In a country which has a policy which has been defined for several years by an ever more marked divide, what we are seeing today is not particularly surprising. But the reality remains: in the United States, the center – those moderate voters who can side with one side or the other – no longer exists.
Three elements came to prove it this week.
First, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced the start of an investigation aimed at the impeachment of President Joe Biden. For what “crime or misdemeanor”, as required by the Constitution?
“We will find them and we will go where the evidence takes us,” Mr. McCarthy replied. In other words, the Republicans want to impeach Joe Biden and they are currently looking for a crime.
All of this is, of course, connected to the troubles of the president’s son, Hunter Biden. He had drug problems and it is quite clear that he tried to use the name of his father, then vice president, to brag about the useful contacts he had in Washington.
This is neither elegant nor ethical, but it does not prove that Joe Biden benefited, financially or otherwise, from his son’s international activities.
But with Hunter Biden this week facing criminal charges of lying under oath to obtain a gun, Republicans believe they’re on to something.
In fact, as a chronicler of the New York Times this week, Joe Biden is accused of the “crime of paternity”. In reality, we can see the shadow of Donald Trump behind this whole attempt to impeach President Biden. It’s about revenge, quite simply. He reportedly told allies: “They did it to me, it’s our turn.” »
An impeachment attempt should be a two-edged sword. If the cause is not serious, public opinion can easily turn against those who wanted to remove a president without good reason. That’s what happened to Republicans when they tried to impeach Bill Clinton for his affair with an intern named Monica Lewinsky.
But the Republicans are not too afraid of the backlash from their impeachment attempt, as they are convinced that the country is so divided that this will not convince their voters to desert the party.
For what ? Because they know that the center practically no longer exists and that they will not lose votes.
As if that were not enough, the hard right of the Republican Party also wants to shut down the federal government – by refusing to vote on budgetary appropriations – because they believe the government spends too much. This too, historically, has produced a backlash in public opinion. But once again, the most radical Republicans have no fear: their electorate is theirs and the center no longer exists…
It must be said that if the most radical Republicans are leading so widely, it is because support for McCarthy is so weak that they can subject him to any kind of blackmail. If the Speaker of the House of Representatives resisted them, he would be outvoted and would have to leave his post.
Another sign of the imminent disappearance of the center in American politics is the decision of Senator Mitt Romney, former Republican candidate for the presidency, not to seek a new term.
Romney formed – with Democrat Joe Manchin and independent Kyrsten Sinema – a trio of senators capable of transcending partisan divisions. Romney announced this week that he was leaving politics and the other two say they are considering their future.
But Mitt Romney was not going to leave the Senate without settling some scores with his party. The majority of Republicans believe, like him, that Donald Trump has “none of the qualities required to be president and he has all those that are not”.
He quotes one of his colleagues who told him shortly after his arrival in the Senate: “Here, there are around twenty senators who do all the work, the other 80 just follow them. »
But these fellow senators do not want to offend their voters who support the former president. They all know he lost the 2020 election, but they will never tell. Quite simply because they only have one thing in mind: getting re-elected.
Romney was the Republican Party candidate against Barack Obama in 2012. The book that best describes this campaign is that of journalist Jonathan Alter. Its title was The Center Holds, or the center holds firm. Because it was Obama’s ability to rally centrist voters that allowed him to win.
It was also the last presidential campaign before the era of divisiveness. And seeing how the 2024 campaign is shaping up, we shouldn’t expect this divide to ease any time soon.