Although the group [Democratic Socialists of America] endorsed her, it was considered to have played a secondary role in her 2018 primary victory. In interviews at the time, Ocasio-Cortez avoided pigeonholing herself. While characterizing democratic socialism [on the one hand] as “part of my identity”, she said [on the other] that it was “not the whole of my identity”, adding (presciently), “many socialists would say that I’m not a socialist.”

“I don’t read a book and then decide what I am,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with Hot 97 that July, stating that she cared more about policies like “Medicare for All” and free college tuition than political labels: “If that makes me a socialist, well, then I guess I’m a socialist. I guess I’m a democratic socialist.”

I have quoted this from a laudatory New York Times report on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the poster child of “Woke 1.0” and the 2028 Democratic presidential hopeful endorsed by Hasan Piker, the American left’s Rüstem Batum. We will return to this article, published just before the midterms; but while commentaries proliferate, ranging from “even this counts as leftism in the US” to delusions that “a socialist revolution took place in the Senate”, I want to draw attention to how, in US politics, the primacy of the wrapper over the contents intertwines with populism’s typical sermon against bookish theory. This mode of doing politics, which Türkiye’s new, private-school-educated, clean-faced commentators on US politics, like Yunus Emre Erdölen who have somehow begun peddling the “socialist from abroad” to the public, believe to be so intricate, is the hallmark of AOC-style “progressives”. Stocking goods on the counter to suit every temperament is mistaken for complexity.

In this respect, we can already say that a significant portion of the Democrats who rode the blue wave into Congress are lying, while the “sincere” ones will be forced to do the exact opposite of what they promised. Texas’s new “leftist preacher” James Talarico is reportedly promising to lower grocery prices by reducing tariffs and increasing competition; Roy Cooper from North Carolina is pledging to “lower the cost of goods”, while Annie Andrews, about to take office in South Carolina, proposes suspending the federal gas tax. At a time when the debt issue at both the federal and state levels dominates the agenda, and when economic growth leans almost entirely on the AI bubble, we are talking, to put it mildly, about saying amen to an impossible prayer, or more bluntly, about peddling pipe dreams.

Yet perhaps the most glaring example of this feinting left and striking right was provided by Ali Abunimah, a veteran of The Electronic Intifada: on the one hand, El-Sayed described what is happening in Gaza as “genocide”, while on the other, he could readily pose as an apologist for Barack Obama¹, one of the most insidious killers of American imperialism, and Kamala Harris, who belongs in the dustbin of history. “We are seeing these so-called progressive candidates attempting to rehabilitate these war criminal monsters,” Abunimah said: “It is very hard for me to call that progress or to see it as positive.”

Or consider Brad Lander, hailed as one of the “most important Jewish allies” of DSA member Zohran Mamdani. Lander, who comfortably defeated his Republican opponent to be elected Representative, also says there is a genocide in Gaza and believes Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. In fact, just last month, he was briefly detained by occupation forces while taking part in an olive harvest in the West Bank alongside Palestinian farmers and the human rights organization Rabbis for Human Rights. He even appears principled enough to get into arguments with Yair Lapid on X. But what do you know? Lander describes himself as a liberal Zionist. Israel is committing genocide, but somehow this state can be “democratic” and “respectful of human rights”! The very same Lander also announced he would back the flag-waving, pro-Israel Hakeem Jeffries in the race for Speaker of the House, where Democrats secured a majority.

That Israel question: Calling it genocide is free

There is no doubt that within both parties in the US, a new search is underway concerning Israel. But this search is tied to the notion captured in the famous line from The Leopard: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

Even Hillary Clinton hates Netanyahu. Fierce Zionist Rahm Emanuel, who served as White House Chief of Staff under Obama, looks Israelis in the eye in Tel Aviv and tells them they must change. Stranger still: a leftist, pro-Palestinian publishing house operating out of Britain publishes Sabri Jiryis’s Foundations of Zionism, which shatters myths about the origins of Zionism. Fida Jiryis, the author’s daughter who translated the book from Arabic into English, can actually write in the “Translator’s Note” that the translation project was funded by the Open Society Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund!

