Total political war has been joined. On the floor of the United Sates House of Representatives on Thursday, the battle lines were drawn — and they could not be more clear or decisive. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “Every member should support allowing the American people to hear the facts for themselves. That is really what this vote is about. It is about the truth, and what is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy.”
Stirring stuff, but not to be outdone, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan fired back, calling into question the origins of the Ukraine investigation that began with a whistleblower’s meeting with Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s staff.
Chiding the chairman, Jordan said, “One member of this body knows who this person is who started this whole darn, crazy process: Chairman Schiff. And what’s this resolution do? Gives him even more power to run this secret proceeding in a bunker in the basement of the Capitol.”
The United States has now entered uncharted territory. After spending two years in a failed effort to prove that President Trump colluded with Russia, an effort that fizzled and did not lead to impeachment, in a mere five weeks Democrats have rushed headlong into another attempt to remove the duly elected president.
Democrats and their allies in the media had hoped that Republican defections in the House, even just a handful, would give a glimmer of bipartisan legitimacy to this impeachment. This didn’t happen, as the impeachment resolution received exactly zero GOP votes. That shutout is a major victory for a White House that has consistently argued this process is a partisan sham, not a principled pursuit of truth.
The clear signal from House Republicans is that they intend to fight this impeachment effort tooth and nail, and given that none of the allegations against Trump have moved the needle among Republican voters in favor of impeachment, it is easy to see why they are taking this stand.
Meanwhile, vulnerable Democrats in districts that Trump carried can only hold their breath and hope that they are not punished for supporting impeachment. Here in New York, within minutes of the vote, NY-11 GOP candidate Nicole Malliotakis released a scathing press release, saying of her opponent, Rep. Max Rose, that, “along with radical Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Adam Schiff, he’s cynically voted to waste more taxpayer money and time on a partisan witch-hunt.”
Speaker Pelosi dragged her heels for months on impeachment for just this reason. Vulnerable Democrats such as Rose now have to explain to their voters why they want to remove the president whom those very same voters elected. There is no more political cover. There is no more middle ground for moderates. There is only the fight.
In the coming weeks, Democrats will seek to make the case that the 2016 election result should be overturned. They will make that case alone. There has been no more unifying moment for Republicans in the Trump era than the battle over Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and the GOP will no doubt try to bring that unity and conviction to their defense of Trump.
So far, so good. Both sides have now cried havoc, and let slip the dogs the war. Wars are fights to the death, but will it be the death of a presidency or the death of attempts to undo one? The American people will have that answer sooner rather than later.
David Marcus is the New York correspondent for The Federalist.