If there’s one thing Democrats are good at, it’s blaming each other.

Here’s what happened: A Republican representative filed a bill to send Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s impeachment to committee. Speaker Johnson immediately scheduled it. A bunch of Republicans and a bunch of Democrats were not available because this was not pre-scheduled, and the bill failed.

Some Democrats on the internet are mad at the Democratic representatives that didn’t vote. Not that it would have really made a difference — if it looked like enough Democrats were showing up, you can be sure Johnson would have postponed the vote to get enough Republicans there to vote. Remember: we’re still the minority party until January.

Even if this bill had passed, it was only a vote to send it to committee to have hearings on the impeachment. And you can bet the GOP would not vote to impeach.

And even if they did impeach, the GOP Senate wouldn’t remove him.

And even if they did remove him, Trump would appoint a new Secretary who would be approved by the GOP, and then we’d be stuck with whoever this new person would be.

So no, this vote would not have automatically impeached Hegseth. That’s not how it works.

By waiting until January, we can have the majority to get him impeached, but even then, we’d need almost a dozen GOP Senators to vote to remove him. The House impeaches by a majority vote, but the Senate votes to remove that person, and you need 2/3rds of the Senate to agree to that. (That’s why both Trump and Clinton’s impeachments in the past did not lead to their removal.)

So politically, it’s better that this impeachment did not happen now. In January, if he is impeached, and if he is removed, Democrats will have a say in who his replacement will be. They can vote against anyone Trump nominates.

These memes and accusations against fellow Democrats are not what we need right now if we want to accomplish our goals. I’m seeing a lot of these from people who don’t understand politics. Politics is the art of negotiations and compromise. In some ways, politics is a game and you have to know the rules and be really good at the game to win.

And that’s why I am frustrated by my fellow liberals who are screaming for Jeffries to be removed as Minority (soon Majority) Leader and have him replaced with someone who may fit their ideology better — but is not good at the game.

We need leaders who know the game of politics and know how to win it. The leaders in the party are chosen by representatives who know which politician can get things done. They play the game every day. They know who the best players are.

One of the main problems in both parties are the extremists at either end who demand that everything gets done their way and can’t see a middle ground. The GOP has been completely taken over by their extremists, and that’s one of the reasons they lost. We should not fall into the same trap.

This is Politics 101. I’m talking about facts — too many of my fellow Democrats are talking about feelings. Feelings alone don’t win votes and elections.

I agree completely with the goals of my fellow liberals, as you are well aware. I disagree on the politics needed to get there.