How can this be? In Israel, Labour Zionism, to which the founding leaders in particular adhered, has always had such a “friendly” face. Today, too, there are plenty who criticize the Netanyahu government for driving a wedge between Israel and public opinion in the US and Europe. Halting settler terror in the West Bank, withdrawing from Gaza if possible, and reaching a “security” agreement with Syria’s new trustee are among the components of this program. The liberal Zionist current to which Lander belongs fits neatly into this. For them, Likud and the riffraff around it are equivalent to Trump and the European right. And looked at in reverse, the same holds true: the Netanyahu clique equates their opponents in the West with the Democratic Party orbit, with Soros, and with the “woke-leftist-Islamist” coalition out to destroy Western civilization. With the prospect of a US withdrawal from the region on the agenda once more, this is a fight over whether the vacuum will be governed by a Likudized Israel or by the “moderated Sunni axis” in which the Democrats (and Qatari money) have invested for decades. Just ask the new “Democratic Socialists” what they think about Syria’s new government or Qatar, and see what happens!

I am speaking here of an alliance stretching from Britain to the Vatican. For instance, the “pro-Palestinian, anti-Assad” Mahmoud Khalil, over whom the British wailed “Wait, this is our man!” when the Trump administration detained him, could affirm “Israel’s right to exist” in a statement to Haaretz. This same Khalil is a darling of “progressive” Democrats as well. So much so that you could see Hasan Piker, Mahmoud Khalil, and Mehdi Hasan standing side by side at Mamdani’s victory party. Pope Leo, too, appears to have succeeded in the crusade he declared against JD Vance and Donald Trump. Christian Hale, the Pope’s “progressive” face in the media, wrote plainly in an article with a telling headline after the election (“Trump and Vance Attacked Pope Leo XIV. Voters Responded”): “A Methodist pastor, a Presbyterian seminarian, a Muslim physician, and an Ojibwe Catholic woman walk into the Senate. Democrats must now govern with humility, and we must hold them to that principle.”

Besides, the Iranian bogeyman here holds a bipartisan status. What El-Sayed had to say about the assassination of Ali Khamenei points to this. At first, in a leaked audio recording, the newly elected senator said he would not address the matter because Michigan voters were “grieving” and that it was not even worth discussing; later, he would state that Khamenei was a “bad guy” and that he “would not defend the Iranian regime”, while making sure to add the caveat, of course, that this “did not justify breaching international law.”

I have pointed out before that Israel’s Likudization and nativization advance in parallel with its universalization; although this may look like a contradiction, there exists today a material basis for the universalization of ethno-nationalism. On the other side of the coin lies the questioning of Israel’s existence alongside the normalization of Zionism.

Furthermore, this anti-Israel stance, especially in cities like New York, is unfortunately turning more and more into upper-middle-class signalling. For example, the new representative Darializa Avila Chevalier, backed by Mamdani and seen as the “most radical” leftist, garnered her strongest support in Manhattan-Bronx, but failed to replicate that success in low-income areas. Which brings us to the other issue.

The rich kids of the class

The contrast between Avila Chevalier and Adriano Espaillat, whom she defeated in the June Democratic primary, tells us a great deal. Both represent Dominican immigrants in the city. Espaillat was the typical child of immigrants who arrived in this city as a boy and lived for years without legal status. His rise all the way to Congress speaks to an era when the American dream still seemed operational: the story of an outsider rising from scratch to the very top. Indeed, in the primary, Espaillat left his opponent far behind in low-income neighbourhoods with 40% of the vote.

Chevalier, on the other hand, appears to be the exact opposite of the values Espaillat represents. Born and raised in Florida to Dominican parents, this young woman later moved to Upper Manhattan to attend Columbia University and stayed there.

Between 2010 and 2020, this area was one of only two neighbourhoods in the city to suffer population loss. More than 17,000 Hispanic residents left the area, replaced by a few thousand newcomers who were predominantly white. By the mid-2010s, according to a study conducted by CUNY, the median income of white households in the area approached $80,000 a year, whereas the median income of Dominican households was around $31,000. Many working-class Dominicans were forced out by steep housing costs in this gentrifying district.

Writing a revealing piece for The Free Press (“Socialism Is Being Fueled by the Rich, Not the Poor”), Rafael A. Mangual, himself of Dominican descent, observes:

“This dynamic is not entirely foreign to me. As the son of a Dominican immigrant, I moved with my wife into an apartment in East Harlem after graduating from law school in Chicago. I was born and raised in this city; both my wife and I are children of immigrants from Latin America; yet as upwardly mobile professionals holding graduate degrees, we resembled the gentrifiers far more in many ways than the residents who had called this neighbourhood home for decades. And we were not alone.”

According to the author, Chevalier’s “anti-American” politics, considered “radical” even within the DSA, resonated far more with college-educated, white “gentrifying” newcomers than with the immigrant families who had lived in the area for years.

