Is Tim Ryan the Jim Jordan of the Left?

Now that the 2018 mid-term elections are over, the so-called "Blue Wave" that's been building since the minute after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of The United States in January of 2017, had its ebb tide in the Senate, where Republicans actually expanded their slim majority, while crashing ashore in the House by regaining control.

Placards used at a John Boehner rally \
in West Chester in Cincinnati in 2010.

Continuing their proud tradition of internecine fighting following a victory they desperately need, and finally won, reports say the opposition to Pelosi was spearheaded in part by Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio. A centrist who challenged Rep. Nancy Pelosi for the post of minority leader in 2016, Ryan is among the 16 Democrats who have promised to oppose the restoration of Nancy Pelosi as the next Speaker of the House, arguing fresh leadership faces are needed.

The New York Times ran an article Monday titled "‘Message of Change’: 16 Rebel Democrats Vow to Oppose Pelosi,'"that names Ryan as an instigator of the dump Pelosi gambit, but also said the multi-term congressman has not stepped forward to be that fresh face.

Maybe it's the water or the weather in Ohio, but Ryan's long-shot scheme to topple Pelosi — the first women to be speaker who during her time in leadership moved the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Dodd-Frank through to victory without help from Republicans — apes a similar long-shot attempt by uber-right-wing Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan to become the House's Republican leader.

Both Jordan and Ryan made unsuccessful runs at leadership posts, but as second in command of the Freedom Caucus, a couple dozen conservative and libertarian Republicans, Jordan and his caucus were defined by University of Akron political science professor David Cohen as “a highly motivated, highly ideological wing of the Republican Party that has been desperately seeking power within the Republican Party for several years,” according to The Dayton Daily News.

Jordan came to congress in 2007, and like all Republicans vowed to oppose first-term President

The Tea Party (Taxed Enough Already)
helped Jim Jordan win and helped
Republicans unseating Democrats in 2010
when Nancy Pelosi was House speaker.

Barack Obama at every turn. In 2010, Jordan and his allies, which then included the noisy, anti-government, anti-Obamacare Tea Party movement, attacked Pelosi with such vigor that she became an election-year punching bag. This year saw one reporter after another quiz one Democrat candidate after another one whether he/she would vote for Pelosi as speaker again, if they were elected?

About two years ago, House Democrats shot down Ryan's challenge of Pelosi. Ryan received plenty of media attention for declaring Democrats needed new leaders to win back disaffected voters, and that re-electing Rep. Pelosi of California to an eighth term as House leader would hurt the party's chance to reconnect with the American working class. While Ryan lost to Pelosi, 134 to 63, those who voted for Ryan revealed a worrisome measure of internal discontent in the party.

Democrats like Ryan have allowed Republicans to tear down one of their most effective leaders without forming any counter defense to push back on her attackers. Much like Republicans did to Hillary Clinton through hearings on Benghazi and other costly wild goose chases, that turned the most qualified women to be president into the most reviled women to be president, Pelosi has undergone similar attacks, as Ryan and company sat back without punching back.

Democrats might take a cue from President Trump, of all people, who to the great amazement of many has put forward a strong defense of Pelosi. Trump said Pelosi "loves her country" and could actually help her win flanking moves like Ryan is party to present a problem.

"I can get Nancy Pelosi as many votes as she wants in order for her to be Speaker of the House. She deserves this victory, she has earned it - but there are those in her party who are trying to take it away. She will win!" Trump tweeted.

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During my active reporting days, I asked Ryan to explain what a fresh face really means, and what issues that fresh face would expound on that were different from the litany of traditional Democrat positions that speak to workers and their rights? Ryan was curiously non-responsive on what new message a new face would deliver that Pelosi couldn't also deliver.

Ohio glows Trump red after another election that seated GOP candidates in all the statewide constitutional offices while simultaneously holding scary majorities in the legislature in Columbus. The Buckeye State now sports two congressmen, one Republican and one Democrat, who are throwing haymaker punches in order to disrupt what should be a time to rally their wagons around a central theme of coalescing, not breaking ranks.

With next year's congress now evenly divided, as Republicans control the Senate and Democrats control the House, Ryan should either man-up and step forward to run for the speakership or put down his sticks and stones so a tested leadership, with the capacity and capabilities Pelosi has demonstrated when the chips are down can resume her winning ways with legislation that, new face or not, connects with the new working class, made up of mostly women, and women of color at that, instead of the so-called "forgotten" uneducated white man who appears to want a handout without working for it.

Ryan and Jordan may smile at what they are doing, as media eggs them on to be the respective skunks at their garden parties. What they are doing, sadly, is feeding their inner egos at a time when their outer egos ought to push for unifying their numbers instead of dividing them.