House Republicans haven’t been terribly successful at many things this year. They struggled to keep the government open and to keep the United States from defaulting on its debt. They’ve even struggled at times on basic votes to keep the chamber functioning. But they have been very good at one thing: regicide.
On Friday, Republicans dethroned Jim Jordan as their designated Speaker, making him the third party leader to be ousted this month. First, there was Kevin McCarthy, who required 15 different ballots to even be elected Speaker and was removed from office by a right-wing rebellion at the beginning of October. Then, after a majority of Republicans voted to make McCarthy’s No. 2, Steve Scalise, his successor, a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would torpedo his candidacy and back Jordan instead. Finally, once Republicans finally turned to Jordan as their candidate, the largest rebellion yet blocked him from becoming Speaker. After losing three successive votes on the floor, the firebrand lost an internal vote to keep his position as Speaker designate on Friday.
I mean I get what you’re saying, but this was their solution. They aligned themselves with these nutjobs precisely because they saw the demographic shift in the US and feared they would never win another election. There is no second-place, as far as they’re concerned. This is what ‘at-all-costs’ looks like. It was this or political irrelevance. Changing their values meant losing their identity, which would be equivalant to death.