On Monday night, I watched an interview with Newt Gingrich who was cheerfully predicting that “a handful” of Republicans might vote against Jim Jordan to be the Speaker, but even if he fell short on the first try, most of them would come around after casting a “protest vote” and put him over the top on the second attempt. We all saw how that worked out. The “handful” somehow spiraled into nearly two dozen and there was so much discord in the conference that they didn’t even bother attempting a second vote. So this morning they had to give it another go. At the time of publishing, the vote wasn’t quite concluded because nothing ever happens on schedule in Washington. But in the end, it may not really matter, which I’ll get to in a moment. But for now, the drama continues in the House and nobody seems to be terribly happy or truly in control.

UPDATE: Jordan did even worse than yesterday. He came in with 199 votes, so there is still no Speaker. Original article continues below.

Having lost the first vote to become House speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan will try again on a decisive second ballot that will test whether the hard-edged ally of Donald Trump can win over the holdouts or if his bid for the gavel is collapsing, denied by detractors.

Ahead of Wednesday morning’s voting, Jordan made an unexpected plea for party unity, the combative Judiciary Committee chairman telling his colleagues on social media, “we must stop attacking each other and come together.”

But a surprisingly large and politically diverse group of 20 Republicans rejected Jordan’s nomination, many resisting the hardball tactics enforcing support, and viewing the Ohio congressman as too extreme for the powerful position of House speaker, second in line to the presidency.

In the end, Jim Jordan’s fate and future as a leader in the GOP caucus probably isn’t really the big story here. He was just the face that emerged to be plastered on the story. It’s becoming worryingly obvious that the House GOP caucus is slowly reaching the point of becoming ungovernable and dysfunctional. And the real reason doesn’t have much to do with Jordan, Keven McCarthy, moderates or even the Freedom Caucus.

What’s driving this breakdown seems, at least to me, to be the orange elephant in the room that fewer people are talking about than in previous times. It would appear that there are a number of Republicans, particularly the ones from more vulnerable districts, who are simply done with Donald Trump and want to see the party move on. And a small but sufficient number of them are simply not going to support or show any loyalty to a leader in the House who is viewed as a Trump surrogate. (That’s the prevailing view of Jim Jordan currently.)

At the same time, a smaller, but still sufficient number of members are dedicated Trump loyalists. They will similarly refuse to fall in line behind any insufficiently Trumpian nominees for a leadership position. They mostly come from the Freedom Caucus, but there are other members who represent deep red districts who worry that their enthusiastic constituents may seek retribution against a representative who appears to have thrown Donald Trump under the bus.

With all of that in mind, the drama we’ve been watching play out over the Speakership this year may not be a temporary blip on the radar. We could wind up going through all of this again in January of 2025 no matter who the nominee winds up being or who wins the presidential election. So is there a possible remedy to this mess? In theory, Trump could drop out of the race and announce that he’s washing his hand of politics and leave the stage. But you already know that’s not going to happen. Alternately (and I’m not wishing for this at all), some serious health incident or accident could remove Trump from the political picture in whatever fashion. There does not appear to be a clear, definitive heir to fill the vacuum he would leave in a Trumpless GOP, so the temperatures might cool a bit and whatever passes for normal order these days might be restored.

But other than that? I don’t see any solutions. This is Donald Trump’s show for now and he is the de facto leader of an increasingly divided party. It’s pretty hard to win elections under conditions like these, but the rest of us are just going have to muddle along as best we can and try to find a path to victory.