Something crazy is happening in Washington, and it tells you everything you need to know about where the Democratic Party stands right now. Several House Democrats just spent a frantic week demanding that President Donald Trump be removed from office — by any means necessary, through any constitutional mechanism available. Those are the 25th Amendment and impeachment. Two different removal schemes, running simultaneously, both with zero chance of success.
If that sounds like a party in crisis, that's because it is. The real question isn't whether either effort will work, because both are doomed to fail. It's why Democrats think this strategy helps them at all.
This all kicked off after Trump took to Truth Social with pointed language about Iran, warning that "a whole civilization will die tonight." That was all Democrats needed. Dozens of Democrats — including senators — flooded social media either demanding that Trump's Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment, or calling for impeachment.
Even though neither option will go anywhere, over 85 Democrats are pushing for them. Why? Well, the obvious reason is that the goal isn’t really removing Trump from office. The goal is the performance.
And they really have to put on a good show.
On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin would lead a virtual briefing on the 25th Amendment for Friday. That's the Jeffries two-step: keep the base fired up while keeping leadership's hands technically clean.
However, he’s trying to keep talk of impeachment down. Jeffries reportedly talked Rep. Shri Thanedar out of forcing an impeachment vote last May. When Rep. Al Green forced impeachment votes last June and December, Jeffries voted with Republicans to kill the first one and voted "present" on the second.
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Some members aren't even pretending the effort is serious. Rep. Madeleine Dean, a former Trump impeachment manager, no less, admitted she "called for 25th Amendment and impeachment" over Trump's Iran posts, then walked it back, saying it's "not the best use of our time."
"That's not the fight right now," she said. Rep. Sara Jacobs warned that Democrats "shouldn't move forward with an impeachment that looks political," adding that a failed vote "is worse than no impeachment at all."
You think?
And that brings us to the 25th Amendment specifically. It exists for one reason: to remove a president who is genuinely incapable of fulfilling the duties of the office. Trump is sharp, active, and fully in command. Meanwhile, not a single one of these Democrats raised the 25th Amendment while Joe Biden was visibly declining in real time — stumbling through press conferences, losing his train of thought mid-sentence, and being managed by aides. The silence then was deafening. The outrage now is transparently selective.
We all know that Democrats will impeach Trump if they win the House in November. It’s inevitable. The base is running the show, and the base wants blood. Leadership just wants to keep it quiet for now because they know it's a political liability.
But the public obsession with trying to remove Trump does prove that Democrats have a lot of energy for grandstanding and virtue signaling their anti-Trumpism. The problem is they have no strategy for actually governing.
