Say what you will, but Democrats are not afraid to fight. Yet after four years of scorched-earth, Republicans apparently still don’t get it.
“The president is not going to be removed from office,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell when asked about the growing calls for the impeachment of President Joe Biden as a result of his failures with the Afghanistan withdrawal. Noting that Democrats control both the House and Senate, he bluntly told a Kentucky group it’s “not going to happen,” and added, “I think the way these behaviors get adjusted in this country is at the ballot box.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy chimed in on the question already brewing before the Afghanistan debacle, saying it “is so serious it should only be taken” in extreme cases. “If Biden takes an illegal action, we would move impeachment. But we’re not going to move … for political purposes.” Those views embody the prevalent position of Congress over a two-centuries-long period in which only two presidents were impeached. The common understanding across political parties was that the constitutional requirement of “high crimes and misdemeanors” meant just that: “high crimes and misdemeanors.” That all gave way to a new threshold during the Donald Trump presidency, though, one that could accurately be called the “Nike Rule”: “Just do it.” From the beginning, Democrats’ lack of restraint and reason was on full display. In an opinion article entitled “ Impeach Trump,” a cryptic one-line argument was presented: “It’s not too early to start.” It was published in The New York Daily News on March 2, 2016—almost a year before Trump was sworn in as president. Just six months after his inauguration, the first article of impeachment was formally filed in the House of Representatives. Three months later, a second charge came. Shortly thereafter, a batch of five new articles were filed. And so it went—for four years. Along the way, the press was aflush with articles such as these: Those were published articles. It got much worse on social media. Say what you will, but Democrats are not afraid to fight. They battle day in and day out, and they don’t break ranks. If anything, they compete to one-up each other in their zealous pursuit of enemies. Despising Trump’s very existence, they skipped past censure and went straight for the jugular—impeachment. Not only were they not content to allow an election to handle matters, they actually tried him after he had left office. In the end, the mob was barely sated with a charge of “incitement of insurrection.” Some argued for treason —a crime punishable by death—but to their dismay found it was legally limited to the enabling of a foreign enemy, not a domestic one, as was alleged to have arisen on January 6, 2021. So there was no gallows. Clearly, there is no limit on the bombastic rhetoric from Democrats, nor are they embarrassed by any of it. Yet Republican leaders still prefer to play the game by different rules that disadvantage their voters. Even after watching the 45th president be pummeled for years by false allegations, corrupt investigations, and endless calls for impeachment—capped by the actual deed pulled off, not once but twice, in his last 14 months in office—they still seem oblivious to the change in war tactics.
