The current effort to bring up a vote to impeach President Joe Biden probably feels good to some House Republicans – but it is exactly the wrong approach.
A knee-jerk effort to impeach a President of the United States without preparation, hearings, a full understanding of the facts – and the support of the American people – will only hurt Republican efforts to lead our country toward a better future.
For starters, the impeachment will fail. At the most elementary political level, it’s not a great idea to start fights you can’t win. The majority we created in 1994 fell apart 12 years later in part because too many Republicans became willing to fail over niche ideological issues. It cost them their seats and delivered the House to Nancy Pelosi (the first time).
Second, a messy, clumsy impeachment effort would be exactly the kind of ideological trap into which Democrats and the media want Republicans to fall.
It will allow Democrats to bury all positive efforts coming out of the Republican-led House. They could easily point to the hasty impeachment and paint the narrow GOP majority as one that is negative, divisive, and totally political. Naturally, the elite corporate media will gladly carry the Democrats’ message. All Republicans who are working to improve the lives of everyday Americans will be at best ignored – and at worst destroyed.
BOEBERT FORCING VOTE ON BIDEN IMPEACHMENT HITS A NERVE WITH HER OWN PARTY
CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER
Further, we’ve seen this before. Pelosi and the Democrats spent nearly five years attacking President Donald Trump. They even had the help of a television producer to choreograph their phony impeachment hearings. The American people got sick of it and voted them out.
Americans want Congress to work on making their grocery and gas bills shrink. They want Congress to get Americans back to work and reign in government spending. This is why they elected the GOP House majority in the first place. Why would we copy a failed Democrat playbook?
A lot of Republican members reach out to me for advice on what they should be doing ahead of 2024. My answer is to first define success for 2023 – starting with this week. If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish in the near term, you’ll be pulled into Washington nonsense (and a from-the-hip impeachment effort is the pinnacle of Washington nonsense). By 2024, you will have been really busy at accomplishing nothing of substance.
The most important thing House Republicans could be doing right now is listening to the American people – and doing what they want. Every effort Republicans propose should start with 70 percent approval from the American people. This is exactly the approach that Speaker Kevin McCarthy used in the debt ceiling negotiations. It’s exactly the approach the entire Republican conference should adopt for everything going forward.
Having been at the head of an impeachment fight before, I applaud some of the House GOP members’ enthusiasm. But going into this without serious preparation, an iron-clad case, a crystal-clear message, and the consent of the American people would be incredibly destructive.
