If there’s a silver lining to Democrats’ casual dismissal of impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week, it would be that a future GOP-led Senate now has license to blow off all impeachments that will inevitably be sent their way. But there’s no universe in which Republicans accept that gift.
In reality, the next time Democrats seize control of the House and contrive allegations of high crime and misdemeanor — far sooner than you think — enough Republicans, reliably compliant, will declare it’s the Senate’s absolute moral and constitutional duty to consider, deliberate and ultimately host a trial that remedies the fabricated concern.
It’s depressingly rare for Republicans to return fire when Democrats escalate their unyielding war on American democracy, institutions, and norms. Democrats impeached the last Republican president— twice! And one of those times, he wasn’t even in office.
There wasn’t a sliver of merit to either. The first impeachment related to a phone call between Donald Trump and the head of Ukraine, during which a government worker listening in complained that credible allegations of wrongdoing by his former boss, Joe Biden, came up in conversation. The second was a pretense to ensure Trump could never get elected again.
Yet several Senate Republicans, ever afraid that someone at The New York Times will yell at them, voted with Democrats to legitimize all of it with two full trials that, although it’s of little consolation, ended in acquittals.
The second Republicans took control of the House in 2023, the first order of business should have been to impeach Joe Biden. They didn’t even have to bother with the “inquiry” in hopes of nailing down some actual crime. As America was assured by our helpful media during attempted Trump removal 1.0, impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one.
They could have called it the “Just For Fun Impeachment of Joe Biden” and it would have been every bit as real as the previous two levied against Trump. That’s the cheapness that Democrats brought to the process.
But, as we know, Biden hasn’t been impeached by this GOP-“led” House. He most surely won’t be. Voters who gave Republicans the keys to power did, however, get the bare minimum— the impeachment of a Biden administration official, Mayorkas, who was charged with willful refusal to enforce immigration law and lying about his professional conduct, a “breach of trust.”
What should have followed is simple: a Senate trial of the accusations against Mayorkas, who would be entitled to a defense. That is a lost American tradition once known as “due process.” He would have certainly been acquitted anyway. But instead, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, Screw you, Republicans! before tossing their little impeachment articles in the trash, right along with the smiley face doodles he keeps receiving from John Fetterman.
After every Senate Democrat voted to discard the impeachment articles, Schumer showed just how big his balls are. “If we start cheapening impeachment,” he said in an interview with The New York Times, “which is what they’ve done by letting a policy issue become impeachment, there will be impeachment all the time.”
No Senate Republican has it in him to flex like that. The complicity and stupidity of Republicans in the House are just as bad, or worse.
Before the impeachment articles finally passed, Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado voted against them because, he said, “Partisan impeachments that do not meet the constitutional standard will boomerang back and hurt Republicans in the future.”
Buck apparently woke up in the middle of 2021 after a four-year slumber. It’s Democrats who started “partisan impeachments.” Shouldn’t that “boomerang back” on them?
GOP California Rep. Tom McClintock likewise urged Republicans against impeaching Mayoraks because “We must never allow the left to become our teachers.”
Average Republican officeholder: If we do it to them, they’ll do it to us.
They already did it to us.
Average Republican officeholder: Yeah, but we’re better than that.
Such is the winsome mentality of the elected Republican in Congress— losing with dignity is actually winning!
No, dummy. Winning is winning. And winning isn’t for the sake of itself. It’s for the purpose of wielding power. If Republicans can’t do that on a simple task like impeaching a derelict cabinet official, they’re about as useful as a set of “His and Hers” towels for Lindsey Graham.
The pattern is old and clear: Democrats escalate tensions, and when Republicans get their turn, they hide. This time is no different, and next time will be the same.
