In a demonstration of political support for Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran, a majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives joined a unanimous Republican caucus on Tuesday to block a resolution to impeach the president. Democrats voted by 128-79, and Republicans 216-0, to table the resolution that had been introduced by Democrat Al Green of Texas.
Every Democratic Party leader—from Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on down, along with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and former Majority Whip James Clyburn—voted to kill the measure. At a press briefing before the vote, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar dismissed the impeachment resolution as a “distraction.”
Notably, Green’s resolution did not denounce Trump’s bombing of Iran as an unprovoked aggression or a violation of international law. Instead, it focused solely on his failure to seek congressional authorization, accusing Trump of abusing presidential powers by “usurping Congress’s power to declare war” and ordering strikes “without the constitutionally-mandated congressional authorization or notice.”
While the resolution described Trump as “an authoritarian president who has instigated an attack on the United States Capitol, denied persons due process of the law, and called for the impeachment of federal judges who ruled against him,” it did not propose any charges relating to these actions or to Trump’s overall campaign to establish himself as a dictator-president. It did not mention Trump’s military deployment in Los Angeles or his nationwide round-ups of immigrant workers.
Even this narrowly drawn resolution was met with vehement opposition from the Democratic leadership in the House. Instead, just hours before the vote, they announced the formation of a House Democratic Caucus National Security Task Force. The task force will be co-chaired by four House Democrats with backgrounds in the military and intelligence agencies—figures that the World Socialist Web Site has previously identified as part of the “CIA Democrats.”
The four co-chairs are Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; Derek Tran, an Army veteran who proudly emphasizes his anti-communist Vietnamese heritage; Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and the current Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey; and Maggie Goodlander, a former Navy intelligence officer and the wife of Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor in the Biden administration.
In introducing the task force, Aguilar made clear that the Democrats’ concern was not the illegality of Trump’s attack on Iran but the possibility that it would fail to achieve shared military objectives. “Launching an attack without congressional authorization is wrong,” he said. “Launching a potentially unsuccessful attack without congressional authorization would be an administration-defining failure.”
In response to a reporter’s question, Jason Crow launched into a venomous diatribe against Iran, declaring, “House Democrats know the danger that Iran poses to the world … it’s a state sponsor of terror and one of the more malignant regimes in the world.” This as Israel, with the backing of both parties, continues its genocide in Gaza, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
On the Senate side of Congress, three Democratic senators introduced a “war powers” resolution that specified that it would not apply to US support for Israel “in taking defensive measures” against Iran or allied forces. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the failure of the White House to brief Congress and to present “the administration’s long-term strategy to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”
In March, Schumer played the central role in intervening to uphold Trump’s government, when he led a group of Democratic senators who provided the deciding votes to pass a continuing resolution funding the Trump administration until September 30.
The WSWS remarked at the time that “Given the opportunity to cut off funding for Trump’s government on Friday, the Democrats instead ensured that it remained fully operational. The vote shatters the myth that the Democratic Party is an opponent of the Trump administration, demonstrating that it is instead its enabler and collaborator.”
Just over three months later, the entire party leadership and two-thirds of its House members lined up to oppose a vote of impeachment against a president who is erecting a political dictatorship.
The Democratic Party is an advocate and instrument of American imperialism. While supposedly “antiwar” figures like Green, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders engage in political stunts to give a “left” cover to this right-wing party, the real concerns of the Democrats are those of the Pentagon and the CIA. They object not to the homicidal belligerence of Trump but to his erratic and even seemingly manic conduct of the US foreign policy.
These concerns were spelled out most bluntly by Biden’s former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an op-ed column in the New York Times, published under the headline, “Trump’s Iran Strike Was a Mistake. I Hope It Succeeds.” He called the decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities “unwise and unnecessary,” but added, “Now that it’s done, I very much hope it succeeded.”
Blinken reiterated the demonization of Iran that is universal in the US political establishment and the corporate media, calling the country of 90 million people “a leading state sponsor of terrorism; a destructive and destabilizing force via its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Yemen and Iraq; an existential threat to Israel.”
The former secretary of state concluded, “Mr. Trump’s actions were possible only because of the work of the Obama and Biden administrations.” This included accelerated development of the huge bombs, developing contingency plans and “in 2023, the largest-ever joint exercise with Israel—something of a dry run for this latest action.”
While saying he had wished Trump would pursue a diplomatic course, “Now that the military die has been cast, I can only hope that we inflicted maximum damage—damage that gives the president the leverage he needs to finally deliver the deal he has so far failed to achieve.”
During Trump’s first term, the Democrats impeached him not over his fascistic threats or attacks on immigrants but over a dispute with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies over Ukraine policy—laying the groundwork for the war against Russia that the Biden administration made its central foreign policy priority. Biden came to office pledging to restore a “strong Republican Party” to wage war against Russia, while backing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and implementing policies hostile to the broad mass of working people. This created the political conditions for Trump’s return to power.
Now, five months into a second administration that has shredded the Constitution and launched an illegal war of aggression, the Democrats are functioning not as defenders of democracy but enablers of dictatorship. The Democrats and the Republicans are both parties of the financial oligarchy, defenders of Wall Street and the global interests of American imperialism.
What the Democratic Party fears most is not Trump but the eruption of mass resistance from below. Just 10 days ago, the largest anti-government demonstrations in American history took place, as millions poured into the streets in cities across the country to oppose Trump’s dictatorship.
This movement, which reflects a growing radicalization of the working class and youth, finds no expression within the existing political establishment. It must be armed with a new political strategy, rooted in the international working class and guided by a revolutionary socialist program to put an end to capitalism, war and dictatorship.