ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Rep. Jim Jordan, in a letter to Republican colleagues, wrote that the GOP has only itself to blame for the loss of the House to the Democrats.

“This might be a tough pill to swallow,” the Ohio Republican said, “but I believe that if we’d handled the past two years differently, we would still be the majority party in the House of Representatives.”

Somebody give that man a gold star.

Fact is, the American people have been sending a clear message for some time — can you say tea party? — that Congress needs a complete rework.

The most recent presidential election only underscored that demand for overhaul — can you say President Donald Trump?

Jordan gets it.

“In 2016, the American people rejected business as usual by electing an outsider as president,” he wrote. “On Tuesday, they reaffirmed that message. Even though they are happy with some of our policy achievements over the past two years, they really wanted us to change how Washington works. But we didn’t. We have largely been conducting ‘business as usual’ for the past two years, and we just paid the price.”

Bingo.

Tone-deaf politicians on Capitol Hill still don’t understand why the American people elected Trump in the first place — and sadly, the tone-deafness runs through both political parties.

But here’s the quick refresher course: Republicans don’t go to the polls to elect wishy-washy leaders to go to Congress to cut deals with Democrats. Conservatives don’t pine for quieter political days that come only by way of the caving of their elected pols to the progressive agendas of the left. Conservatives want fighters; conservative voters want principled leaders who will stand strong to the onslaught of unfair, over-the-top and brutish attacks of the Democrats and their left-leaning support system called the media.

Conservatives think they’ve found that fighter in Trump. He’s the example of how Republicans ought to be, at least in terms of putting the people first, personal agenda, second.

Jordan sees that. Republicans, in this chugging economy, should’ve kept the House.

“We had a compelling narrative to offer the American people,” he said.

And with that — Jordan’s announced his run for Republican leader.

“We can’t just stay on the same path and expect different results,” he wrote. “While we won’t control the process in the House for the next two years, we can begin to demonstrate the discipline to do the right thing on decentralizing power, opening up the legislative process and allowing it to work as our Founders intended.”

Quite right. Trump’s been fighting for the American people, for the “Make American Great Again” platform, without many in his own Republican Party for quite some time. As Jordan noted: The people have noticed.

The voters have spoken.

The Democrats have seized the House.

And it’s going to take some solid effort on the part of the Republicans to win back the trust of the conservatives of the country. If admitting the problem is step one to fixing it — Jordan, for one, is definitely ahead of the game.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

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