Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo |
This is a dark time for House Republicans. When the House convenes next January to open the 120th Congress, the GOP will hold fewer seats than it has at any time in the past 30 years. This week, the battered caucus selected Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio to lead it into the future. It’s quite the journey for a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, taking him from tea party insurgent to avatar of the establishment.
Jordan’s rise to minority leader doubles as an ironic final nail in the coffin of the hard-right group’s relevance. Already a strategic anachronism at the height of Trump’s power, the group saw its influence further diminished by the thumping Republicans received last week. Where the group goes over the next two years, or indeed whether it will even exist, remains a mystery even to the few members still in its ranks. |
