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
