House Dems: Eriously-Say, Ix-Nay on Eachment-Impay, Orons-May

To quote my good friend and VIP Gold chat partner Cam Edwards: Everything is stupid, and it’s only getting worse.

Not surprisingly, House Democrats make for very good exemplars of Cam’s evergreen observation. The DNC is already humiliatiing itself on the Altar of Woke to impose “gender balance” rather that accept election results. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, one of Hakeem Jeffries’ caucus has decided to engage in a little election denial on a larger scale. Michigan representative Shri Thanedar has decided to press forward with articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, apparently unconvinced that Texas Democrat Al Green is unhinged enough for the whole caucus:

Democrat Rep. Shri Thanedar lists a bunch of bogus reasons to impeach President Trump: “Donald J. Trump has been committing crimes since day one. Bribery, corruption, taking power from Congress, ignoring Due Process.” pic.twitter.com/2bwoyRrdrY

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 13, 2025

Credit where it’s due, I suppose; Thanedar waited three whole months before trying to reverse the election. Plus a few days longer, so we should be happy with the bonus. So give Thanedar a gold star, along with about a zillion demerits for pointlessness. It’s not as if House Democrats have any hope of passing an impeachment; Republicans control the lower chamber. And the upper chamber for that matter, thanks to Democrats’ decision to first run a senile stiff at the top of the ticket, only to replace him in a back-room switcheroo with the only politician in America less competent than Joe Biden. 

Besides, what’s the end game here, besides guaranteed failure? President J.D. Vance?

It didn’t take long for Thanedar’s fellow House Democrats to rally together … to slag him in Capitol Hill media. Some went to Axios, where their headline last night reported that “Dems privately rage” over Thanedar’s “utterly selfish” move. And they weren’t polite about it either:

House Democrats erupted into fury and profane invective Tuesday as Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) forced a vote on his rogue efforts to impeach President Trump. …

What we’re hearing: “This is the dumbest f***ing thing. Utterly selfish behavior,” said a third House Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about a colleague.

• A fourth House Democrat said of Thanedar, simply: “What a dumbs***.”
• A fifth called Thanedar’s maneuver “irrelevant” because Republicans motion to table “will succeed,” predicting some Democrats may vote for the GOP motion.
• The first House Democrat who spoke anonymously said it’s “a waste of f***ing time.”

If Axios reporters are hearing all of this from House Democrats, the word “privately” in the headline seems a bit stretched, no? They aren’t venting privately — they’re venting anonymously, which is absolutely not the same thing. The former is disciplined, while the latter is rather gutless.

But wait — there’s more! Punchbowl reports that Thanedar’s allies in the House have begun to “seethe” over his grandstanding. And mirabile dictu, Punchbowl gets two of them on the record, too:

Thanedar angered Democrats across the caucus because of the timing of his move — in the midst of the reconciliation markups full of hot-button issues like Medicaid and tax. Plus there’s the fact that such a vote could be politically toxic for battleground Democrats who need to court Trump voters.

“It’s completely unhelpful,” said Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), the battleground members’ representative in House leadership. “I think it’s crazy.”

“As someone who voted to impeach Donald Trump twice, he should be impeached, but we don’t have the votes to do it,” added Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas).

Punchbowl also reports from anonymous sources that Hakeem Jeffries and Minority Whip Katherine Clark had some words with Thanedar over the stunt. How did that go? Thanedar probably didn’t get flowers and candy from his party’s leadership. 

And that may make this entire stunt a backfire in another way. Thanedar apparently decided to bogart Al Green’s insanity in order to curry favor with progressives. The two-term congressman drew a primary challenger Monday for 2026, one backed by Michigander Rashida Tlaib. She went to the Detroit Free Press to complain that Thanedar was essentially an absentee politician rather than a lack of commitment to the progressive agenda:

Speaking to the Free Press, Tlaib provided specifics, saying after Thanedar assumed representation of part of her old district three years ago, she took him around to meet local officials, some of whom seldom heard from him again.

Then, when a 54-inch water main burst in southwest Detroit in February of this year, flooding neighborhood streets and basements with water as high as 3 feet and forcing some residents to leave, Tlaib said Thanedar and his staff were nowhere to be found as his constituents called her instead. She even called the state of Michigan to investigate whether toxic soil near a school in Thanedar’s district could have washed into the building, endangering students.

“People had to be evacuated by boat,” Tlaib said. “He (Thanedar) was completely MIA (missing in action). No one from his team, from his office… was on the emergency calls. … Not once did their Congress member show up or help in any way. That was the last straw.”

Both Axios and Punchbowl report that their sources point to the primary challenge as the real motivation behind Thanedar’s stunt. That makes it much less likely that his colleagues on Capitol Hill will rally to his defense against Donovan McKinney, and in fact might persuade the DCCC to stay out of it entirely rather than exercise its normal prerogative to defend incumbents. 

Let’s hope that this discourages the stupidity of impossible impeachments in the future. Both parties have played this game, and it has done nothing except erode Congress’ credibility even further and undermine the confidence in the institutions on which we rely. Maybe the House can create a new vehicle for opposition-attention disorder such as a Presidential Two Minute Hate Resolution. That would be really dumb, but nowhere near as stupid as these stunts.