Donald Trump may have made the decision to launch the war that tanked voters’ support for the GOP and dealt them a midterm shellacking. But the historic losses are accelerating a push for someone else to take the fall: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
And the House could vote as soon as next week to impeach the Pentagon’s top leader.
Many Republican lawmakers and allies alarmed by Tuesday’s wipeout are moving swiftly to pin blame for the election results on Hegseth, arguing behind the scenes that he played a chief role in convincing Trump to attack Iran with no exit strategy — and no plan for managing the inevitable political fallout.
The knives-out campaign comes despite private acknowledgement from House and Senate GOP strategists that the party’s problems extended far beyond the war, triggering 2008-level losses that will take years to reverse. But for now, party leaders – and many in their ranks – remain unwilling to directly blame Trump for their woes.
Bush Jr stole his first election and then 9/11 made people lose their minds enough to actually want him back. It’s not quite the same as the Trump bullshit, which I’m convinced was still largely a racist backlash to Obama mixed with the Democrats running terrible candidates both times Trump won.
Hopefully this election will show that progressive candidates drive turnout, but I’m not keeping my hopes up that the oligarchs won’t find a way around that.