‘Performance Art’: Mitt Romney Destroys Jim Jordan For Doing Nothing In Congress But Making ‘A Lot of Noise’

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) blasted modern politics as “performance art” during an interview with the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce this week and cited Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as the ultimate example of unserious politicians who care more to entertain their base than actually govern. Jordan on Wednesday failed on his second attempt to become House speaker during a floor vote that saw 22 GOP members vote against him.

Romney was asked by the moderator to reflect on his time in the U.S. Senate and “what it has shown you about how democracy is being practiced here in Washington right now?”

“Well, I think it’s pretty clear that we’re more divided as a nation than we’ve been in a long, long time. Obviously, we were most divided during the Civil War, but we’re highly divided now,” Romney began, adding:

And I think the reason for that is that our media has moved from a setting where there were editors and fact-checkers and where if you’re a crackpot with a crazy theory of some kind, you’re probably not going to get it published in any kind of a way that’s going to get picked up by the public at large.

Because, you know, 20 years ago, people read newspapers and magazines and looked at the evening news. Those things were all carefully vetted in most respects by editors, fact-checkers, and so forth. That’s gone. You guys are getting your news, certainly as I do now, by going on my device that’s curated for me and I’m seeing stories. Many cases I agree with, some I don’t agree with. But oftentimes what I’m seeing on social media, there are no fact-checkers and no editors.

“And if I have a really crazy crackpot theory, just absolute, completely wild out there, I can put it out there and get millions of hits. I can get a lot of people seeing it. Well, that was not possible,” Romney lamented, blaming the rise of online misinformation for the polarization in the country.

“And so you have people increasingly coming to Washington. Who’s objective in staying in office is to make noise, not to make law, not to change things in a way that that might be better for the country, but just to make a lot of noise and to show they’re angry and fighting,” Romney continued, pivoting to Jordan:

I mean, right now, Jim Jordan, for instance, you’ve heard, is running for speaker of the House. My former chief of staff sent me a message today and said, you know, it’s interesting. Here’s a guy who wants to be the speaker of the House. Do you know how many bills he’s passed that he’s authored? None.

And how many bills that he’s just been a sponsor of, by the way. You get to sign up to be a sponsor of a bill. All right. And so, you know, I’ve seen lots and lots of bills that I didn’t write, but I’m a sponsor. None of the bills he sponsored has ever become law.

So we’re looking at electing a person who would be second in line to the presidency, who’s never passed a bill. But he’s certainly well known because he’s able to make a lot of noise.

And that’s the currency of the realm these days in politics, is finding a way to stand out and to be well known. And if I were to ask you the names of congresspeople that, you know, they’d almost all be people who don’t actually do anything or pass any law, but they are very outspoken.

“And how does a democracy work, one when the population is getting information that may or may not be accurate? And two, when the people that are most well known are those that are accomplishing things, but instead are performing. And so politics itself has become more of a performance art,” Romney said before discussing former President Donald Trump.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.