{"id":404722,"date":"2026-01-13T15:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T15:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/404722\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T15:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T15:10:16","slug":"republicans-in-congress-show-signs-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/404722\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans in Congress show signs of life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hawley drew Trump\u2019s ire by voting to constrain his war powers. (Demetrius Freeman\/WaPo via Getty)<\/p>\n

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The new year so far has been a miserable chronicle of democratic collapse and authoritarian brutality. Trump and his regime of bloodthirsty goons inaugurated 2026 by invading Venezuela<\/a>, disgracefully smearing<\/a> Renee Nicole Good, the woman murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, and generally doing everything they can to visit sadistic, unaccountable tyranny upon the world.<\/p>\n

Amid the understandable despair, it can be easy to miss flickers of hope. But the fact is that the regime is ramping up violence and terror in part because its grip on the nation, and even on its own party, seems to be slipping. Last week it suffered two humiliating defeats in Congress, one in each chamber.<\/p>\n

\"TimTim O\u2019Brien on the decline of The Donald<\/a><\/p>\n

The administration will probably be able to contain the damage. But the signs of revolt in the legislature highlight the extreme and increasing unpopularity of Trump\u2019s program of imperialism abroad and gutting the safety net at home.<\/p>\n

For months, House Speaker Mike Johnson has been struggling, and often failing, to keep control of his legislative agenda. He\u2019s run the House in large part by doing whatever Trump wants and forcing Republicans to get in line. He\u2019s used his control of the floor to prevent bills that have bipartisan support from getting a vote.<\/p>\n

But the tension with his own caucus has reached a breaking point. Republican members are increasingly signing discharge petitions, forcing Johnson to hold votes on legislation he and Trump would rather bury. Johnson\u2019s majority is narrow, so it only takes a handful of defectors to join with Democrats and the anti-Johnson coalition can seize control of the floor.<\/p>\n

\"MikeMike Johnson’s downward spiral<\/a><\/p>\n

In November, after months of stalling and thrashing, the House passed<\/a> a discharge petition forcing a vote on the release of files related to Trump crony and billionaire child abuser Jeffrey Epstein. The House then voted almost unanimously to pass the measure, because even as low as Republicans have sunk, they still don\u2019t want to be associated with billionaire child abusers.<\/p>\n

The Epstein vote was dramatic, but it was the beginning, not the end, of Johnson\u2019s troubles. Shortly after the vote to release the files, a handful of Republican moderates, led by Nebraska\u2019s Don Bacon, showed actual signs of life and defied leadership to block a censure resolution of Democratic Rep. Stacey Plaskett. (Plaskett had texted with Epstein during a congressional hearing in 2019.)<\/p>\n

Then last month, five Republicans joined with Democrats to pass<\/a> a discharge petition forcing a vote to overturn Trump\u2019s executive order banning collective bargaining for federal workers. The bill, cosponsored by conservative Democrat Jared Golden and moderate swing-district Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, passed with 20 Republican members in support, 231-195.<\/p>\n

Last week, it happened again. Four Republicans signed onto a discharge petition to force a vote on extending ACA tax credits. Without those subsidies, premiums have already doubled<\/a> on average for people who use the exchanges.<\/p>\n

Trump and Johnson and their henchghouls are indifferent to and\/or enthusiastically in favor of an America in which people are impoverished by medical emergencies and die of preventable illness. But swing seat Republicans are terrified of backlash from constituents. After the discharge petition forced the bill to the floor, 17 of them voted for a three year extension which would push the next renewal past the 2028 presidential election.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the House where Trump is struggling to hold onto Republican support. Senate Republicans voted unanimously to pass the bill forcing release of the Epstein files in November.<\/p>\n

More, the Senate has quietly been racking up rejection after rejection of Trump\u2019s nominees. So far a record-breaking 55 of them have been withdrawn over the last year \u2014 and withdrawals usually indicate the nominee lacks Senate support. In a 53-47 Republican controlled Senate, that means at least four Republican senators are willing to vote against the president.<\/p>\n

\"WhyWhy every vestige of Trump must be torn down<\/a><\/p>\n

More dramatically last week, the Senate voted 53-47 to advance<\/a> a resolution to the floor that would block Trump from using military force \u201cwithin or against Venezuela.\u201d The resolution is a direct rebuke to Trump, who has been threatening a \u201csecond wave\u201d of military assaults on the country after kidnapping President Nicolas Maduro in an attack which killed around 100 people.<\/p>\n

The resolution was cosponsored by Democrats Tim Kaine, Adam Schiff, and Chuck Schumer, and by Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, who consistently opposes military force abroad. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who at least periodically side with Democrats, voted for the measure. But the real surprise was that conservative Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana \u2014 usually consistent Trump supporters \u2014 also supported the bill.<\/p>\n

