Pelosi’s “no impeachment” message really isn’t sinking in with Tlaib

The trouble with trying to herd cats is that they have zero interest in being herded and don’t tend to really care how you feel about the subject. That’s the problem that Speaker Pelosi keeps running into with her new class of freshman “superstar” socialists. Having been around This Town long enough to know how things work, Pelosi wisely tried to push her caucus off the impeachment train. It was never going to produce a conviction in the Senate and using such a massive hammer to go after a dubious nail would likely just gin up more support for Donald Trump if people thought the Democrats were overplaying their hand.

Sadly, this bit of wisdom has been lost on many of her newest caucus members. This is particularly true of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Allahpundit noted last week that Steny Hoyer had been called in to try talking her off the ledge, but it doesn’t seem to have had much effect. Not only has Tlaib not been moderating her tone, she’s pushing the timetable up. When is the right time to move forward with impeaching the President? That time would be now. (Free Beacon)

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) published an op-ed Wednesday saying “now is the time” to impeach President Donald Trump, the same week Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) balked at such an effort.

“Now is the time for impeachment,” Tlaib wrote for In These Times. “People in D.C. ask: What would it mean for our 2020 strategy? But I ask what it means for the people I grew up with, the residents of my district, and what it means for all of us, as Americans, to have Donald Trump remain our president.”

Tlaib said in January, after her party took back the House majority, Democrats were going to “impeach the motherf—er.”

Tlaib laid out a list of perceived offenses and “racist actions” that merited impeachment—impeachment is not the same as removing the president—and took aim at politicians who were making “political calculations” rather than doing what she felt was right.

Credit where due, too many politicians make all sorts of promises to the voters and then fail to deliver on them. Tlaib told her supporters that she was going to Washington to “impeach the MFer” and it sounds like she’s making every effort possible to see that the MFer in question is impeached.

Just for the record, there are already articles of impeachment drawn up and ready to go. They were filed back in November of 2017. And then California Democrat Brad Sherman reintroduced the articles in January of this year. So if she’s really serious about this, Tlaib could either sign on with one of those efforts or draw up a new set of her own to submit.

There’s just one problem, though I’m not sure if they cover this in freshman orientation or not. One person doesn’t get to impeach the President. Nor do six. Or a dozen. You need consensus and you require the backing of the leadership so the motion can make it to the floor for a vote in the first place. Odds are that you won’t be able to get all of the Democrats to vote for impeachment at this point, say nothing of the Republicans. And if the effort goes down in defeat, you’ve wasted everyone’s time and made yourself look foolish in the process.

Sure, you can wear that as a badge of honor and say that at least you tried. But it’s a big chamber full of many people with far more experience. That’s not how the game is played.