I have previously written that a similar trend applies to Zohran Mamdani (see here and here). AOC is also notable for her knack for turning “leftism” into cash: the young congresswoman, who notes that her father was a civil servant, her mother a teacher, and that she worked various jobs from waitressing to cleaning toilets, learned over time how to market “progressive” values in the world of punditry, speaking engagements, and publishing. The funds funnelled into the companies of Saikat Chakrabarti, the Silicon Valley “progressive Democrat” whiz kid she later ousted from her campaign, are now forgotten. In 2021, the hefty sums she received from Brand New Congress, the “progressive” organization also co-founded by Chakrabarti, had made headlines.

El-Sayed: The Arab Obama and the sheepdogs

The label is not mine. Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report penned an article titled “El-Sayed Is the Arab Obama” after El-Sayed defeated his Democratic rival in the primary last summer.

Kimberley makes an important point: “Politics in this country has been moving to the right for the last 50 years, and discourse has narrowed to the point where unjustified joy is felt in situations that ought to be met with suspicion.”

She says this with reference to El-Sayed’s carefully calibrated anti-Israel statements. It is as if she were replying to the reproach so often heard from pro-American leftists in Türkiye: “Shouldn’t we celebrate at all?” We have every right to be suspicious, she says, especially when the “Democratic Socialist wave” has begun to steamroll ahead.

Kimberley writes in harmony with what was noted at the beginning of this essay regarding the divergence between appearance and reality in US politics:

“With these words [referring to Palestine – eç], he accurately gauged voters’ sentiments; yet upon closer examination, it turns out that El-Sayed is not the progressive warrior depicted in his campaign. On other foreign policy matters, El-Sayed is in complete alignment with the Democratic Party oligarchy. He favours continuing the aid, currently amounting to $195 billion, destined for Ukraine, or rather for the military-industrial complex. On this issue, he speaks like every other establishment Democrat.”

Kimberley ironically points out that the “bottomless pit of public funds spent on a dangerous proxy war against Russia” could well cover the costs of the “Medicare for All” program that El-Sayed claims to support.

Nor did he hesitate, after mouthing platitudes about “violations of international law” regarding Nicolas Maduro, who was abducted by the US military, to brand him a “terrible dictator trampling his people.”

Kimberley reminds us that El-Sayed, who identifies as a capitalist rather than a socialist, backed Kamala Harris and even lied outright about her Israel policy: according to El-Sayed, while Joe Biden embraced Netanyahu, Harris boycotted him! The lie, and the brand of American two-faced politics El-Sayed so cheerfully embraced, was this: Harris indeed skipped Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, but held a closed-door meeting with him at the White House immediately after!

To say nothing of the endorsement from Obama and the rest of the Democratic establishment. Kimberley sums up the state of affairs in the party:

“The Democrats and their oligarchs are not stupid. They know they have to calibrate their messaging. They are still neoliberals and still imperialists; but they know their voters are not. El-Sayed represents a course correction in narrative, not a different politic.”

Another Black Agenda Report writer, Bruce Dixon, refers to Bernie Sanders, who endorsed El-Sayed, as a “sheepdog”. Why? I quote the answer:

“Sheepdogs herd the flock; a sheepdog candidate is tasked with rounding up activists and voters who might otherwise drift leftward outside the Democratic Party, abstain from voting, or attempt to build something outside the two-party system, and herding them back under the roof of the Democratic Party.”

AOC, the sheepdogs’ premier candidate, had rolled up her sleeves to herd the flock just last month in Detroit when she told El-Sayed’s supporters that “there are more working people in this country than billionaires.” At a rally in Florida alongside newly minted DSA member Angie Nixon, she was operating with the exact same mindset when she declared, “Good schools are not communism. Publicly funded hospitals are not communism,” and added that

a government “responsive to the demands of the people” is “neither radical, nor weird, nor far-left.”

Socialism is in trouble once again

Evidently, the voluntary alliance between the DSA and AOC seems to be working. Even if the number of “radicals” is far smaller than that of “moderates”, contrary to the assumptions of fickle enthusiasts like Cihan Tuğal, who unblushingly spin tales of communism arriving in the Senate this winter, a wind of “democratic socialism” is certainly blowing.

If we look at the New York Times article cited at the beginning, AOC, in private conversations, “conscious that even she sometimes fails their purity-driven litmus tests on issues like the war in Gaza”, has reportedly been urging her democratic socialist colleagues to foster an “embracing culture”. She is said to be playing both to a Bernie Sanders-style “populism” and a Barack Obama-style unifier role.

