The fact that those of us who pay even desultory attention to national politics know who Rep. Shri Thanedar is and why he’s important is an object lesson in the failure of our nation’s political class.
Thanedar is a Michigan Democrat who would be thoroughly unremarkable if it weren’t for his stunts. This included one of the quixotic impeachment attempts not pursued against Donald Trump by Texas Rep. Al Green; Green is another sign of our political failures, but he’s at least deliberately entertaining. Thanedar is accidentally so, particularly after he got intimidated into sorta-kinda pulling the impeachment attempt by intentionally submitting it late after being intimidated by his party’s establishment, so that he just looked like an idiot and not a coward.
Thanedar has done plenty, impeachment-wise, to convince us he’s an unserious man. He’s talking about impeaching Trump again if the Democrats retake the House. He’s filed articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. I’m assuming that if you convinced him that Alfred E. Neuman was a Trump cabinet member, he’d file articles of impeachment against him for not worrying enough. In the meantime, he can’t name five parts of his own district.
In short, Rep. Thanedar is the beau ideal of the modern political idiot animal of the donkey variety: very focused on talking points, not so much on effective governance. It just so happens that he’s inadvertently hilarious when what he’s prattling on about isn’t so serious.
To this end, I direct you to a question posed by Rep. Brandon Gill, a Texas Republican. It’s supposed to be a rhetorical question for Democrats who have become obsessed with a woman’s right to abort a child up until the moment of birth, no matter what:
She can’t handle the truth about how abortion kills babies. pic.twitter.com/lVQago1iFW
— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) April 28, 2026
This went viral because, of course, there’s no good answer about what one’s “favorite type of abortion” is, which exposes just how morally depraved the sanitization of the act of murdering the unborn has become. Thanedar took this clip and said it was an example of “the party of creepy men” in an X post on Tuesday. (In addition to not being able to name five parts of his own district, I’m assuming Rep. Thanedar cannot name what former Rep. Eric Swalwell has been up to lately.)
So, Gill asked him the question: “Which abortion is your favorite? The one where the unborn baby’s body is [crushed] and sucked out with a hose, or the one where the baby is cut apart with a knife? Please enlighten us.”
Which abortion is your favorite? The one where the unborn baby’s body is crush and sucked out with a hose or the one where the baby is cut apart with a knife?
Please enlighten us. https://t.co/IY5Wr9SwdK
— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) April 28, 2026
Now, here’s a simple tip for Democrats who end up getting annoyed at how they’re portrayed in conservative media: If you don’t want the coverage, this is where you shut up. Just shut up. I have said this in what feels like a thousand articles. I’m not generally on the Shri Thanedar beat; I don’t wake up in the morning thinking to myself, “Hey, I wonder what that crazy Michigan guy who looks like he has the worst toupée-maker in the Midwest is saying?” Thanedar said his peace, Gill said his.
If everyone shuts up here — just shuts. up. — there’s nothing to write about. At this moment, had that happened, I’m probably typing a piece about Mike Vrabel buying his wife a cheap make-up gift at the Salt Lake City airport after getting caught cheating with that reporter for The Athletic. (Seriously, Mike: loungewear?)
In other words, take this as another object lesson, Democrats. Because not only did Thanedar not shut up, he answered what his favorite part of abortion was: All of it! Because unborn babies are disposable.
My favorite kind of abortion is the kind that’s safe, legal, accessible, and none of your damn business to regulate.
And no amount of fearmongering by describing what goes on to a half-ounce fetus with no consciousness, self-awareness, or feeling of pain is going to change that. https://t.co/qi8DpP9IXy
— Congressman Shri Thanedar (@RepShriThanedar) April 28, 2026
“My favorite kind of abortion is the kind that’s safe, legal, accessible, and none of your damn business to regulate,” Thanedar said. “And no amount of fearmongering by describing what goes on to a half-ounce fetus with no consciousness, self-awareness, or feeling of pain is going to change that.”
I’m not even going to go into the erroneously asserted fact that the unborn have “no consciousness, self-awareness, or feeling of pain,” which is not only provably false but actually more true for patients under anesthesia. I’d ask Rep. Thanedar if it’d be OK to murder them, but I’d be afraid 1) he’d actually answer and 2) that answer would prove far more dispiriting than I would hope for.
Notice, too, how we’ve thrown the “rare” part out of the abortion trinity that the Democrats used to preach, along with “safe” and “legal.” To Thanedar, it’s safe and legal, and his favorite part is all the gruesome things that Rep. Gill talked about abortionists doing in their human abattoirs, which should happen as often as possible.
There was plenty of pushback from conservative lawmakers and pundits at this statement, including a Princeton professor who called it “monstrous.”
This is monstrous, Congressman Thanedar. We have our dignity and basic rights–human rights–in virtue of our humanity, not age, size, or stage of development, anymore than race, sex, or ethnicity. Human dignity is inherent, not acquired. All of us have it, and we have it from… https://t.co/RUwqu25fcX
— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) April 29, 2026
Today, because I’m in Washington, I had to FaceTime in for the ultrasound of our new baby.
It is unconscionable to describe what I saw today as anything other than a beautiful baby made in God’s image.
I saw little hands. Little feet. A heart. A brain. I saw my daughter.… https://t.co/aLHlCse1QY
— Congressman Addison McDowell (@RepMcDowell) April 29, 2026
ignoring the “my favorite kind of abortion” which is only something a genuine psychopath would say
there’s no “safe abortion” since all of them involve the murder of a child.
hope that helps https://t.co/d0EXT88sO9
— vittorio (@IterIntellectus) April 29, 2026
What’s sad is that this monstrousness is probably an inherent political virtue for most Democrats, but they know better than to say it.
In that one way only, Thanedar is a success: His utter lack of filter exposes the abject failure of our nation’s political class, especially its amorality. For America’s independents and swing voters, remember that when you close the curtain behind you at the voting booth this November. The key difference between this ghoul and the rest of his party is that he doesn’t know when to shut up. For that, and that alone, we can be grateful this man is still in elected office.
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