Where are the adults?

An adult with a moral compass can instantly recognize situations that demand leadership. You see them when parents permit their children to behave badly in public, when employees are disorganized or indifferent, when teachers are unprepared for their lessons, when athletes commit too many penalties or miss assignments in games, and when military personnel lack discipline and training. The remedy is always the same: a responsible, mature adult must assert responsibility to build consensus and bring order out of chaos. And in such circumstances, we expect good and great people to rise to the occasion, to reveal themselves as either strong leaders or morally bankrupt failures.

Period.

Unfortunately, Republicans in the House of Representatives have either forgotten that truism or have chosen to fail the test of leadership so often that their inadequacy has become routine. How else can we explain the fact that for the first time in American history a major political party dismissed their own Speaker of the House and then failed repeatedly to elect another? How else shall we defend the reality that for the last two weeks, at a time of tremendous worldwide tension, with the Middle East teetering on the brink of a regional war, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia showing no signs of diminishing, and the Chinese ratcheting up tensions with Taiwan, that the House has been unable to pass laws or resolutions of any kind because the Republican majority cannot elect a speaker?

In a different political system, the collapse of the Republican Party and the abject failure of party leaders to govern themselves or the House of Representatives might not be so damning. If we had more political parties, then voters might elect representatives from so many different groups that compromise would be unavoidable. If we had a different system, a Parliamentary one for example, then perhaps the various parties might form coalitions, and moderates might cross party lines to work together and marginalize the radicals who have no interest in governing and an addiction to nihilism.

But we do not have those options. We have only the two major parties and we rely on them to police themselves in order to get legislation through Congress in general and the House of Representative in particular. For most — not all, but most — of our history both parties have done that, and the Democrats still do. They have voted together unanimously in every single recent election for speaker. But today’s Grand Old Party (GOP) is broken and saddled with deeply polarized electorate, a razor-thin majority in the House, and fractious, unruly, and undisciplined members that worry more about their social media presence than they do about running the country.

Consider the fact that only two weeks ago House Republicans unceremoniously voted Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, out of his role as Speaker of the House. That immediately stopped all House business. It also interrupted the line of succession in the event of a national emergency because the speaker is third in line for the presidency behind the president and the vice president. The move was instigated by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida who needed only a few radical Republicans to support him because the GOP majority in the House is only nine seats (221-212) over the Democrats and it requires 217 votes to be elected speaker.

Well, dumping McCarthy was easy. Replacing him was not. Steve Scalise of Louisiana entered the race only to bow out when it became clear he lacked enough votes among Republicans to win. Then came Jim Jordan of Ohio, the firebrand extremist, conspiracy theorist, and election denier who in 15 years in Congress never authored a single piece of legislation that passed Congress. Not one. But he had the support of many Republicans largely because he is an acolyte of former President Donald Trump and had received Trump’s endorsement. Jordan lost three successive votes for speaker, garnering fewer votes each time, and was ultimately removed as a candidate in a closed door, secret ballot election held after his third defeat.

And that closed door session is illuminating, for it reveals the extent to which moderate Republicans are routinely threatened with violence by their constituents and the degree to which they are fearful of extremist mobs. You see, Jordan lost 20 Republican votes in the first election, 22 in the second, and 25 in the third. And throughout the process, Republicans who voted against him were inundated with texts, emails, and phone calls from voters demanding they support Jordan. Many received death threats, including Dan Bacon of Nebraska and others. When one of those who received threats complained to Jordan supporter Warren Davidson of Ohio, Davidson said, “Well, that’s not Jim Jordan’s fault. That’s your fault for voting against him.”

Take a moment and read that quote again, for it reveals the degree to which death threats have been normalized among some — not all, but some — Republicans in Congress.

When it became clear that despite the threats of violence Jordan had no chance of becoming speaker, Republicans held their secret ballot meeting and removed him. That vote tells us everything we need to know about the dysfunction in the Republican Party, for Jordan lost 112-86. Remember, only 25 Republicans voted against Jordan during his third election for speaker. When a secret vote was held, 112 voted to remove him as their candidate entirely. That means 87 Republicans knew he was a bad candidate from the start, but when they had to vote in public in a recorded election subject to review by their constituents, they supported him anyway. And when given the chance in secret to get rid of him, they jumped at the chance.

That vote is a stark warning about the perilous state of our democracy, because the system depends on voters and elected officials being responsible adults, not members of an angry mob or too weak to stand up to bullies. If they cannot or will not do that, then we are all at the mercy of the mob.

To be fair, there should be no doubt that there are a great many talented Republicans with courage and a sense of justice who vote and hold public office. And there is no doubt we need two strong political parties for our system to operate effectively. But we need the adults to get control of the House of Representatives.

And we need them to do it quickly.

Lance Janda holds a PhD in History from the University of Oklahoma and has more than 30 years of experience in higher education. He is the author of “Stronger Than Custom: West Point and the Admission of Women”, among other works.