It seems to have found traction within the DSA. Daniel Denvir, who hosts a podcast for Jacobin, one of the global brain-grinding publications of this loose “left” coalition, argues that the “opportunities and challenges facing AOC really concretely reflect” the state of the broader socialist movement. In his view, AOC needed both to reinvigorate and consolidate her support on the “socialist left” and to appeal to a broader “liberal” electorate. Denvir also lashed out at those on the left who branded AOC a “sellout” without any justification.

New York Representative Nydia Velázquez, with whom Ocasio-Cortez remains close and whom the NYT regards as one of her “first mentors in Washington”, says: “She has matured now. The DSA needs to learn something from her as well.” If an AOC who has matured by declaring “Woke 1.0 was crazy” takes the DSA under her wing, why shouldn’t the DSA reciprocate?

AOC’s support for Biden and Harris may raise eyebrows in the DSA. She may gloss over Harris’s stance on Gaza with falsehoods just like El-Sayed. The “steel core” federal leadership of the DSA may feel dissatisfaction with AOC. Yet none of this prevents her from asking the equally loose members of this loose organization, during an online campaign call accompanied by Palestinian flag emojis, to “trust her and see her as their comrade.” Flexible and broad will carry democratic socialism to power!

El-Sayed is not in the DSA, Mamdani is in the DSA, and AOC has not paid her dues in years. Yet Mamdani, who according to the NYT is to the left of AOC, can hobnob on intimate terms with the wealthy like Michael Bloomberg.

This summer, a DSA caucus describing itself as “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist” declared that Ocasio-Cortez was not a socialist, but an “unprincipled, opportunistic dabbler”. DSA spokeswoman Cara Tobe promptly intervened, saying, “They are a very small group within the organization, with almost no authority to make decisions on behalf of national or local leadership.”

Moreover, in this ever-so-democratic socialism, as seen in the example of El-Sayed above, laxity on Ukraine is treated as a requirement of democracy. You can only dig up the coalition’s statements after the war broke out in 2022 through a bit of archaeology: a cliché declaration condemning both Russia and US NATO expansion, followed by dead silence. What is more, within this loose coalition, you can even encounter objections from some “hardline” Trotskyists complaining that “we didn’t condemn Russia enough.” Mamdani, for instance, who is unable to arrest Netanyahu, was also declaring he would arrest Putin in accordance with ICC warrants.

A solution to the cost of living: Handing out cash

In the US, the return of “industrial policies” at the federal level occurred during the Obama era. It is forgotten today, but the framing of “geopolitical” considerations in economic terms also emerged during that same period alongside new initiatives against China. The “Green New Deal” and the clean energy transition are products of this as well. Institutions and figures such as AOC, the DSA, Chakrabarti, and even Elon Musk entered through the door that was thus opened.

Consequently, there is no turning back from this preoccupation. This was why Joe Biden continued unchanged the anti-China measures taken under the preceding Trump administration. The Obama-Biden era also bears responsibility for the proliferation of flexible working models, the “gig” economy, and automation as competitiveness against China faltered. Indeed, Obama, the “president of peace”, rapidly unmanned military operations, closing out his tenure as the years in which drones killed the highest number of people.

In any case, the question of what to do with the population is now one of the core elements of the battle raging over artificial intelligence and data centres. There is no turning back from here either. While Silicon Valley prophets argue that new automation technologies will render the population redundant, those who dread unemployment and form the hardcore base of the Democrats seem increasingly inclined toward “universal basic income”.

For instance, Democrat Gina Hinojosa, elected governor of Texas, claims she wants to send Texans a one-time rebate cheque of $1,500 (the same Hinojosa who supported tax exemptions for data centres in 2023 now takes the exact opposite position!). Moreover, somehow these measures are proposed at a time when labour productivity is rising at the federal level, with precious little to do with AI applications. Let us also recall that ground zero for this productivity trend was the pandemic period. The Democrats, who fervently championed strict lockdowns and direct cash payouts to households, appear to have helped shrink labour’s share of national income even as productivity grew. Handing out cheques to households is simply an extension of that same policy.

Michael Roberts reports: under Biden and Trump, the median net worth of the top 10% of households jumped from $2.8 million to $3.67 million between 2022 and 2025, representing an increase of roughly $872,000, or 30%. The bottom 40% in terms of income, meanwhile, fell behind.

