A weekly window on the American political scene hosted by the Monitor's politics editors.

Impeachment 2.0: bipartisan, yes, but the fallout could be huge

Many Republicans who voted to impeach or convict former President Donald Trump are feeling the intra-party consequences – even if it's not yet clear how heavy they will be.

|
Susan Walsh/AP/File
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., standing next to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 3, 2019.

Dear reader:
 
 Former President Donald Trump’s just-concluded second impeachment and trial have been dubbed the most “bipartisan” in American history. Indeed, 10 Republicans joined all House Democrats in voting to impeach and seven Senate Republicans joined all the chamber’s Democrats in voting to convict.
 
 But that superlative must be qualified. Only two other U.S. presidents have been impeached. And President Richard Nixon isn’t one of them. If he hadn’t resigned, engulfed by Watergate and under pressure from major congressional Republicans, Congress would surely have thrown him out of office in bipartisan fashion.
 
 What’s more, many in the small but significant club of Republicans who voted against Mr. Trump have already seen their political fortunes hit the rocks. Many have been censured by their state Republican parties and county GOP committees. Most of the seven senators are largely shielded from repercussions, either because they just won reelection or are retiring in two years.
 
 Then there’s Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit (citing constitutional reasons) but made clear his disgust with Mr. Trump both on the Senate floor and in a Wall Street Journal oped. Yesterday, the former president replied with a takedown of Senator McConnell – a master political operator who just easily won reelection. The Trump-McConnell battle royale will continue in other ways, just not among voters and party committees, for now.
 
 Within the House GOP pro-impeach “caucus,” some are facing major blowback – not just censure, but also early primary challengers in the 2022 midterms. Most prominent among those in trouble are Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Congresswoman Cheney’s woes are noteworthy, a., because she’s the No. 3 Republican in the House, and b., because she’s a Cheney.
 
 Both of these House members are already being primaried, and in Congressman Kinzinger’s case, there’s family trouble to boot.
 
 “You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!” 11 of his relatives wrote to him in a Jan. 8 letter, published this week in The New York Times.
 
 Mr. Kinzinger is undaunted. In late January, he set up a political action committee aimed at challenging the Trump wing of the GOP – which, as I wrote last week, represents a majority of the party. It may be hard to believe that Mr. Kinzinger – an Air Force veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan – was a “star of the 2010 tea party class” in Congress. But thus have the Republican Party and some of its elected officials evolved.
 
 Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is another interesting case – the only one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict who’s up for reelection in 2022. Mr. Trump has promised to campaign against her.
 
 But as Jessica Taylor of The Cook Political Report points out, Senator Murkowski may be shielded a bit, unlike in 2010, when she lost her primary to a tea party favorite, then won reelection as a write-in. This time, Ms. Taylor explains, the state is switching to a “top-four” primary, in which the top four vote-getters appear on the November ballot, regardless of party. “Ranked-choice voting” will be used in the general, in case nobody wins a majority.
 
 Ms. Murkowski is a centrist, the kind of senator President Joe Biden likes to talk to. And like Ms. Cheney, she’s political royalty back home – the daughter of former Gov. and Sen. Frank Murkowski. But as recent events have shown, coming from the “right” family sometimes isn’t enough, and can even backfire. Stay tuned.
 
 Let us know what you’re thinking at csmpolitics@csmonitor.com.
 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Impeachment 2.0: bipartisan, yes, but the fallout could be huge
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Watch/2021/0217/Impeachment-2.0-bipartisan-yes-but-the-fallout-could-be-huge
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe