Oops, they did it again. On Tuesday the House Republican gong show once again failed to choose a new speaker of the House.
This time it was one of the conference’s most belligerent hard-liners, Jim Jordan, who got smacked down on the first round of voting. Things got worse Wednesday when he lost even more support in a second round of voting, and on Friday, Republicans voted to no longer support him as Speaker nominee. Fingers crossed.
Jordan’s failure to seize the gavel was a good thing for all Americans — most definitely including responsible Republican lawmakers.
Eventually, one assumes, a new speaker will emerge. But the entire circus has already laid bare the dark flaw at the heart of this Congress: The Republican conference is failing as a democratic entity.
A healthy democracy needs its participants to accept a basic will-of-the-majority model. Fringe factions have rights, but they do not run the show. For years, the Republican Party has been shifting toward an anti-majoritarian, burn-down-the-system ethos. Time after time, the preferences and well-being of the many are abandoned in pursuit of the desires of the extremist few.