Exactly. The Republicans forcing a shut down in the past at least had a chance of forcing concessions because the Democrats actually wanted the government open. If the Democrats shut down the government, Musk and Trump will just sit on their hands, with a smile on their face and a big banner that reads “mission accomplished!”. He will suffer no negative affects. If by chance there is some governement function that he supports is affected, he can just declare it “essential” and make the people who make it happen come back with no pay.
As with the other shutdowns, the party that didn’t vote to just keep things open is going to get the blame and will eventually be pressured to give in. At that point the Dems will have lost any moral high ground that they had to say that they wanted to preserve government, and Trump can do what he pleases without any opposition what-so ever. The only chance that the Dems have is that Trump and Doge screw things up so badly that a wave of public outrage convinces the Republican Congress to fear the public more than they fear Trump. In order for that to happen, it needs to be crystal clear whose fault it was.
I don’t see how he ends up looking any better shutting down the government for days, weeks, months, until he finally gives in and gets nothing for it. Taking hostages doesn’t work if you care about the hostages and the enemy doesn’t.
Here is AOC on CNN talking to Jake Tapper. She makes some good points (and avoids a few tries by Tapper to get her to trash Schumer or commit to running for senator). Although, if Schumer does cave on this he may well find himself going against AOC in the next election but that would be some years from now.
Full title: Ocasio-Cortez mobilizes Democrats against Schumer plan as colleagues privately urge her to consider primary challenge
I sent her a message today telling her I’ll start writing her checks today if she pledges to run against him. Not that I expect an answer, but I REALLY hope she goes for Senate in '28.
“Privately, House Democrats are so infuriated with Schumer’s decision that some have begun encouraging [AOC] to run against Schumer in a primary, according to a Democratic member who directly spoke with Ocasio-Cortez about running at the caucus’ policy retreat.”
Can someone please explain to me why Democrats would ever want to vote yes on cloture for a bill their own party is filibustering? Why not just retract the (threat to) filibuster a vote on the bill?
More to the point, it takes one senator to deny unanimous consent for a time agreement. The House Dems, the federal workers, everyone opposed to the Schumer Surrender would be happy to have additional time to gather 41 no votes on final cloture. Any senator can do it.
·2/ When you pass a bill in the senate you need to do cloture (60 votes) to start the debate and to end it. And there’s things that have to happen between those votes. If those rules are all followed this bill won’t pass until the beginning of next week.
So we need one Senator who still has some fight in them. Wow.
I’ll take a delay until next week. If nothing else it would/could make the House’s early adjournment look bad.
This is an incredible and pathetic cave by Schumer and any Democrats who go along with it, for the following reason:
Trump and Musk are in the process of a lawless dismantling of government right now. Republicans are entirely going along with it - “favors” to keep preferred red state programs around aren’t actually pushing back in any meaningful way… in fact that’s just ceding more power to Musk since it gives him cover to continue the lawless dismantling.
Democrats have very little actual power and leverage to impact anything right now, but they do have the 60 vote threshold in the Senate. What are they using that power and leverage for? What are they trading it for?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They’re not using it at all. In this crisis that could ripple for years and possibly even demolish our democratic system (if Trump and Musk get their way with various election systems), Democrats in the senate refuse to use the one actual real power they have.
What are the arguments for working with Trump on this one? Specifically, strategically.
I’m open to 11-D chess arguments for politics, because Congress is complicated and contingent. But I need to hear what it is, because in the absence of that, it plainly looks like we got ratfucked by a bunch of corrupt New York turncoats who should be primaried and never work in politics again.
What’s the strategic case? Maybe that all-out opposition of Trump doesn’t work with the swing voter until we have a recession going on? But then it will be just “we can’t shut down the government in a recession”.
Help me see it. I’m sure it’s weak, but at least let me understand what the plan is.
I think it’s “everything is going so badly for the country that Democrats will almost certainly win big in the '26 midterms, so why shake up the board with a government shutdown that could be blamed on us?”. I think it’s overly cautious, since it should be clear to everyone that Trump is already, functionally speaking, shutting down the government (as well as the very real risk of serious harm to our democratic systems and institutions), but I think that’s why they’re giving in.
A secondary argument I’ve heard that probably has merit (but very limited merit, IMO), is that a government shutdown would shut down the court system that, so far, has been the only real barrier to Trump and Musk getting absolutely everything they want.
Trump’s administration is already ignoring the courts. The Trump admin is still sort of pretending to abide by court orders but they are well down the road of just completely ignoring them. So far, it seems they hope the captured Supreme Court will give them some cover. I am not sure the courts are the barrier you think they are.
I don’t even understand this, though. Doesn’t the party in power usually get blamed for shutdowns? Doesn’t this usually only matter when it’s close to elections? Doesn’t the leverage get worse if they wait until Trump has scuttled the economy?
OK, that makes some sense, but if that’s the case, I don’t understand why they don’t simply say that rather than allow the public to form the perception that California and New York Democrats are simply giving the finger to everybody else.
Watching the Tammany Caucus ratfuck the rest of the country, it’s giving me some violent flashbacks to the final days of the election campaign when some Trump surrogates were forecasting a red New York and California. We all laughed, but is it possible that Trump is cooking something with those corrupt state Democrat parties? If they manage turn NY and CA into a kind of Manchin/Sinema axis of fecklessness, hoo boy.
I haven’t researched it, but my impression/recollection is that the federal courts do not get shut down. As you know, a shut down does not really shut everything down. My strong suspicion is that the courts are deemed “essential.” But - as I said, I may be wrong.
I wish I saw the sense in Schumer’s appeasement on this matter. IMO, all they need to say is that if governing does not require some minimal degree of cooperation and compromise, then the Rs have to be able to pursue their agenda entirely on their own, without assistance by the Ds. Given all the other negatives piling up IRT Trump’s/Rs’ actions, I have a hard time seeing the electorate as insightful enough to say, “This ONE thing was the worst, and is all the Ds’ fault!”
Seriously - what have the positives been so far, other than “owning the libs”, firing a bunch of do-nothing fed employees, and talking/acting tough to our longtime allies? Does ANYONE intelligent see the tariffs and social warfare as ending up positive for the country?
