While Democrats struggle with accusations of political incompetence, President Donald Trump’s Republican Party is facing the possibility of being “crushed,” in particular when trying to retain control of the House of Representatives.
“You’re about to have hundreds of members of Congress go home to their constituents, and a lot of folks are about to get crushed, rightfully so, by their constituents,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) told reporters, according to The Guardian, following a vote in which House Republicans failed to unify behind an effective agenda to improve affordability in America.
Meanwhile House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to claim substantive achievements by saying on Wednesday, “Many of you like to say that major legislating can’t happen in an election year. We just proved you wrong.”
Yet as The Guardian pointed out in its coverage of the story, “Not 24 hours later came a reminder of how Democrats can leverage divisions within the House GOP’s historically small majority, when four dissident Republicans joined with the minority to pass a symbolic war powers resolution that would mandate Trump withdraw troops from combat against Iran.”
The story also quoted Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who is running in a district that Vice President Kamala Harris won during the 2024 presidential election, in which Bacon mildly criticized Trump’s handling of the Iran war and urged him to try to work with Democrats.
“The go-it-alone approach fails us in the end,” Bacon, who is not running for re-election, told The Guardian. “But we need their help, and so I think he should lean in to working across the aisle more.”
Republicans are not alone in struggling with their political brand. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told The Guardian that she believes her party currently lacks a coherent ideological identity.
“I think a lot of people aren’t sure, depending on where you’re from, what it means to be a Democrat,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Guardian.
Earlier in July, Semafor similarly reported on the two parties struggling with the upcoming midterm elections amidst a sparse legislative record.
“The Senate just seems to be a place where good ideas are going to die,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) told Semafor's Burgess Everett and Nicholas Wu. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) similarly told Semafor that “I’m worried about our ability to pass things in general,” while Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) told the publication that “going home and telling the voters: ‘I can’t get this done because of our own rules, that we can change,’ is not a real satisfactory answer. But yes, they’re content to do that.”
Meanwhile Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Semafor that when it comes to a stopgap funding bill, “I’m just saying: I don’t know if it’s a practical plan.”
