... and right on cue, we get rumblings from a few groups that none other than Jim Jordan should be Speaker. Here's a fun write-up at Roll Call. Yes, I read other news sites, but wha'dya want? I'm a Congress guy.
Who is Jim Jordan? Well, to quote John Boehner, "Fuck Jordan. Fuck [Jason] Chaffetz. They're both assholes." Actually, that's too kind. "A terrorist. A legislative terrorist." That's better. That's my Johnny-boy. General rule of politics: listen to John Boehner. These pearls of wisdom come from his extended Politico interview a while back. General rule of politics: ignore Politico, but every once in a while, my rules conflict, and when they conflict, priority goes to the rule that says you listen to John Boehner. I like him.
Jim Jordan is basically what happens if you take Louie Gohmert, and give him just enough of a brain to do some real damage.
Will he become the next Speaker? I'd bet against it, but stranger things have happened. Scalise has a relatively better chance than Jordan (and who knows about McCarthy?), but that's not really where I'm going with this.
What if the GOP really did knock off their establishment leaders and installed what Boehner used to call a "knucklehead" at the top of the caucus?
If they do it before the end of the current Congress... nothing. Congress already passed, and Trump already signed the omnibus spending bill, so no shutdowns, and they don't have anything else on the legislative agenda. Anything else they tried would be filibustered in the Senate even if they had the votes (remember that they couldn't "repeal Obamacare" because they didn't have 51 votes), which they don't. So, for the rest of the year, it wouldn't really matter.
Then, there's the 2018 election. If the Dems get the majority, then the battle for Minority Leader is, shall we say, of lesser importance. No matter what, the GOP would vote no on everything, so it wouldn't matter whether or not the leader did it with a song in his heart.
It only really matters if they scrape out a majority in the 2018 midterms. Yes, that's possible. A Speaker Jim Jordan, or even Speaker Steve Scalise? That's a possibility, and it would lead to some interesting places.