Trump sycophant of the highest order. He has routinely called Donald Trump "the best president we've had, certainly in my lifetime," and has explicitly used the phrase "Greatest President of our lifetime."

He voted against certifying the 2020 election and has spent years turning congressional hearings into Fox News histrionic segments. He is a belligerent jerk - I'm going to keep using that word, so get used to it — who has built a career on never compromising and treating responsible legislating as an insult to his take-no-prisoners approach to politics.

And then there is Ohio State and the allegations that he enabled a widespread sex abuse scandal during his time there. Critics argue that he is following directly in the footsteps of another former GOP leader accused of abuse, former House Speaker and wrestling coach Dennis Hastert.

Longtime readers of Raw Story know I have written about Jordan many times over the years, and those columns have been forceful. I wrote about his years as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State, from the late 1980s into the mid-1990s, when team doctor Richard Strauss was sexually abusing student-athletes.

Ohio State's own independent investigation found that Strauss abused at least 177 students, and the university's count of abuse instances has since climbed to nearly 1,500. Many of those victims were wrestlers.

Jordan says he never knew. But a long line of former wrestlers say otherwise. They say the abuse was an open secret and that they raised it with coaches, including Jordan. In the HBO documentary Surviving Ohio State, survivors again spoke with raw courage about what happened to them and who they say looked away.

I wrote then that Jordan abandoned those men when they needed him most. I've called him a liar. I've said he doesn't belong in Congress. I haven't changed my mind. Jordan has never been held accountable, and that is another outrage in itself.

Growing up, my best friends were wrestlers, and that's why I know wrestlers are thick as thieves. That's why I believe the men who came forward. They have each other's backs. More importantly, I was the victim of sex abuse, and I know when someone is lying.

It's so hard to quantify these things because there are so many despicable humans in the GOP House caucus, but to me, Jordan is the most despicable of them all.

Having said all of this — and there is more to say about his despicability — should he lead a major political party? The men who say they begged for help are still waiting for an honest answer from him, and he still hasn't given one. Why would anyone reward that with a promotion?

Oh wait, someone did reward Jordan. Donald Trump putridly and horrifically gave him the Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest honor. For what? What did Jordan do besides act like a sex-abuse-denying jerk? I don't know what's worse: Jordan getting this or Rush Limbaugh getting it. It's insulting to all those who actually earned that honor.

Republicans can stupidly tell themselves that Jordan's "fighting spirit" — i.e., his phony, performative look, with his tie undone and sleeves rolled up — is what they need. But what voters just told them, loud enough to dwarf the 102,000 people in Ohio Stadium, is that they are sick of fighters who fight only for Trump and the rich, and who are crooked as coat hangers.

Choosing Jim Jordan would say that the party learned absolutely nothing on election night, and that loyalty and fealty to Trump outrank all the wishes, hopes, dreams — and demands — of the country.

Can you imagine a man dogged by unanswered questions from abuse survivors as the face of the Republican Party? On second thought, the GOP should just go ahead and anoint him. Let them dig their own forever grave.

Because being led by Jordan will only have voters screaming more loudly in 2028.