Member-only story
American (Political) Horror Story: Trump Positions Jordan Two Heartbeats Away*
A fictional but plausible account based on “true” events.
I began writing this week’s post as a fictional — albeit plausible — story, based on actual events, of yet another sinister plot Trump would hatch with co-conspirators Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and other select members of the Freedom Caucus after Republicans took a razor-thin majority in the House in the 2022 midterms.
This horror story does not deviate far from the truth.
The story picks up shortly after Kevin McCarthy flew to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring after enraging seditious conspiracist Trump by suggesting the latter bore “some responsibility” for the Jan. 6 mob attack and violence at the Capitol. Republicans had begun imagining a post-Trump Republican Party, after Trump “exited the White House . . . defeated, unpopular, overwhelmed by scandal, and largely responsible for leaving his party with no access to the levers of federal power.”
That hope was short-lived. Willingly or otherwise, most bow or bend their knee to him.
McCarthy’s life goal, it became painfully clear, was to hold the House speakership — even if in name only and momentarily — and he was willing to debase himself in countless ways to achieve it — a convenient fact not lost on Trump…