Indeed, no Democrat attempts to address the “elephant in the room”, namely the American economy, which cannot grow except via the AI bubble. This means a “zero-sum game”. In this scenario, Democratic and Republican coalitions will be shaped by the whims of intermediate strata swinging like a pendulum from election to election as they scramble for a piece of a stagnant pie. Therefore, it is impossible to take seriously either AOC, who now says “Woke 1.0 was crazy”, or those leftists who have suddenly discovered the evils of “identity-culture-gender politics” and the virtues of “class politics”.

Roberts, pointing out that Democrats offer no proposals to cut monstrous “defence” spending, felt compelled to remark: “The Democrats apparently have no clue on how to control accelerating inflation, other than to rely on the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates, a policy that will only increase the likelihood of a recession. Nor do they have any proposals to reverse accelerating inequality.”

It appears that until the AI bubble bursts, Democrats want to keep the ship afloat. The irony is that the very policies pursued by Democrats may be what pricks the bubble. An edifice collapsing while trying to evade capitalist “creative destruction”: is that not a Democratic ending entirely suited to Janus-faced American politics?

¹ Ajamu Baraka of Black Agenda Report points out an important fact:

“Domestically, Obama presided over record-breaking deportations and expanded the national security state’s capacity to surveil, prosecute, and punish political dissidents. His administration prosecuted whistleblowers under the Espionage Act at a rate unprecedented in modern US history. He also institutionalized targeted assassinations via drone warfare, including the extrajudicial killing of at least three US citizens in Yemen in 2011.”

When one adds how little “progressive” Democrats have resisted the barbarities carried out by ICE in Minnesota and New York to Obama’s record, there is hardly any reason to hold out hope for the future.

Paraguay President Santiago Peña has announced his resignation after the collapse of a major bank with close links to his administration.

The banking scandal had left half of the country’s population of six million unable to access their money.

In a video statement released online yesterday, Peña, a conservative economist, stated that he was stepping down from his post to ensure stability.

Calling the decision “one of the most difficult moments of his life”, Peña said: “I apologise to the public if I have disappointed you. It was never my intention to betray the trust you placed in me.”

Peña was facing an impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress in connection with the bank’s collapse, which lawmakers characterised as “systematic dereliction of duty”.

Minutes after his announcement, lawmakers voted unanimously to proceed with the impeachment process.

Earlier on Thursday, the prosecutor general’s office announced that it was evaluating a formal criminal complaint filed against the president by lawmakers.

Elected in 2023, the 47-year-old Peña was a staunch South American ally of the Trump administration.

Ueno Bank, which sits at the centre of the scandal, was taken over by the Central Bank of Paraguay early on Tuesday after regulators determined that the lender was no longer solvent.

Millions of Paraguayans soon realized that they could no longer withdraw cash, make digital payments, or use their debit cards for grocery shopping.

“When I woke up on Tuesday, I was completely helpless, without a single peso in my pocket,” said Benicia Sosa, 56, who joined a protest outside the Congress building on Wednesday night.

A day labourer from Luque, on the outskirts of the capital Asunción, Sosa said that her husband and eight children were all locked out of their Ueno accounts.

Sosa said she had been drawn by Ueno’s promotional offer, which provided cardholders with up to 40% cashback at supermarkets.

Sosa also noted that she regretted voting for Peña, who had pledged to revive the economy and create half a million jobs.

“I was foolish. The economy is going to hell,” the worker said during the demonstration at the presidential palace.

Over a few decades, Ueno evolved from a loan-sharking business operating out of a dilapidated market in Asunción into a youth-oriented banking app and a major financial player at times compared to Revolut or Nubank.

However, sceptics have long argued that this rags-to-riches rise was achieved through public resources and high-level connections.

When Peña assumed office in August 2023, he appointed Ueno’s former chairman, Carlos Carvallo, as head of the Central Bank.

Months later, the Central Bank officially granted Ueno a licence to operate as a brick-and-mortar bank. Carvallo also stepped down on Tuesday.

As of the end of October, Ueno, which is not capitalised in company filings and roughly translates to “good”, announced that it had approximately 2.9 million customers.

It also held more than $800 million in public funds, which included around 10% of the state pension fund.

Ueno sponsored the Paraguay national football team, alongside dozens of other businesses and brands.

Its sister company, Itti, expanded by securing dozens of public procurement contracts involving citizens’ data.

Last year, Peña announced that he had officially divested from another affiliated entity, Ueno Holding, following criticism that his shares gave rise to a conflict of interest. Peña maintained that nothing illegal had occurred.

