Rashida Tlaib and the Trumpification of political discourse

Tlaib, then, on her first day in office, didn’t just violate the convention that members of Congress speak respectfully of the president. Her push for impeachment flew directly in the face of Democratic leadership’s strategy for the next two years. Newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have made it clear that they believe the best way for their party to win back the Senate and the White House in 2020 is to avoid talk of impeachment, and instead lean into bread-and-butter policy issues like health care and taxes.

Foul language aside, Tlaib’s public comments about impeachment suggest that she and perhaps some of her cohort don’t plan to fall in line on the issue. This group of outspoken progressives, which includes Tlaib, New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, and Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley, have unusually loud microphones for House freshmen, giving them outsize influence over public debate. If they make clear that they’ll continue Tlaib’s norm-busting approach and throw their base the red meat it desperately wants—threats of impeachment, insults to Trump and the Republican Party—it could deepen the fissures within the House Democratic caucus, and the party writ large.