The insurrection that occurred at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 is still relevant. The House of Representatives Special Committee looking into these events released its investigative report at the end of December with incriminating testimony against former President Donald Trump and some of his close associates.
The actual impact of this report will depend on what the US Department of Justice does with it. However, we can already see that the division persists between the Democrats and the Republicans on the conclusions of the investigation and on the next steps. Moreover, Trump remains present in the public space because he is a candidate for the presidency for 2024.
On January 6, 2023, the second anniversary of the uprising, President Joe Biden presented medals of recognition to 14 officials who were serving at the time, to recognize their courage and loyalty to American democracy.
That same day in the evening, the House of Representatives finally chose its new president (the “speaker”). Given their victory in the November midterm elections, the Republicans had a majority to elect the new president. The choice fell on their leader in office, the representative Kevin McCarthy.
Choose McCarthy
However, this choice was not made easily, quite the contrary, while followers of Donald Trump imposed themselves in the electoral process. Since the narrow victory in November, some Republicans under the influence of Florida elected official Matt Gaetz, an ardent Trumpist, have indicated their willingness to oppose Kevin McCarthy’s candidacy at all costs.
This opposition manifested itself vigorously on the floor of the House for four days, from January 3 to 6 inclusively, and live in the media. Eventually, this saga concluded with McCarthy’s election to the 15e ballot, unheard of for more than a century and a half! To win the election, he was forced to make a large number of concessions to dissidents. Many observers believe that these will severely limit the powers of the presidency under McCarthy.
For example, a motion tabled by a single member of the House (out of 435 representatives) could trigger impeachment proceedings against McCarthy.
In other words, his concessions make him more vulnerable, not only to the Democratic minority, but also to his own party.
In addition, he acquiesced to the demands of dissidents who demanded more powers with respect to the composition of House committees and the rules that govern them.
The challenges ahead
Despite everything, Donald Trump is still well anchored in the decor. McCarthy also thanked him the night of his victory. Since then, Trump has taken credit for it. However, although he supported McCarthy, the dissidents are supporters of the ex-president to the point where they are considered “creations of Trump”.
These facts indicate that Trump’s influence in the House is more mixed in January 2023 than has been observable in recent years. It should be noted that the former president has been going through a bad period since the disappointing electoral results of November 8 and in the face of the evolution of the various investigations which implicate him. Could this be the start of its decline? One thing is certain, Trumpism is not in the process of dissipating among the Republicans.
The possibility of a crisis with major consequences for the American and international financial system could arise in the coming months if Congress does not agree to raise the debt ceiling in time to avoid a default. Admittedly, this reality comes back year after year in the United States, but what will happen in the current context?
In retaliation for the investigations and the two impeachment processes that have been carried out against Trump in recent years, we can expect to see several investigations launched against the Biden administration, and especially against the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
The latter is the subject of media speculation regarding the business ties he had in Ukraine and China when his father was vice-president under Barack Obama.
In his victory speech, McCarthy promised to use the “power to subpoena” excessively if necessary, and to fight President Biden’s “exaggerated” spending. Clearly, confrontation and political division will continue to set the norm in Congress.
In addition, it should not be forgotten that there are still several elected Republicans who still question the legitimacy of the election of Joe Biden in 2020, and who consider the investigation into the assault of January 6, 2021 as a partisan exercise for the Democrats. This no doubt indicates that the shadow of January 6 will indeed continue to hang over American democracy in the coming year.