Even so, analysts pointed out that the bank’s proximity to power aroused regulatory suspicions and attracted hostility from rivals.

Concerns surfaced in September when lawmakers loyal to Horacio Cartes, a powerful former president, demanded that the Central Bank answer questions regarding Ueno.

Cartes also leads the Colorado Party, which has governed Paraguay for almost all of the past 80 years.

Peña previously served as finance minister under Cartes, a tobacco magnate sanctioned by the Biden administration over corruption allegations.

According to Paraguayan-American political scientist Miguel Carter, however, the two men fell out over who would lead the party into the 2028 elections.

Reports emerging in October indicated that Ueno had extended roughly $150 million in loans to small firms connected to its own executives and employees.

This situation risked breaching banking regulations and endangering its balance sheet.

Worried about solvency, foreign investors began offloading Ueno’s bonds.

This month, Ueno offered additional perks to savers holding cash in their accounts.

Last week, the company announced that it had raised $100 million from investors and its Luxembourg-registered holding company, denying reports of an imminent intervention.

The speed of Ueno’s collapse surprised even its critics, evoking memories of the 1995 crisis that wiped out half of Paraguay’s banks.

Speaking at a press conference, Central Bank Governor Carvallo, who resigned on Tuesday, stated that the broader financial system was secure and that Ueno customers would be able to recover their funds “as soon as possible”, up to a limit of approximately $38,000.

Analysts observed that this threshold also applies to businesses, meaning that companies holding substantial cash deposits in the bank could also face bankruptcy.

Next in line to succeed Peña is Vice-President Pedro Alliana, who is likewise a member of the Colorado Party.

Yet some lawmakers argued that Peña should not be permitted to leave the presidency so easily.

Under the constitution, should his resignation be accepted, Peña would become an honorary senator entitled to parliamentary immunity. That status would shield him from investigations.

Local media reports suggested that Peña might be considering fleeing the country with US assistance, emulating the escape of Flávio Bolsonaro, the candidate who lost Brazil’s presidential election last month.

Last night, the presidential office dismissed the circulating “rumours” without going into detail. The US Embassy in Asunción referred inquiries to the State Department.

An impeachment resolution drafted in the US House of Representatives against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth could be approved next week, according to claims reported by Fox News.

Citing several Republican lawmakers, the television network reported that the resolution is planned to be brought to a vote once Congress resumes its work.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie told the network that he intends to call a vote on the impeachment resolution when Congress reconvenes, unless Hegseth resigns beforehand.

Speaking to Fox News regarding the measure prepared by Massie, one Republican lawmaker said, “If he introduces the bill, it passes.”

Two other Republican lawmakers interviewed by the network shared the same view.

Massie aims to utilize a procedural rule that allows a resolution to be brought to the floor despite the wishes of the majority leadership.

Under this procedure, once the resolution is introduced, the House of Representatives must hold a vote within two legislative days.

Lawmakers can also vote to end debate on the measure or refer the text to the relevant committee before proceeding to a direct impeachment vote.

An official speaking to the network noted that voter turnout on the House floor could determine the outcome of the vote.

It is reported that some Republican lawmakers who lost their elections might not return to the House before the end of the year.

Because the party holds a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives, if Democrats vote unanimously in favor of the resolution, the absence of just a few lawmakers could be enough for the measure to pass.

Fox News reported that the majority of Republicans still oppose impeaching Hegseth.

One lawmaker, meanwhile, expressed doubts regarding the likelihood of the effort succeeding.

Even if the House of Representatives approves the impeachment resolution, the decision does not result in the immediate removal of the Secretary from office.

Following the impeachment proceedings, the matter must move to the Senate to be taken up there.

A report by CNN yesterday also detailed Massie’s plan to initiate an impeachment vote against Hegseth.

According to sources who spoke to the network, a segment of Republicans holds the Secretary of War responsible for the party’s defeat in the midterm elections on November 3.

Some figures within the party accused Hegseth of convincing President Donald Trump to launch a military operation against Iran without taking into account how the process would conclude or its political fallout.

In a statement on November 4, Trump stated that he would not dismiss Hegseth.

Trump maintained that the Secretary of War was doing a “great job.”

Department of War Spokesperson Sean Parnell rejected claims that the Secretary might resign, speaking to Fox News.

Parnell noted that Hegseth has no intention of backing down before politicians seeking to score internal party points or launch baseless investigations.