Republicans are about to deliver on the driving purpose of their House majority – enacting Donald Trump’s retribution.
Republicans are about to deliver on the driving purpose of their House majority – enacting Donald Trump’s retribution.
Trump’s lieutenants will on Thursday formally open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden that his supporters, smarting from their leader’s own double impeachment, have been demanding since the current president took office.
The first hearing is taking place with just three days to reach a spending deal to keep the government open. Rather than try to solve the crisis, hardline House Republicans are driving the country toward a shutdown that Trump ordered up on social media, insisting it will damage Biden, his potential general election rival.
The two showdowns – and the return to power of Trump’s movement in the House – could shape the fate of the Republican House majority, which was narrowly won in last year’s midterm elections.
The gravity of the House Oversight Committee embarking on an impeachment inquiry is being undermined by the GOP so far failing to show any evidence that the president corruptly benefited from his son Hunter’s business dealings – even if they presented a glaring conflict of interest.
House Republican leaders are initiating what should be a constitutional last-resort process that could oust a president at the same time that they are demonstrating their inability to fulfill their most basic duties, like passing bills and governing.
Extremist lawmakers are refusing to pass even a short-term funding bill to keep the government open and are seeking massive spending cuts on top of those agreed by Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a deal with Biden earlier this year – to the chagrin of some Republicans in the Senate. Some of Trump’s acolytes are seeking to end US aid to Ukraine in a move that would seriously undermine its battle for survival after an invasion ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has called a “genius.” The Senate’s bipartisan stopgap bill, which extends current funding levels for 45 days and includes $6 billion for Ukraine, stands no chance of passage in the House.
The discord on Capitol Hill is also bound up in the accelerating potential general election clash between Biden and Trump, which intensified this week when both rivals flew to Michigan to use an autoworkers strike in a bid to carve out an advantage in a critical swing state. Trump’s speech on the issue on Wednesday night outside Detroit was also designed to overshadow the second Republican presidential debate in California, which he boycotted after reasoning that he is so far ahead in the polls that it wasn’t worth his time.
Biden will follow up with a major speech on America’s under-pressure democracy in Arizona on Thursday, which will take place against the backdrop of the impeachment hearing that Democrats see as a classic example of GOP abuses of power.
Two crises springing from common causes
Impeachment and a shutdown brinkmanship are separate issues, but they spring from the same causes.
Both are bound up in the Republican House majority’s devotion to Trump and his manipulation of the party to advance his ends.
