On October 3rd, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives were threatening to do something unprecedented in American history. A faction of the far right had introduced a motion to oust their leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Before the final vote, McCarthy’s allies offered some words in his defense. The third member to rise to the dais was Jim Jordan, a fifty-nine-year-old Republican from Ohio, who for years has been the Party’s most influential insurgent. Colleagues used to call him “the other Speaker of the House,” because of his frequent maneuvers against leadership. But this time his tone was subdued. He was there to praise McCarthy, not to bury him.
“Kevin McCarthy has been rock solid,” Jordan began. He wore a dark suit jacket, which looked almost exotic on his shoulders. When he holds forth—as he routinely does in the House committee room and on conservative television—he’s almost always in shirtsleeves, speaking in a rapid-fire diction that can make him sound like an auctioneer crossed with a street preacher. Listeners who share his grievances are inspired; those who don’t often have little idea what he’s talking about. In his seventeen-year career in Congress, Jordan has not once sponsored a bill that became law. Instead, he’s searched for victims of liberal plots—the most famous being Donald Trump, whose election loss, in 2020, Jordan refused to certify.
Esta historia es de la edición October 30, 2023 de The New Yorker.
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Esta historia es de la edición October 30, 2023 de The New Yorker.
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INSIDE JOB-"Hit Man"
Years before Hannah Arendt coined, in the pages of this magazine, the phrase \"the banality of evil,\" popular films and fiction were embodying that idea in the character of the hit man. In classic crime movies such as \"This Gun for Hire\" (1942) and \"Murder by Contract\" (1958), hit men figure much as Nazis do in political movies, as symbols of abstract evil.
WHATEVER YOU SAY
Rereading Jenny Holzer, at the Guggenheim.
SUBCONSCIOUSLY YOURS
Does every generation get the Freud it deserves?
BY A WHISKER
Louis Wain and the reinvention of the cat.
Beyond Imagining
Bessie, Lotte, Ruth, Farah, and Bridget, who had been lunching together for half a century, joined in later years by Ilka, Hope, and, occasionally, Lucinella, had agreed without the need for discussion that they were not going to pass, pass away, and under no circumstances on.
STATES OF PLAY
Can advocates use state supreme courts to preserve-and perhaps expand-constitutional rights?
THE LONG RIDE
The surf legend Jock Sutherland's unlikely life.
ARE WE DOOMED?
A course at the University of Chicago thinks it through.
GOD EXPLAINS THE RULES OF HIS NEW BOARD GAME
Guys, want to play this new board game? It’s called Life. No, it’s not “one of God’s impossible-to-understand games that take three hours to learn.” It’ll be fun, I promise!
RED LINE
With the election approaching, the U.S. and Mexico wrangle over border policy.
