House Democrats are weighing a forced vote to censure Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., after the congressman posted a social media response to a pro-Palestinian activist that read: "If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one."
The remark landed like a grenade. Not because it emerged from nowhere, but because Democrats saw an opportunity to put every House Republican on the record, and they intend to take it.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told Axios he brought the matter to the Congressional Progressive Caucus and argued Fine must be censured. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., posted his agreement on social media:
"I usually hate censure resolutions against members, but I've never seen someone deserve one more."
According to Newsmax, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries piled on with characteristic restraint, calling Fine a "so-called member of Congress" and promising that "accountability is coming to all of these sick extremists when the gavels change hands in November, if not sooner."
The context Democrats are happy to skip matters. Fine's post was a response to Nerdeen Kiswani, co-founder of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, who called dogs "unclean" and declared that "NYC is coming to Islam." Kiswani later told NBC News the comment was "satire" tied to a local debate about dog waste after a snowstorm, claiming she was "satirizing Islamophobic hysteria" surrounding New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration.
Satire. Of course.
A political activist affiliated with a group that has made its name through maximalist pro-Palestinian agitation posts that dogs are unclean and that a major American city is "coming to Islam," and the public is supposed to read that as a wry commentary on snow and dog waste. The explanation insults the intelligence of anyone who encounters it.
None of these excuses Fine's post. Comparing any group of people unfavorably to animals is the kind of rhetoric that poisons public discourse and hands your opponents exactly what they need. Fine gave Democrats a weapon, and they grabbed it.
This wasn't a story that split neatly along party lines. Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly challenged Fine directly on social media, asking simply, "wtf is this." When Fine responded cryptically with "Figured it out yet," Kelly did not play along:
"What I figured out, you pathetic sweaty man, is when an idiot Muslim says 'no dogs in NYC,' instead of attacking the person or the policy, you went full bigot. F*** off."
Kelly's point, stripped of the profanity, is the one that should have been obvious from the start. Kiswani's post was ripe for criticism on substance. The idea that American cities should conform to any religious code, whether it involves dogs or anything else, is a legitimate debate. The correct move was to challenge the argument, not to sweep an entire religion into a crude comparison.
Fine tried to redirect on Newsmax's "Wake Up America," pivoting to immigration:
"It's not enough for Democrats to think anyone who wants to come here illegally should be able to do that. They also think they should be able to get whatever free stuff they want, and now, they're demanding that we change our values and how we live as Americans."
That's a defensible point about illegal immigration and cultural assimilation. It's also not what his original post said. The pivot tells you everything about whether even Fine believes the original statement can stand on its own.
The censure push reveals less about Fine than it does about how Democrats choose their battles. Khanna told Axios:
"We cannot stand idly by as Muslim Americans are described as less than dogs by a sitting member."
Fair enough. But House Democrats have stood idly by through quite a lot. They stood by when members of their own caucus made antisemitic comments that required no interpretive gymnastics to understand. They stood by when anti-Israel protests turned into open celebrations of terrorism on American campuses. They stood by when Kiswani's own organization engaged in rhetoric that would end a Republican's career in a single news cycle.
The question isn't whether Fine's post was wrong. It was. The question is whether Democrats would spend one minute on a censure resolution if a left-wing member made a comparable remark about a group that doesn't fit their coalition priorities. The answer writes itself.
Even some Democrats sense the trap they're building for themselves. Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, cautioned that censuring Fine would be "giving him what he wants."
"Ricky, or whatever his name is, just wants the attention. He says obscene, hateful things for attention."
The deliberate name fumble is a nice touch, though it undercuts the gravity Landsman is supposedly trying to convey. You cannot simultaneously argue that a colleague's words represent an existential threat to Muslim Americans and also pretend you can't be bothered to remember his first name.
Democrats have urged Speaker Mike Johnson to publicly rebuke Fine and strip him of committee assignments. Johnson has made no public statement on the matter, at least not one captured in reporting. The silence may be strategic, or it may simply reflect a caucus that doesn't want to set a precedent that hands the minority a new tool for forcing uncomfortable votes every time a member says something inflammatory on social media.
The procedural mechanics of a "forced vote" remain unclear. What is clear is the political calculus. Democrats want to make every Republican either vote to censure a colleague or vote to defend a post that is genuinely difficult to defend. It's a clean wedge play, and it works regardless of outcome.
Jeffries, for his part, couldn't resist forecasting:
"Accountability is coming to all of these sick extremists when the gavels change hands in November, if not sooner."
That's not a statement about Fine. That's a midterm campaign message dressed up as moral outrage. The censure push is, at bottom, a political operation designed to produce ads, not accountability.
Somewhere beneath the procedural maneuvering and the social media sniping, there are Muslim Americans who read Fine's post and feel something sink. That's real, and no amount of "he was responding to provocation" erases it. Conservative arguments about assimilation, about the limits of religious accommodation in secular public life, and about illegal immigration are strong enough to win without demeaning entire populations.
Fine had a legitimate target and chose the worst possible weapon. Democrats had a legitimate grievance and chose to weaponize it for campaign footage. Kiswani lit the match, called it satire, and walked away clean.
Everyone got what they wanted except the discourse.