I’ll say this about Senate Republicans: .

Mom would be proud of my restraint here. So, I’m guessing, would Thomas Jefferson, for it was Jefferson who once advised, “When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.”

Alas, it didn’t work. I counted to 100, and I’m still every bit as disgusted by the decision of Senate Republicans to return John Thune as their leader despite last Tuesday’s resounding electoral shellacking. I mean, Thune oversaw the immolation of Republican seats in ostensibly solid red states such as Ohio, Iowa, Texas, South Carolina, and freaking Kansas, so why not reward him with a show of confidence?

You know what they say: You can lead a herd of do-nothing McConnellite RINO globalist elephants to water, but you can’t make them stop smearing feces on themselves.

As The Hill reports, “A Senate GOP aide announced late in the afternoon that Thune had been reelected as leader ‘by acclamation,’ despite objections raised by a handful of GOP senators over proceeding with the vote this week.”

“Acclamation” seems a weird word to describe the GOP’s lukewarm reelection of Thune, especially in the face of opposition from conservative fighters like Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, who demanded a delay in the election and eventually walked out in protest. As Johnson put it in an X post:

I did not participate in today’s Senate leadership election because a defeat of this magnitude demands serious reflection and change. Holding a rushed election ignores the message our voters sent. We must acknowledge where and why we failed and develop strategies to succeed. I hope our conference can unite, learn from this moment, and do a better job listening to the American people and addressing their concerns.

“In order to best continue doing nothing,” quipped the folks at The Babylon Bee, “Senate Republicans reelect John Thune as Minority Leader.” Just so.

President Donald Trump tried to be diplomatic, but he still damned Thune with faint praise: “Well, look, he’s a very fine man,” said the president. “I know him very well, but that’s really up to the Senate. I like John Thune. I wish the Senate could get more done.”

Aside from acknowledging that he and his party got their butts kicked last Tuesday, Johnson and his fellow stalwarts also understand something else that Thune does not: Republicans are on the clock, and their ability to do anything legislatively ends abruptly on January 3. Or maybe Thune just doesn’t care. Johnson and his fellow patriots wanted Thune to cancel the upper chamber’s week-long Thanksgiving recess in order to pass key elements of the SAVE America Act and fund the Department of War through a budget reconciliation package — to which Thune not-so-enthusiastically replied: “We’ll see.”

Would you like to save our Republic, John, or just watch it burn? We’ll see.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, Thune’s lieutenants were also rewarded with reelection: Wyoming’s 74-year-old John Barrasso as whip, West Virginia’s 72-year-old Shelley Moore Capito as policy committee chair, and Oklahoma’s milquetoasty James Lankford as conference vice chair. That Arkansas’s Tom Cotton was reelected as conference chair is, I suppose, some small consolation, but it’s hard to imagine a less vigorous, less energetic bunch than this.

Over in the House, though, things are decidedly different. Speaker Mike Johnson, who’s been a solid, thoughtful, and articulate voice for conservative policies, honorably decided against running again for leadership, instead leaving it to a choice between current Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Freedom Caucus cofounder Jim Jordan.

To the apparent dismay of the Washington Examiner, Jordan won resoundingly by a vote of 106-73.

“Republicans on Tuesday,” the Examiner glumly reported, “declined the seasoned experience of Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who has served in leadership since 2014 and as the No. 2 House Republican under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for the last two years.”

In short, House Republicans elected a fighter rather than a fixture — which is precisely what John Thune has been ever since he arrived in Washington.

There could hardly be a better contrast between two men than the tall, measured, perfectly coiffed and exquisitely attired Thune and the short, frumpy, frenetic, sleeves-rolled-up Jordan, the one-time NCAA champion wrestler.

But I’ll take Jordan’s serious substance over Thune’s vapid style every stinkin’ time.