Trump, enraged, declared<\/a> that the Senate was trying to \u201ctake away our powers to defend the United States of America\u201d and huffed that the Republican Senators who voted against him \u2014 including loyalists Hawley and Young \u2014 should \u201cnever be elected to office again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This sort of bluster from Trump has in the past been effective at keeping Republicans in line. As political scientist Jonathan Bernstein says<\/a>, \u201cthere\u2019s a realistic scenario in which Trump in 2028 and beyond actively campaigns in general elections against Republicans he holds grudges against\u201d \u2014 and Trump supporters also regularly send vicious threats<\/a> to Republican leaders.<\/p>\n

In this case, though, Republicans have powerful incentives to oppose further action in Venezuela, because that action is incredibly unpopular. Analyst G. Elliott Morris writes<\/a> that Americans oppose military intervention in Venezuela by a \u201c25-50 point margin (depending on question wording).\u201d The Republican defections in the House have a similar logic \u2014 an AP-NORC poll<\/a> found that Americans favored extending the subsidies 43 percent to 12 percent.<\/p>\n

So far, with the sole exception of the Epstein files vote, congressional opposition has not reached a point where Congress can pass legislation over the president\u2019s opposition. The ACA subsidy extension is unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form; the Senate Venezuela war powers act is unlikely to overcome the filibuster.<\/p>\n

Trump also demonstrated his continued domination of the party last week when the House failed to override his veto of a bill to complete a pipeline delivering clean water to southeast Colorado. The bill had passed Congress unanimously. Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert believes<\/a> that Trump blocked it as revenge for her decision to sign the Epstein files discharge petition. Boebert is a liar and conspiracy theorist, but in this case she is probably right.<\/p>\n

\"Make<\/a><\/p>\n

Even here, though, Trump doesn\u2019t exactly look like a tower of strength. The vote to override the veto was 248-177 \u2014 short of the two thirds needed, but still a substantial bipartisan effort, with close to 30 Republicans crossing the aisle to vote against their own president. <\/p>\n

For years, swing district House members largely knuckled under and knuckled under again while the House Freedom Caucus and rabid right-wingers got all the red meat they wanted. Now, all of a sudden, GOP members are getting used to defying Trump and leadership. That\u2019s ominous for Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

Defiance can have concrete positive outcomes, too. The Senate is unlikely to pass the ACA subsidies as is. But it seems possible that there will be some compromise \u2014 perhaps a two year extension with tweaks to income caps and elimination of certain plans. That wouldn\u2019t be ideal, but it would nonetheless be a major boon to a lot of people who rely on the ACA for insurance.<\/p>\n

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Democrats in the House deserve credit for holding the caucus together and getting Republicans to sign on to discharge petitions. Democrats in the Senate deserve credit for defeating some nominees and for getting Republicans to defy Trump on some votes in the Senate. But Democrats have also mystifyingly caved and compromised in instances where a tinge more spinefulness could have won important victories.<\/p>\n

Last week, for example, seven Democrats crossed party lines to confirm Alexander Van Hook to a lifetime appointment as a district judge. Van Hook, like all Trump nominees in 2025, refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election in questions for the record he submitted in writing to the Senate. <\/p>\n

In response to the question \u201cDid Trump lose the 2020 election?\u201d Van Hook responded with evasion: \u201cCongress certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election and he served as the 46th president of the United States.\u201d When asked whether the Capitol was attacked by a violent mob, or whether it constituted an insurrection, he claimed that he could not express a view on a political matter. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These responses are in line with those of other Trump judges, who all are obviously refusing to speak truthfully and defend the Constitution in order to curry favor with Trump.<\/p>\n

Defending the coup attempt \u2014 and that is what Van Hook and all other Trump nominees are clearly doing \u2014 should be disqualifying. Yet Sens. Dick Durbin, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Amy Klobuchar, Jean Shaheen, Peter Welch, and independent Angus King all voted to confirm him. There were numerous GOP absentees on the vote; without Democratic support, Van Hook would not have been confirmed.<\/p>\n

Democratic appeasement is frustrating. Republican appeasement is expected, but also repulsive. Trump is, again, vetoing bills that Republicans unanimously passed. Yet the bulk of the GOP won\u2019t stand by their own priorities. They act as if they are Trump\u2019s cringing vassals, not charged with the preservation and defense of a coequal branch of government.<\/p>\n

Last week, though, showed that Congress does have power and the ability to act if Democrats stifle their knee-jerk desire for bipartisanship and Republicans actually try to serve their constituents and uphold their constitutional duty in some minimal way.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s unlikely to be any one moment when the dam breaks and Trump loses GOP support across the board. But there is a steady drip of frustration and dissent from within his own party that has weakened him and will continue to weaken him. And that may mean that we will, in fact, after much suffering, perhaps be able to end this fascist nightmare, and start building a country that stands for something other than hate and cruelty for all.<\/p>\n

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