Congressional Democrats want President Donald Trump out of the White House. They just cannot agree on how to do it, or whether trying is worth the political cost. The result is a fractured minority party lurching between impeachment resolutions, 25th Amendment briefings, and war powers votes, with no clear path forward on any of them.

More than five dozen House Democrats have now called for Trump's impeachment, Fox News Digital reported. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., filed 13 articles of impeachment last week, citing the president's military intervention in Venezuela, the deployment of National Guard troops to American cities, and his executive order to curtail birthright citizenship, among other charges. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted a caucus-wide briefing on the 25th Amendment led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

But the party's own members are openly undercutting the effort. Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., said at a news conference that impeachment was not the best use of anyone's time.

"Let us get into the majority, let us get a Senate majority and then hold this president to account."

That is a polite way of saying the votes do not exist and everyone in the room knows it.

A party arguing with itself

The split runs from the House floor to the Senate cloakroom. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has stopped short of endorsing impeachment or the 25th Amendment. Instead, he is pushing for another war powers resolution vote this week to rein in Trump's authorities in Iran, a procedural play that requires no Republican cooperation to force but carries no binding power without it.

Schumer framed the vote in bipartisan language, saying, "No president, Democrat or Republican, should take this country to war alone, not now, not ever. Republicans will once again have the opportunity to join Democrats and end this reckless war of choice." Whether Republicans will take that opportunity is another question entirely. Even some Democrats have broken ranks on the Iran war powers question, exposing just how thin the coalition is.

Only a handful of senators have gone further. Sens. Andy Kim, D-N.J., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., have called for impeachment or the 25th Amendment. Kim was blunt in his assessment of the president.

"I mean, he's unfit for office. I think the 25th Amendment, and if not, then impeachment."

But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., threw cold water on that ambition. He called the 25th Amendment route "not realistic right now, given his oddball Cabinet of sycophants and eccentrics." His alternative? "We're going to have to buckle down and win this the old-fashioned way." That is an admission, however grudging, that the constitutional mechanisms Democrats are invoking require cooperation they do not have and cannot get.

The math that doesn't add up

The constitutional arithmetic is brutal for Democrats, and their own leadership knows it. The 25th Amendment has never been used to oust a sitting president in the nearly 60 years since it was ratified. Invoking it would require Vice President JD Vance, most of Trump's Cabinet, and two-thirds of both chambers of Congress to align against the president. That scenario exists nowhere outside a fundraising email.

Impeachment faces the same wall. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., controls the chamber. Formal proceedings are not going to begin under his leadership. And the recent history is instructive: late last year, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, forced votes on two articles of impeachment against Trump. Nearly two dozen Democrats joined Republicans to kill the effort. That is not a typo, members of the president's opposition party voted to table their own colleague's impeachment resolution.

Larson's 13 articles face similar headwinds. Whether he will even force a vote on his resolution remains unclear. Fox News Digital noted that Larson is also facing a heated primary challenge from a decades-younger opponent, which raises the question of whether the filing is driven more by constituent politics than constitutional conviction.

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., a member of House Democratic leadership, offered the vaguest possible position: "All options should be on the table." That phrase is the political equivalent of saying nothing while appearing to say something. Democrats may hold an edge in generic congressional polling, but polling advantages do not translate into the supermajorities required for removal.

Constituent pressure meets political reality

The push is not happening in a vacuum. Breitbart reported that congressional offices were flooded with calls and emails from constituents alarmed by Trump's rhetoric on Iran, with some lawmakers reporting record call volumes. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., declared, "Whether by his Cabinet or Congress, the President must be removed from office. We are playing with the brink." Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said, "Temporary ceasefire or not, Trump already committed an impeachable offense."

Some Democrats have gone even further in their rhetoric over the Iran standoff, escalating in ways that raise their own questions about judgment and restraint.

Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., told reporters, "My office phones have not stopped ringing." That kind of constituent intensity is real, and it explains why rank-and-file members feel compelled to act, or at least to appear to act. But constituent anger does not change the vote count in a Republican-controlled Congress. The Washington Times noted that despite the backlash, Democratic leaders and moderates have largely stopped short of endorsing impeachment precisely because Republicans control Congress and such efforts are unlikely to succeed.

Jeffries walks a tightrope

House Minority Leader Jeffries appears to be threading a needle, encouraging the removal conversation without fully committing to it. In a "Dear Colleague" letter, he wrote that Trump "threatened to escalate his war of choice in a profane Easter Sunday rant and to eradicate an entire civilization." He added, "We will continue to unleash maximum pressure on Republicans to put patriotic duty over party loyalty and join Democrats in stopping the madness."

That language is designed to keep the base energized while keeping the leadership's fingerprints off any specific procedural commitment. Jeffries is not filing articles of impeachment. He is not introducing a 25th Amendment resolution. He is hosting briefings and writing letters. The distinction matters.

Schumer is playing a similar game. His war powers resolution vote forces Republicans onto the record without requiring Democrats to deliver an outcome they cannot produce. It is messaging dressed up as legislating. Other prominent Democrats have been crafting midterm playbooks that suggest the party's real strategy is electoral, not constitutional, a tacit concession that removal is a fantasy under current conditions.

The real game

Strip away the press conferences and the "Dear Colleague" letters, and the picture is plain. Democrats are divided into three camps: those who want impeachment now regardless of the odds, those who want to talk about impeachment to energize voters, and those who think the whole exercise is a distraction from winning back Congress.

Dean's position, wait for the majority, then act, is the most honest. It is also the least satisfying to a base that wants action yesterday. Kim's position, the 25th Amendment, and if not, impeachment, is the most aggressive. It is also the most disconnected from political reality, given that the amendment requires the president's own vice president and Cabinet to turn on him.

And Whitehouse's position, buckle down and win the old-fashioned way, is the quiet admission that everything else is theater. Democrats have shown willingness to use aggressive political maneuvering at the state level, but at the federal level, the minority party's constitutional tools are limited to persuasion and patience.

The Green precedent hangs over all of it. When he forced impeachment votes late last year, nearly two dozen Democrats broke ranks to kill the effort alongside Republicans. That vote revealed something the current rhetoric tries to paper over: a significant chunk of the Democratic caucus does not believe impeachment is smart politics, even if they believe the charges have merit.

What comes next

Schumer's war powers vote will proceed this week. It will likely fail to attract enough Republican support to pass. Larson's 13 articles of impeachment will sit in legislative limbo unless he forces a floor vote, and if he does, the Green precedent suggests it could embarrass Democrats more than it damages the president. Raskin's 25th Amendment briefings will continue to educate members about a mechanism that requires cooperation from people who have no interest in cooperating.

None of this is a strategy. It is a collection of gestures by a party that lacks the power to do what its loudest members demand. The question for Democrats is whether the gestures help them win back that power, or whether they make the party look like it is more interested in performing outrage than governing.

When your own caucus votes to kill your impeachment resolution, the problem is not the other party. It is yours.