A congresswoman wants to impeach Kristi Noem. She’s right to do so | Jan-Werner Müller

It may be tempting to dismiss the move as hopeless - but it interrupts the Trump administration's promise of impunity

In the wake of the killing of Renee Nicole Good, Congresswoman Robin Kelly has announced the filing of three articles of impeachment against Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary. Predictably, reactions have been muted at best: with the GOP holding both the Senate and the House, impeachment can be dismissed as purely performative, a helpless response to an in and of itself understandable moral imperative of just do something!"

But such dismissals are too quick: this administration has been running on a promise of impunity at all levels, and Democrats have to start signaling that actions have consequences. They also need to break out of a fateful dynamic: during Trump 2.0, misdeeds and scandals are following each other in such rapid succession that neither the press nor the public ever seem to get to focus on one. Impeachment can concentrate minds and slow down political time.

Jan-Werner Muller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University