Falling Short in Effort To Impeach Hegseth Shows Trump Foes Danger of Putting Partisanship Over Governing

Secretary of War Hegseth is keeping his job, with Democrats falling short in their impeachment effort. The party is sure to try again, but the failure — thanks to 11 of its members not showing up to vote — ought to be a reminder that midterm wins can fade fast if the victors pursue partisan vendettas at the expense of governing.Americans, growing tired of the military effort against Iran and the concurrent increase in oil prices, turned against President Trump’s Republicans to give Democrats a sweeping victory. A party tends to interpret such waves as meaning its policies have been chosen, ignoring that many voters are transactional and their ballots represent only a rejection of the other side.Democrats have now been given a reminder of how fickle support can be. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that the impeachment of Mr. Hegseth “miserably FAILED.” He asserted that “victories in Venezuela and Iran, the Best Recruitment Numbers in the History of the Military … and Spirit like rarely seen before, led to the EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot.”The debacle gave Mr. Trump a win in a week where wins have been in short supply. Democrats, he wrote, “continue to weaponize and abuse the United States of America. They must be stopped!” Expect him to keep flipping that script, asking how each Democratic action helps solve what they’ve dubbed “the affordability crisis.”Even before Mr. Hegseth’s escape, so to speak, left-wing Democrats were protesting the elevation to, respectively, speaker and majority leader the two New Yorkers, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Charles Schumer, who lead the party on Capitol Hill. Now partisans have fresh reason to argue that those legislators don’t have the right stuff.Once in the majority, Democrats will have to keep their socialist wing happy at the risk of alienating swing voters. Impeachment theater has, of late, been a way to do that, making the process the punishment. Yet turning a solemn function of government into a stage play is sapping its power to shock the electorate or shame its target.In 1998, Republicans launched a halfhearted impeachment of President Clinton, whose party became the first since 1934 to defy “the six-year itch” and not lose any seats in Congress. In 2014, the GOP Congress impeached President Biden’s secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, to yawns.The border, among Mr. Biden’s weakest issues, was at issue in the impeachment of Mr. Mayorkas. Voters, it turned out, were savvy enough to see that the effort had no chance of improving the status quo even had the secretary been removed. Instead of being a positive for Republicans, the ploy was forgettable at best and a waste of time at worst.Among executive branch officials, only one president and one cabinet secretary had been impeached prior to Mr. Clinton, yet he emerged stronger from the ordeal. His chosen successor, Vice President Gore, won the popular vote in 2000, as did Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, in 2016. President Trump, after two impeachments, was reelected by campaigning on the economic issues that sank him last week.In 1994, Republicans rode a more historic and impactful wave than we just saw, capturing the House for the first time in 40 years and winning the Senate. They delivered on their Contract with America’s poll-tested agenda items including welfare reform and balancing the budget. Yet their revolution stalled until, in 1996, Mr. Clinton won reelection.Voters may not like the results delivered by the party in power, but that doesn’t mean they’ll back anything done by the only other option in the two-party system. Americans have been primed for two years of campaigning to ask how a given action by Mr. Trump will lower the price of gasoline, groceries, and other necessities.When Democrats take over Congress, they’ll face the same questions. The failure to remove Mr. Hegseth is a lesson on the limits of political theater to keep the support that manifested on Election Night. It’s a reminder to Democrats will need real answers come January — or the same voters who soured on Mr. Trump will flip again until they find somebody who delivers.

Falling Short in Effort To Impeach Hegseth Shows Trump Foes Danger of Putting Partisanship Over Governing

Falling Short in Effort To Impeach Hegseth Shows Trump Foes Danger of Putting Partisanship Over Governing

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