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While we should never underestimate the Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, there may be some legs to this one.
The politics of these shutdowns is always to try and get the public to pin the blame on one side or the other. If Democrats take over the House, they control its agenda, and can simply make sure that no bill that includes funding for the Iran war gets passed. But, at some point a bill to fund the military will need to be passed, as an overwhelming majority of military spending is subject to appropriations. Thus means that the House is certain to pass a bill, with no funding for the Iran war, and Republicans have three choices:
filibuster it in the Senate (in which case Senate Republicans will be blamed, whether or not they are in the majority)
veto it (in which case Trump directly will be blamed)
sign it but still bomb Iran anyway (in which case Democrats now have an open-and-shut case for impeachment that might actually work)
This war is extremely unpopular, and is a key part of the reason why Republicans are doing as poorly as they are. As vile as the Venezuela thing was, if Trump had stopped thereand not gone to Iran, then the Senate would likely not be in play. I think Republican Senators might finally be realizing that. If an impeachment resolution were to make it to the Senate right now, I think it would pass today, and that means it has even better chances of passing in the new Congress if Democrats take the Senate.
Not a fucking chance. Republicans have had every opportunity to ditch Trump with very little political fallout. All they needed was to have Susan Collins or one of the other supposedly not crazy Republicans vote with Democrats. They have categorically refused to do so on multiple occasions. They are on the Trump train until it fully goes off the rails.
The key difference this time, though, is that Trump is stepping directly on their power. The sanctions bill was passed, with bipartisan support, and he is just ignoring it. If an impeachment were to go the Senate over this, how can the Senate basically say "Yeah, we passed this law and he signed it, but it's OK that he's ignoring it now"?
I mean, they named the bil after Graham. I bet they all take it personally.
Congress holds the power of the purse and the ability to declare war. Why is this different than Trump stealing those powers? He's done both on multiple occasions.
Yes, but when he has done both before, it has always been in line with what the majority party wants, even if it is illegal. For instance, ever since Grover Nordquist stated out loud that he wanted to "make government so small you could drown it in rhe bathtub", Conservatives fantasized about just firing them all, but all those pesky laws got in the way. Their solution was to elect someone who didn't give a damn about what was legal, and then let him do all the dirty DOGE work without actually having to vote on it. The Republican majority is simply letting him do all the illegal shit, in the hopes that it deflects any future blame from themselves.
But this is different. This is Congress specifically voting for the President to do something, and the President agreeing to do it, then saying "Sike!" And not doing it. If allowed to stand, it makes Congress irrelevant. The Senate, in particular, takes their job seriously. If an impeachment resolution makes it there over this key point, voting against it is basically voting to dissolve their own power.
In particular, if Democrats do very well in the midterms, you may find Trump chickening out of this one, too. Because would the Senate still impeach if the President backs off on the infringing behavior? Even a month or two of lifting sanctions might give Russia enough cash to make a difference, after all.
Their behavior is unpredictable