A little-known Democratic lawmaker has once again pulled the House of Representatives back into one of the defining rituals of the Trump era: an impeachment push that is almost certain to fail — and yet still powerful enough to force a vote, generate headlines, and leave behind a recorded trail that both parties can weaponize.

The sponsor is Representative Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, who introduced a set of seven articles of impeachment accusing President Donald Trump of conduct he says amounts to a “clear and present danger” to the Constitution. The allegations, as framed by Thanedar and echoed in the churn of partisan commentary, stretch across a broad landscape: alleged violations of due process in immigration enforcement, clashes with the judiciary, sweeping executive actions tied to government “streamlining,” and disputes over tariffs and federal authority. In Washington terms, it reads less like a narrow legal brief than a political indictment — a catalogue meant to capture a worldview: that Trump’s second term is not simply controversial, but structurally corrosive.

But the real story is not the text of the resolution. It is the reality surrounding it.

Democrats are in the minority in the House. That single fact makes the path to actual impeachment — never mind conviction in the Senate — extraordinarily remote. And because leadership in both parties can do math, the likely procedural outcome has always been clear: the resolution would be moved, then swiftly tabled — the congressional equivalent of ending the conversation without fully having it.

That is precisely why efforts like Thanedar’s persist. In the modern Congress, impeachment is not only a constitutional mechanism. It is also a way to force a moment of accountability theater — and, more importantly, to force a recorded vote.

The vote is the point

To the casual observer, “tabling” can look like nothing happened. In practice, it produces something very concrete: a public record of where every member stood. In a polarized era, that record can be more valuable than any debate.

For Democrats, a roll call vote creates a campaign-ready line: Republicans voted to bury accountability. For Republicans, it creates a different one: We shut down another partisan stunt. Either way, the resolution functions as a lever. It compels the institution to show its hand.

This is the logic behind “privileged” procedures — parliamentary tools that can bring certain measures to the floor faster than leadership would prefer. Even when the outcome is predetermined, the forced vote creates a moment that can be replayed. In the attention economy of politics, that is often the goal.

The awkwardness inside the Democratic Party

What makes this particular impeachment push telling is not only its slim prospects, but its thin support within Thanedar’s own party leadership.

Democratic leadership has largely signaled distance, and the expectation that many Democrats will vote alongside Republicans to table the resolution is a reminder of how divided the party remains on impeachment as a strategy. Some Democrats, especially those representing competitive districts, are wary of turning the party’s message into another referendum on Trump’s personality and scandals. They want voters focused on affordability, health care, jobs — the material pressures that decide midterm elections.

Others, including Thanedar and the activists who cheer moves like his, argue that impeachment is not primarily a messaging tool but a moral obligation. In their view, a party that believes a president is endangering constitutional government cannot simply “move on” because the votes are not there. It must leave a marker. A record. A refusal to normalize.

That tension — between the politics of winning the next election and the politics of documenting the present — is one of the defining strains inside the Democratic coalition right now.

Why file something you know will fail?

Thanedar’s critics will call this a stunt. Thanedar’s supporters will call it a stand. In Washington, both things can be true at the same time.

There are at least three plausible motives that explain why a member would do this even while acknowledging it will not remove the president:

First, signaling to the base. In a party where many voters feel institutions have failed to restrain Trump, even symbolic action has value. It communicates urgency. It tells constituents: I did not stay silent.

Second, forcing discomfort onto colleagues and opponents. A privileged impeachment effort drags everyone into the frame — not only Republicans, but also Democrats who prefer to keep their distance. It demands an answer, not a press release.

Third, building a paper trail. Some lawmakers think in legal and historical terms. They want a documented narrative: allegations raised in real time, not reconstructed years later. Even if it does not lead to removal, they believe it matters that a formal charge was made and a formal vote was taken.

This is why impeachment has become, in some corners, less like a nuclear option and more like a recurring instrument — a way to write an argument into the Congressional Record.

The Republican response: dismiss, table, move on

Republican leaders have every incentive to treat the resolution as a distraction. They will likely argue that Democrats are once again trying to relitigate elections through procedural warfare. They will paint Thanedar as an outlier, a performer, a man staging a show just as Congress is trying to get out the door for a recess.

And they will point to the predictable Democratic split as proof that even the president’s opponents do not truly believe removal is warranted — or, at least, do not believe it is strategically wise to pursue.

For Republicans, the fastest path is often the safest: table quickly, deny oxygen, deprive Democrats of extended floor time. The less the country watches, the less damage the story does. That is the theory.

The risk, however, is that speed can look like evasiveness. When leadership moves too quickly to shut down debate, it can strengthen the narrative that something is being hidden — even if the vote count has always been the real reason.

The deeper issue: impeachment fatigue and institutional breakdown

There is another layer here that is harder to reduce to party talking points.

Impeachment was designed to be rare — a last-resort constitutional mechanism for extraordinary misconduct. In recent years, the norm of rarity has collapsed. Trump has already been impeached twice in his first term. Attempts, threats, and resolutions have proliferated since.

The result is a paradox: as impeachment becomes more frequent, it can become less effective. Voters grow numb. Members treat it as partisan weather. The mechanism that was supposed to deter executive overreach risks becoming a ritual that each side interprets through its own closed loop: Democrats see accountability; Republicans see harassment.

That dynamic erodes the institutional purpose of impeachment itself. A tool meant to protect constitutional order becomes another front in the permanent campaign.

Yet the pressures that produce these efforts are real. Minority parties in Congress have limited tools. When they cannot pass legislation, cannot control committees, cannot compel outcomes, they reach for what they can: forcing moments, forcing votes, forcing narratives.

This is what Thanedar’s resolution ultimately represents: not a credible path to removal, but a form of institutional protest — one that requires the institution to respond.

A predictable outcome — and an enduring effect

The likely ending is straightforward. The resolution comes to the floor. Republicans move to table. Many Democrats, following leadership’s cues, join them. The measure dies — for now. Thanedar promises to return, to refile, to keep the charge alive.

And then everyone goes home, where the vote is no longer procedure but ammunition.

For Democrats, it becomes a weapon against Republicans: They refused to hold him accountable. For Republicans, it becomes a weapon against Democrats: They are obsessed with impeachment instead of governing.

Neither message depends on the resolution succeeding. Both depend on the vote existing.

That is why, in today’s Congress, a “doomed” impeachment attempt is not necessarily irrational. It can be strategically useful even in failure — because it produces something durable: a public record, a headline cycle, and a forced confrontation with a question that refuses to disappear.

In that sense, the most important part of this episode is not whether President Trump will be removed. He will not be, at least not through this effort. The important part is what Congress has become: a place where the mechanics of accountability are increasingly inseparable from the mechanics of messaging — and where even the most serious constitutional act can be repurposed into a tool of political leverage.

That is not a healthy sign. But it is an accurate one.