Jordan’s gambit didn’t work, of course. On Friday, he lost a third vote for speaker and, not long after, lost his speaker-designate status in a secret ballot taken by the Republican caucus. It’s tempting to see this as just desserts. It is, at the very least, a very funny funny outcome; many in the House Republican conference deserve humiliation but arguably none so much as Jim Jordan. One might hope that his failure might serve as a lesson that will be taken by others: That the strong-arm tactics favored by Donald Trump and his followers will ultimately not only fail, but lead to a counter-revolution. It is even tempting to say that the unending, repetitive failure of House Republicans to elect a speaker has been something of an awakening for many in the GOP up to the threats posed by radical, increasingly powerful members aligned with Trump, like Jordan.
These outcomes remain a long way off. Jordan may have failed, but no one is paying a price for having sunk as low as his allies have, and without accountability, it’s difficult to imagine that these kinds of threats and intimidation won’t continue to be mainstreamed and redeployed in the furtherance of far-right aims. Naturally, this is partially the result of the GOP’s lurch towards authoritarianism and increasing embrace of political violence as a means of enforcing and holding on to political power.
Donald Trump routinely uses threats—both explicit and implicit—as a means of enforcing his own grip on the Republican Party. His uses his Twitter feed and public speeches to reward those who lick his boots, while putting a crosshair on those who dare break with or criticize him, however lightly. These are the ambient threats that have purged the party of its remaining moderate elements as well as pushing Trumpisms far-right detractors into silence. The larger point is this: Criticize his aims and you jeopardize not only your place within the right-wing hierarchy, but also your safety as well.