Jim Jordan's failure to attain speaker role shouldn't come as a surprise to him

On April 6, 1789, the U.S. House of Representatives certified the great George Washington as our first president. For the lower chamber of Congress, it’s been pretty much downhill ever since.

Just nine years later, Rep. Roger Griswold of Connecticut and Matthew Lyon, a representative from Vermont, brawled on the House floor, their weapons of choice being a hickory walking stick and a pair of fireplace tongs respectively.

In this relatively civilized age, their colleagues pulled them apart instead of joining the fray.

That didn’t happen in 1858 when, writes Yale history professor Joanne B. Freeman in “The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War,” a full fledged fistfight involving 30 representatives broke out over slavery at 2 in the morning.

Good times.

This week has served as a test to see whether the U.S. House of Representatives has any standards left whatsoever. Four weeks after one of its membership was removed from a musical concert for obnoxious behavior and one week after another was charged with 23 counts of fraud, lies and identity theft, the House considered elevating perhaps its — and this is a high bar — least qualified and most disruptive member to serve as speaker and second in line to the presidency.

In nominating Ohio’s Jim Jordan for the post and hunting for an overt act in his resume that could be construed as an achievement, Rep. Elise Stefanik recalled Jordan’s high school wrestling days, where he was known as “scrappy.” Like Barney Fife.

Jordan’s career has been less notable as a House member than as a housefly, an inconsequential irritant. After strong-arming his way into the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, he has turned the position into a pulpit of lies pressing for the impeachment of President Joe Biden on one charge of being a Democrat, and tormented the challenged Hunter Biden — somewhere the similarly afflicted Billy Carter is saying a silent prayer that his own hijinks were performed in a gentler age.

Even though Jordan was demonstrating Trumpian tendencies back in the days when Trump himself was still espousing his relatively liberal views on The Howard Stern Show, the congressman demonstrates once again that there is only one Donald Trump.

Mercifully for the nation, those who have tried to play Donald Trump on TV, from Jeff Sessions to Hershel Walker to Ron DeSantis, have all gone up in flames. There are no two degrees of Donald Trump; his aura never extends beyond him.

Had Trump been in Jordan’s shoes, his own personal brand of charismatic savagery would have almost certainly won him a first-ballot victory. By contrast, Jordan knows the lyrics, but not the tune. After releasing the rabid hounds on Republican holdouts, instead of taking center stage as The Donald would have done, he faded into the background, assuming phoned-in threats to the safety of representatives and their families would carry the day.

Instead, these tactics only hardened the resolve of Republicans who still have certain principles when it comes to governing and basic human decency.

Jorden seemed baffled and blindsided that there could be any consideration beyond brute force. Of course he was. Concepts such as integrity, honesty and fair play are foreign to him.

Instead of being intimidated, Jordan’s opponents were offended that any American would seek political gain not by civil discourse, but through threats of violence. (It might have been amusing if those who opposed Jordan had instead voted for Trump; this would at least have put MAGA’s robo-calling junkyard dogs on the unfamiliar ground of having to think.)

It seems fair to speculate that at least part of Jordan’s difficulties, and McCarthy’s before him, is their inherent untrustworthiness. Jordan could not promise anyone anything because his word is no good. He couldn’t promise Republican moderates that he would fund Ukraine, or would not shut down the government, because who would believe him?

Even so, many who opposed Jordan on secret ballots — which indicated that three-quarters of the House membership did not want him — caved in public, rather than expose themselves to MAGA’s wrath.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., somehow calculated it was the relative few who demonstrated being possessed of a backbone as being “childish.”

“Like, this is serious. This is the United States Congress,” said Malliotakis. “We’re trying to elect a speaker and you’re just, like, throwing out, like, random names of people who are not running or are not even members of the House.”

This is statesmanship worthy of the party of Lincoln. “Forescore and, like, seven years ago …”

Soon we may discover whether the American House has indeed hit rock bottom or whether it can get more childish still.

More from Tim Rowland: Nowhere is it written that America's great fortunes can’t be squandered

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Jordan's brute force in seeking speaker job is what failed him