Representative Jim Jordan’s quest to secure the speaker’s gavel for himself has not been going well. On his first roll call vote on the House floor, Jordan’s bid for the speakership produced more Republican defections than Kevin McCarthy endured in his first vote back in January — a process that took 15 rounds to resolve itself. Jordan received even more “no” votes from his Republican colleagues on the second ballot. But the Ohio Republican hasn’t given up yet. While his campaign has begun to feel like a fruitless exercise, it is not valueless. In the effort to ingratiate himself among his skeptics, Jordan has demonstrated why leading a majority in Congress is inimical to the kinds of purity tests the congressman himself has imposed on his predecessors.

It was already abundantly clear to any neutral observer of the chaos that has plagued the House for the better part of a month that the internecine squabble over the provision of material support to Ukraine was a red herring. Hours after Kevin McCarthy secured the terms of a deal to keep the government’s lights on that deprived Ukraine of additional funding, he was summarily ousted from the speakership by his unappeasable colleagues. If any further evidence was needed to prove that Ukraine aid was not a hill the MAGA right was willing to hold at all costs, Jordan has subordinated his opposition to future disbursements to Kyiv in exchange for the vote of his conference’s more hawkish members.

“Four House Republicans walked away from conversations with House GOP speaker nominee Jim Jordan under the impression he’ll allow a floor vote on linking Ukraine funding with Israel funding if he wins the gavel,” Axios reported earlier this week. The suggestion represents not just a concession to Jordan’s fellow Republicans but also to the Biden White House, which has sought precisely the same coupling of military aid for Ukraine and Israel.

But that didn’t do the trick, so Jordan went back to the well and produced another concession — one designed to appease the Republican members in blue states such as California and New York, who have been particularly cold to Jordan’s speakership bid.

According to California Representative Mike Garcia, Jordan promised to put the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap on the table. Indeed, according to Garcia, Jordan was willing to boost the cap to $20,000 for individuals and $40,000 for joint filers, up from the $5,000 limit on individuals and $10,000 for couples — a reform the House Freedom Caucus enthusiastically backed when it was implemented as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Nor was this just some handshake deal that could be dispensed with at some later date. “Garcia said Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) backed Jordan’s offer,” Bloomberg News reported.

If anything, Jordan’s speakership campaign has shown that dogmatism is a luxury of obscurity. Only backbenchers get to be uncompromising. Being in leadership requires flexibility, creativity, and the willingness to compromise even on deeply held principles to hold an unwieldy majority together. That has been a reality that so many conservative media figures and Republican lawmakers have refused to accept.

It’s unclear if those who are most eager to accuse their fellow Republicans of collaborating with enemy forces will synthesize their support for Jordan and his pugnacious affect with the demands imposed on would-be conference leaders. If they do, maybe they will finally reckon with how the federal legislature works.