Rep. John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat, recently introduced 13 articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, and members of his own party are already admitting the effort will go nowhere. With Republicans controlling both the House and Senate, and a two-thirds Senate vote required for conviction, the math is brutal for Democrats hoping to remove Trump from office. Party leaders know it. Rank-and-file members know it. And yet the liberal base keeps demanding action that its elected officials cannot deliver.
The admission, reported by Newsmax, marks an increasingly visible rift between what Democratic voters want and what Democratic lawmakers can actually accomplish. Larson's articles cite policies ranging from Iran to immigration, but even he has acknowledged there is little appetite within his own party to move forward quickly, according to Time.
This would be the third impeachment effort against Trump. The first two, during his first term, ended without removal. The third looks dead before it starts.
Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress. Even if every House Democrat voted to impeach, which is far from guaranteed, the articles would never clear a Republican-controlled floor. And even in the fantasy scenario where impeachment somehow passed the House, conviction requires 67 Senate votes. Democrats don't have them. They aren't close.
One unnamed lawmaker told reporters that enthusiasm alone cannot overcome the numbers in Congress. That's a polite way of saying the whole exercise is performative.
Rep. Sara Jacobs, a California Democrat, went further, warning that a failed impeachment vote could backfire. She described it as "worse than no impeachment at all." The concern is straightforward: a doomed vote hands Trump and his supporters a rallying cry heading into the midterm elections, energizing the very base Democrats need to suppress.
Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, a former impeachment manager who knows the process as well as anyone in the caucus, was blunt. She called impeachment "not the fight right now" and pointed instead to the economy and foreign policy as the issues Democrats should be pressing.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has avoided endorsing a new impeachment push. That silence speaks volumes. Jeffries understands the political risk of chasing a removal effort that cannot succeed, particularly when Democrats have already floated 25th Amendment talk without committing to action. A pattern is forming: dramatic gestures, followed by quiet retreat.
The party's leadership is increasingly concerned that impeachment could distract from its broader midterm strategy, particularly messaging on inflation and affordability. That's a legitimate strategic worry. Voters who are paying more for groceries and gas are unlikely to reward a party that spent its energy on a symbolic removal vote.
But the base won't let go. One senior House Democrat told Axios the mood inside the caucus is raw: "People are pissed and know we have to fight." The problem is that fighting and winning are two different things, and Democratic leaders appear to grasp the distinction even if their most vocal supporters do not.
Impeachment isn't the only removal fantasy circulating among Democrats. Calls to invoke the 25th Amendment have surfaced following Trump's recent rhetoric on Iran. But that path is even more implausible than impeachment. Invoking the 25th Amendment would require action from the vice president and the Cabinet, officials chosen by and loyal to Trump.
The Iran-related rhetoric has generated significant noise on the left. More than 70 Democrats have demanded Trump's removal over his Iran comments, but demands without votes are just press releases with extra steps.
The broader context around Iran policy has produced friction not only between parties but within the right as well. Trump has pushed back against conservative critics who questioned his approach, demonstrating that the Iran debate cuts across ideological lines. But for Democrats, the issue has become less about policy substance and more about finding any available lever to challenge the president's authority.
The White House has dismissed the impeachment push outright. Spokesman Davis Ingle called the effort "pathetic" and told USA Today that Democrats have been fixated on impeachment since before Trump returned to office. That framing, that impeachment is an obsession rather than a response to specific conduct, is one Republicans will repeat through the midterms if Democrats keep the issue alive.
Ingle's characterization may be blunt, but it lands because Democrats themselves are struggling to articulate what this impeachment effort would accomplish beyond satisfying activist energy. Larson's 13 articles cover a wide range of policy areas, yet no Democratic leader has stepped forward to champion them. The articles exist in a political no-man's-land: too aggressive for leadership, too symbolic for the base.
Meanwhile, the congressional landscape continues to shift in ways that complicate Democratic messaging. Recent trips by Democratic lawmakers to Cuba, where members met with communist leadership and criticized U.S. policy, have raised questions about the party's priorities and political judgment at a moment when it can least afford distractions.
The divisions within the Democratic caucus are becoming more apparent by the week. On one side, an energized liberal base demands aggressive confrontation with the Trump administration. On the other, pragmatists like Jacobs and Dean warn that overreach will cost the party seats. In the middle sits leadership, trying to channel anger without committing to a vote it knows will fail.
Some strategists within the party have argued that the impeachment conversation itself, even without a vote, keeps Trump's conduct in the headlines and motivates Democratic donors and volunteers. But that theory assumes voters care more about process fights in Washington than about the price of eggs. Recent electoral history suggests otherwise.
The broader investigative climate around Trump continues to generate headlines. An ambassador who introduced Donald and Melania Trump has said he will testify under oath before Congress, adding another thread to the web of congressional inquiries. But inquiries and impeachment are different instruments, and Democrats have not shown they can convert one into the other.
Larson's 13 articles of impeachment will almost certainly gather dust. No committee chairman will schedule hearings. No floor vote will be called. The Republican majority ensures that. What remains is a political question: does the impeachment conversation help or hurt Democrats heading into the midterms?
The honest answer, based on what Democratic lawmakers themselves are saying, is that most of them think it hurts. Jacobs warned of backfire. Dean said it's not the fight. Jeffries won't touch it. The unnamed senior Democrat who said people are "pissed" didn't follow that observation with a plan, just a feeling.
Feelings don't remove presidents. Votes do. And Democrats don't have the votes.
When your own caucus admits the effort is doomed before it begins, the question isn't whether impeachment will fail, it's why anyone is still pretending otherwise.
