Years

ago, I had a Palestinian-American student at Wayne State University who was a

brilliant young woman, but who wasn’t really cut out for journalism. I didn’t

tell her so; she concluded that herself, after a couple classes. She went on to

do very well in political science.

She married, had a couple of kids, and

earned a law degree. Next thing I knew, she was a very impressive member of the

state house of representatives, and then lost a heartbreaking race for the

state senate against a less qualified character who later went to jail.

 But she rebounded. Last year, Tlaib became one

of the first two Muslim women in history to be elected to Congress. She

genuinely cares about people, and I would have voted for her if I had lived in

her district.

However, on her very first day in

Congress she did something that got her headlines. Headlines that many thought

were the wrong kind of headlines. She announced to a crowd the day she took

office that she had told her young sons that bullies don’t win, and said “we’re

going to go in there, and we are going to impeach the …  

Well, you probably know what she said. Now,

I have no problems with her calling for Donald Trump’s impeachment, although

the Democratic leadership is nervous and thinks it is “too soon” for that kind

of talk.

Tlaib told me almost a year ago that she

wanted to be in Congress most of all because she felt that would be equivalent

to a seat on the impeachment jury.

Greater scholars than she have said they

believe Trump has committed impeachable offenses. But by calling the President a

famous vile epithet, Tlaib hurt herself and her cause in a number of ways, one

of which I suspect no one may have yet realized.

Yes, she did first of all, bring

herself, and by implication, the Democrats down to the gutter level where

President Trump has dragged our politics.

She managed to normalize his vulgar name

calling and personal assaults, and to suggest that her party is exactly the

same.

That, to the extent that voters believe

it, will have an incredibly corrosive effect on our politics.  But she hurt herself much more than she may

know.

Hurt herself politically, that is.  And here’s how. Most people may not know

this, but Rashida Tlaib is in a sense an accidental congresswoman.

Here’s what I mean by that. Her district

is the second poorest in the nation, and is mainly Christian and two-thirds

African American.

Tlaib won the Democratic primary in

August by only 900 votes over Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones. And

she won it because there were two other big African-American names on the

ballot: Ian Conyers, whose great-uncle represented this district for more than

half a century was one.

The other, State Senator Coleman Young.

Had any of those three dropped out, the winner likely would have defeated

Tlaib.

Instead, she won.  However, there are a lot of voters,

especially religious people, who don’t like politicians with potty mouths. Some

were even offended by Governor Whitmer saying “just fix the damn roads.”

Those folks are not likely to be

impressed that their congresswoman said that word to her little boys. It could

be that this will all be forgotten when Tlaib again has to face a primary

election next year. But maybe not.