[Editorial comment: Some is wrong the thinking process of too many Americans. Their madman president is turning the world upside down, destroying their democracy and using federal troops German Gestapo style. It is amazing if not historically tragic that the political leaders like Congress have not come to their senses and handcuffed this madman until his office term ends. Absolutely amazing with no justification whatsoever. Sadly, all we can do here in Canada is add to the HOT AIR.]
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Dan Rather writes…..
The Doormat Branch of Government
Congress is ineffective, unpopular, and our last best hope
Dan Rather and Team Steady
Jan 22, 2026
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Credit: Getty Images
Enough is enough. Congress can and should stop this madness. The House and Senate are equally responsible for allowing it to continue.
The president is making a mockery of our democratic norms daily. His contempt for the law is matched only by his contempt for lawmakers. Elected Republican representatives have relinquished their responsibilities and gift-wrapped almost every whim Trump could have imagined. Someone with a backbone needs to stand up in defiance of this president and his lunacy.
Greenland?
Please help us understand why this ice-capped island is worth jeopardizing our NATO alliance and our friendships with European allies that have kept the peace since the last world war.
If Trump demands to buy Greenland, it will require congressional funding, an estimated $700 billion in funding. Start there. Don’t appropriate a dime for this purchase no one wants or needs.
NATO has already been severely damaged by Trump, perhaps fatally. Its demise should be a red line, even for the most ardent MAGA supporters. Impeachment? Maybe.
It didn’t have to be this way. During Trump’s first term, he was impeached, twice, but never tried by the Senate. Those Republican senators who voted against it share the brunt of the blame for why we’re in this mess. Their legacies are, and forever will be, tied to Trump.
Instead, we have Trump 2.0, a nonstop reality show with a “host” who tries to outdo himself every episode. Greenland won’t be the end. It’s just the latest effort to command your attention and distract from his ineptitude.
For a minute there in early January, it looked as though the U.S. Congress had finally found its spine.
Seventeen House Republicans voted with Democrats to extend Obamacare subsidies. Besides the Epstein files discharge petition in November, this marked the first time such a large group of Republicans didn’t fall in lockstep with the president. That same day, five Senate Republicans voted to advance a war powers resolution against Trump’s unauthorized military action in Venezuela.
Don’t pop any champagne corks just yet.
The Obamacare subsidies bill died in the Senate. And the senators who voted for the war powers resolution got the Trump treatment. After the initial Senate vote, Trump was incensed, taking to his favorite social media platform to vent and threaten.
He blasted the five defectors, saying they “should never be elected to office again.” A full-court press against Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana got them to cave and switch their vote, killing the resolution.
Trump’s trampling of our democracy is undeniable. But he isn’t doing it alone. Congressional Republicans are not only complicit, they are enabling. All but a few have put their political aspirations far above their oath to uphold the Constitution.
Speaking of the Constitution, let’s have a little refresher on what exactly it says about who can do what.
The federal government is composed of three co-equal branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The framers gave each branch its own powers. Article I of the Constitution outlines Congress’s powers, which include declaring war, levying taxes, and regulating commerce.
The president’s powers, outlined in Article II include being Commander-In-Chief, negotiating treaties, vetoing legislation, granting pardons, and appointing officials.
The framers went on to give each branch checks on the other branches to prevent any one from becoming too powerful. Congress’s checks on the president include overriding a veto, confirming appointments, impeachment and removal, and control of federal spending.
The Supreme Court has the power to declare laws and executive actions unconstitutional.
For this system of checks and balances to function, the branches must hold up their end of the democratic bargain. They must exercise their enumerated powers. Currently, Congress and the Supreme Court have abdicated that responsibility, emboldening the president and aggrandizing the executive branch.
Congress’s sycophantic servitude started on Day One of Trump’s second term. In all these cases, Congress could have stopped him, but chose to do nothing as he:
filled his Cabinet with unqualified toadies, all of whom were confirmed by the Senate;
fired the heads of agencies created by Congress to be independent;
dismantled the Department of Education, which only Congress is supposed to be able to do;
imposed tariffs, a power given exclusively to Congress;
canceled grants given by Congress;
withheld funds appropriated by Congress;
ignored laws passed by Congress;
made the heretofore independent Department of Justice his personal law firm.
They have also looked the other way as Trump’s corruption helps line his and his family’s pockets. And they ignored his stunningly obvious pardon abuses as well as his use of ICE as a de facto private police force.
How has he done it? How did he compel 218 Republicans in the House (the number has varied over the past year, but Republicans have managed to hold on to their increasingly slim majority) and 53 in the Senate to do his authoritarian bidding?
Trump’s favorite instrument of forced compliance is to find and back primary challengers to congresspeople who step out of line. Since every House member runs every two years, they can’t ignore the possibility he will make good on the threat. It is why the two congressional Republicans who have actually stood up to Trump have done so from relative safety. Neither Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina nor Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska is seeking reelection.
Beyond the threat of being “primaried,” congressional Republicans want power regardless, it seems, of the cost. It is a Trumpian irony that the cost is the systematic erosion of any and all power Congress once wielded. They are capitulating themselves out of a job. So even if they manage to hold on to their seat, they have given away any power that seat once held.
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The leader of the House, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, has done the most to increase Trump’s power and diminish his own than any other member of Congress. He has bent over so far backward it’s a wonder he can still walk.
To avoid a vote on the release of the Epstein files, Johnson employed several dubious procedural tactics. In July, he sent the entire House home early for summer recess. He delayed seating a duly elected member of Congress for seven weeks. He refused to reconvene during the government shutdown, though the Senate did. All while arguing that the DOJ was planning to release the files so no vote was necessary.
Johnson also changed House rules to ensure that a resolution to overturn Trump’s tariffs went nowhere. And he has done an about-face on the idea of impeaching federal judges. Over the summer he tried to stop an intra-party push to impeach judges who are thought to be antagonistic to Trump’s agenda. This week he told reporters, “I’m for it.”
“I have no intention of getting in the way of President Trump and his administration,” he said at the same press conference. Though Johnson was talking specifically about tariffs, it might as well be his epitaph.
We the People have the power to change this dynamic. We can fire the sitting members of Congress who aided and abetted Trump’s unrestrained power grab. The midterms are less than ten months away. Congressional Republicans may be terrified of Trump, but right now, they should be more worried about the wrath of the American people.
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