Democrats are Squirming to Limit November Losses. It's Not Working | Opinion

"Please consider where our nation is in its history," implored lame duck congresswoman Liz Cheney on October 13, at what will likely be the last public hearing of the House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. "Consider whether we can survive for another 246 years," she added with the aching despair one might expect from a woman who lost her primary election by 37 points and has no future in American electoral politics.

Cheney's committee is so vital to American democracy, in fact, that it has held only one hearing since July and took a two-week summer vacation. Convening last week, its most significant actions were to release additional inconclusive footage of the events of January 6, 2021, and to vote to subpoena documents and testimony from former president Donald Trump. Curiously, the committee had not subpoenaed Trump or his documents at any previous time in its 14-month history, despite having interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents.

On the same day as the investigation's likely last public hearing, the government of Saudi Arabia claimed that President Joe Biden had unsuccessfully pleaded with it to delay planned cuts in oil production by one month, apparently in the hope that a larger energy supply would reduce U.S. gas prices before November's midterm elections.

Barring a "midterm variant" in the increasingly normalized COVID-19 pandemic, "getting Trump" and trying to lower gas prices may well be the Democratic Party's last gasps before facing a Republican onslaught next month. Neither is practical or likely to have much effect. Both stink of desperation.

Democrats' desperation is understandable. Despite a flurry of legislative activity over the summer and left-wing activism following the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year, the Biden administration has had few successes and many failures. Inflation remains sky high despite Biden's repeated assurances that it was only a temporary problem. The technical recession currently in progress is widely predicted to get worse in the coming months. Crime is rampant, thanks to Democrat-sponsored social and criminal justice policies. Democrat-sponsored "woke" initiatives in media, education, culture, employment, health care, and other important sectors are unpopular and widely believed to be unfair and discriminatory. Absent foreign policy leadership has seen American power and influence crumble while the world has become a much more dangerous place than it was just two years ago. Nuclear war looms more heavily now than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Virtually all polls, which usually overstate Democratic strength, show the Republicans winning majorities in both houses of Congress next month. Trump, who is widely expected to run for reelection in 2024, remains overwhelmingly popular within the Republican Party. Many polls even show him winning a popular vote majority in a hypothetical rematch against Biden, and leading in most or all of the 2020 swing states.

The House January 6 Committee's work has been lengthy, voluminous, and media savvy. Its hearings have been staged by a professional television producer. Most of them, including this probable last one, have been broadcast live by all major network and cable television outlets. Nevertheless, the American public remains unconvinced. According to a CNN poll conducted after the last live hearings in July, more than half either see the investigation as a transparently political attempt to smear Trump or have not paid enough attention to the hearings to have an opinion. Trump's poll numbers have barely changed. Cheney, on the other hand, lost her primary election to a Trump-endorsed challenger who is certain to replace her in January, while Adam Kinzinger—the committee's only other Republican member and also a committed "Never Trumper"—prudently chose not to run for reelection.

Far from springing an October surprise, voting to subpoena Trump merely adds to the non-drama. It even carries risks. If Trump is disinclined to testify, legal challenges could delay his appearance for months or even years, adding to the perception that he is the victim of a relentless political witch hunt designed to frustrate or prevent his candidacy.

If Trump does testify, he could state—without any solid evidence to the contrary—that he called for, and expected, the January 6 demonstration to be peaceful. He could also state for the record that the committee curiously failed to call anyone with immediate responsibility for the Capitol's security to testify publicly, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DC mayor Muriel Bowser, and the former chief of the Capitol Police. In either case, it is unlikely that the former president could be brought before the committee in time for the elections, or before the committee is due to deliver its already delayed final report on November 29. Nor is it likely that a House Republican majority would permit it to continue.

If the Saudi charges against Biden's energy diplomacy are true, or even merely perceived to be true, then yet another ill-conceived gambit has blown up in the administration's face. The Saudis confirmed they will not delay their planned oil production cut. This means energy prices, which had come down somewhat in recent months, will likely be on the rise again when voters cast their ballots in November. It also suggests that Biden, for all his vaunted foreign policy experience, has no influence whatsoever over a longtime American strategic partner even as—and almost certainly because—he is caving to Iran to restore the deeply flawed and strategically dangerous Obama-era nuclear deal. The Saudis' revelation of Biden's possible unlawful collusion with a foreign power to influence American elections could also blow up on the president, should the new Republican congressional majorities choose to investigate it and other scandals once they come into office in January.

These October duds may not be the last gasps of the fading American Left, but they do not augur well for Democrats' chances in November. They also keep national attention focused firmly on their biggest bugbear: the once, and perhaps future, president Donald J. Trump.

Paul du Quenoy is president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.

The views expressed in this article are he writer's own.