What Was MAGA Mike Thinking When He Foolishly Bowed To Trump’s Demands To Impeach Biden?

Impeaching Biden Would Cost The GOP 20 House Seats

Mike Lawler (R-NY), most likely to lose his seat in 2024

The GOP excuse has been “it’s only an inquiry, not an impeachment.” It’s the excuse swing district Republicans like Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Mike Garcia (R-CA), Don Bacon (R-NE), Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY) and a couple dozen others have used when questioned by the media or by constituents angered by the partisan game-playing and lack of attention to the public’s interests. But what happens when the inevitable day of reckoning comes— when these Republicans have to vote for impeaching Biden on trumped up charges... or not?

I’m not talking about Republicans in districts with R+40 partisan leans, like Gym Jordan, or R+45 like Ronny Jackson and Marjorie Traitor Greene. We’re talking about members like Miami’s Maria Salazar (D+1), Orange County’s Michelle Steel (D+5), California Central Valley’s John Duarte (D+7), also California Central Valley’s David Valadao (D+10), Central New York’s Brandon Williams (D+2), Des Moines' Zach Nunn (R+2), New Jersey’s Tom Kean (R+3), Oregon’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer (D+3)… even someone like Bryan Steil in an R+6 district in Wisconsin could be in trouble if he votes for impeachment— if the DCCC wants to seriously contest his district.

Yesterday, Jordain Carney warned that anything less than impeaching Biden will look like another GOP failure— certainly to their base. And he warned that “they don’t have the votes to do that— putting them in a bind of their own making. Much of the House GOP has tried to keep the question of a full-scale removal vote at arm’s length, despite the course they’ve charted toward formal articles of impeachment. It’s not hard to see why: They’ll start the election year with only a three-vote majority, which could shrink even further, and 17 incumbents who represent districts Biden won. Plus, Democrats are almost guaranteed to unanimously oppose impeachment. All that means a vote to recommend booting the president from office would be highly risky. Republicans stress they’ve only endorsed giving their investigations more legal teeth, as they’ve struggled to find clear evidence linking decisions made by Joe Biden to his family’s business deals. And that’s the bar some centrists have emphasized that investigators need to clear in order to earn enough votes.”

MAGA Mike, petrified at angering Trump and his MAGAt base, “has a short window to find an off-ramp that would please both the impeachment skeptics and supporters within [his] own ranks. [Gym Jordan, Jim Comer, Marjorie Traitor Greene] want to decide as early as late January on drafting impeachment articles, but whether the conference has the votes to recommend booting the president will likely factor into leaders’ decision to go further down that path... And skepticism within the conference extends well beyond just battleground district Republicans.”

Outside of the far right media echo-chamber there’s no traction whatsoever for impeachment. Even mainstream conservatives like Dusty Johnson (R-SD), chair of the Main Street Caucus, and David Joyce (R-OH), chair of the Republican Governance Group have said, respectively, “there’s not evidence to impeach” and “We’re a long way from impeachment.”

And some of those swing-district Republicans are already trying to temper voters’ expectations, making a distinction between supporting a formal inquiry and supporting impeachment.

The inquiry vote “doesn’t mean we have high crimes or misdemeanors. We may not ever,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said, while acknowledging that “some” GOP voters might now expect it.

While the party’s right flank has floated dragging out the investigation well into 2024, using it as a cudgel against Biden in the general election, other Republicans are warning that would expose their party to political attacks.

And, they added, the GOP effort against Biden could also inadvertently boost him, given that Trump saw a polling upswing during and immediately after his first impeachment.

“We live in a binary political world,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), noting that “Trump’s highest approval rating” came right after House Democrats first recommended booting him.

Satan-the-Deceiver by Chip Proser