Federal Government Shutdown: Make It So!
Bipartisan bloviating brings bupkis
The government’s funding will run out in about three weeks. Therein lies a real opportunity for Democrats, who will face a choice: Join Republicans to fund a government that Trump is turning into a tool of authoritarian takeover and vengeance or shut the government down. It won’t be easy, and the party needs more than “Trump bad” to justify its actions.
At Public Notice, Paul Waldman cuts to the quick:
The danger is that once again, Democrats will save the GOP from itself.
“We don’t want a shutdown,” Schumer recently said. “We want bipartisan negotiations and a bipartisan bill. If Republicans want to keep the government open, they’ve got to work with us.”
The problem is that there is no such thing as bipartisanship right now. And even if you believe this is just rhetoric, what precisely is the political gain to be had for Democrats in looking as though they want to be bipartisan? Democrats have spent decades hoping that voters will reward them for being responsible and reasonable, for reaching across the aisle to avoid disaster, for acting like the adults in the room. What have they gotten for it? Not a thing.
Liberal pundit Ezra Klein made waves over the weekend, using his op-ed space in the New York Times to discuss urging Democrats to take a leap of faith by refusing to play nice in the next round of ‘let’s fund the government.’
He ticked through the milquetoast Congressional Democratic leadership’s rationale for caving in last March:
Trump would lose big in the courts
A spending freeze would actually give the executive branch more authority
The markets wouldn’t let Trump go too far with tariffs
And Klein adds a fourth reason:
Democrats didn’t have an ask
The Dems faith in the process has proven to be misplaced.
The Supremes have evidenced little interest in restraining the executive; in fact, justices of the nihilistic persuasion have handed Trump even more power than a shutdown would give him; and the market refuses to see the logical conclusion of the administration’s fabulist economic policies.
The probability of a trillion dollars in stock buybacks and paid passageways to monopoly outweighs any concerns Wall Street might have about the average consumer.
So Klein joins in the chorus of those saying we’ve really crossed a line at this point, and offers up a decent rundown of recent bad news moves:
“We are in the authoritarian consolidation stage of this presidency.”
But, But, But… Democrats still haven’t crafted a coherent message for stopping Trump. Worse, their legislative leaders haven’t demonstrated any spine. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are more vested in the process than they are in a winning strategy. It’s no wonder that 34% of the population is the top line for supporting the party.
Right now, Democrats have no power, so no one cares what they have to say. A shutdown would make people listen. But then Democrats would have to actually win the argument. They would need to have an argument. They would need a clear set of demands that kept them on the right side of public opinion and dramatized what is happening to the country right now.
Klein ends up saying that he’s not sure shutting down the government is a good idea, since the Democratic party has had six months to craft a winning message and failed to do so. Wishy, meet washy.
He’s allowed to do that in today’s world because of his certainty that his own bubble won’t burst. I’ll be sure to let my resister friends know how he ran out of words.
In reality, Klein is part of the Democrats’ problem. The “let’s do abundance” book/idea he and Derek Thompson penned enabled the centrist wing of the party to rally behind its abundant vagaries in the name of separating themselves from the radical “maybe we ought to do something about billionaires” wing of the party.
The Abundance ‘movement’ is too many things to too many people. There are plenty of ideas (some good ones) and plenty of questionable players seeking entrance. And beyond rhetoric, there’s the question of how they will actually accomplish something concrete.
Here’s Dylan Gyauch-Lewis at the Revolving Door Project:
That abundance is a big tent doesn’t quite do the canopy’s capaciousness justice. The movement includes groups like Greater Greater Washington, which explicitly centers “racial, economic, and environmental justice,” which seems directly opposed to the thesis of “everything bagel liberalism.” But it also includes groups like Stand Together, a philanthropic organization funded by Charles Koch (and run by the head of the Charles Koch Foundation) which funds the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ hate group that, among other things, has sought to keep laws criminalizing sodomy on the books and in 2015 argued to the European Court of Human Rights that transgender people should face mandatory sterilization. You’ve got Americans for Prosperity, the primary Koch political arm that has waged an intense campaign to block climate action, alongside the Federation of American Scientists.
This lack of a higher purpose shows up in the mayoral race in New York city, where many “sides” (Republican, corrupt politician #1, corrupt politician #2) are gunning for the winner of the Democratic primary, Zohran Mamdani. OMG! He’s a Democratic Socialist AND Muslim, which opens up a galaxy’s worth of pejoratives useful in persuading New Yorkers to vote against their best interests.
One need look no further than the Big Apple to see just how many politicians are willing to bend the knee to billionaires; Dear Leader’s minions even tried to persuade Eric Adams and Curtis Silwa to drop out of the race, clearing the way for the guy whose picture ought to be in the dictionary next to the definition of “slimeball.”
I’m sorry that some establishment Democrats seem incapable of uniting with the scrappy activist wing of the party for this contest in the face of a threat that will ultimately banish or imprison their leaders. They don’t have to agree on much at this point, just that the greater good is more important than preserving the current political cesspool.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
You see, the national party has a weak point, namely that there isn’t much enthusiasm among donors for a lost cause with enfeebled leaders. At the activist level I realize there aren’t a lot of us contributing to the Democratic National Committee. In fact, there aren’t a lot of anybodies tickling Act Blue on the DNC’s behalf.
As of the end of June, the DNC had $15 million on hand; compare that with the Republican National Committee’s $80 million. (In their defense, the Kamala Harris campaign did leave behind $20 million in debt to be covered as “party coordinated expenditures.”)
The need for Congress to pass a continuing resolution (or an actual budget) gets serious in October, and the Trumplicans are not in a compromising mood. The best Democrats can hope for are vague promises about Medicare and Medicaid, likely to be cancelled by executive decree.
So I would urge people to pressure people/politicians/outside of Capitol Hill to get real. If we want them to name a demand and hold to it, we have to name that demand and hold them to it. We have to be the change we expect to see in DC and make them scared of not getting on board fast enough.
Obamanoid Topher Spiro (former OMB Director, actually) has some ideas on messaging. It’s a start, but barely. It needs some non-consultant-approved wording. His thoughts:
Restore Medicaid funding so nobody loses coverage (CBO certified)
Iron clad requirement for President to spend appropriated funds; ban pocket recissions
Fast track congressional review process for tariffs
Require insurance to pay for vaccines approved by the CDC before September 1, 2025
Funds for local police crime fighting efforts and a prohibition on deploying the national guard for local law enforcement purposes.
I’d say that the last demand gives in to the President’s framing about crime. Please don’t start with this. I know, nobody wants to be accused of defunding the police! But if the funding isn’t offered…then out of sight, out of mind.
And the issue of exploding health insurance premiums needs to be explicitly mentioned, if for no other reason that it’s kicking in before the midterms and Republicans know they are vulnerable to this.
How do Democrats make this into a snappy message encompassing public distress over the Trump administration… a message that Fox news would ridicule?
DNC leadership isn’t interested in what we peons think, but if non-national campaigns and politicians everywhere chatted up the necessity of saying no to whatever heinous excuse for a budget is under consideration, I’ll bet enough chatter would get their attention.
…Which is the same thing that a congressional budget shutdown does for the country.
So don’t call the DNC, or send hate mail to Schumer, et al. Call your democratic congress critter (or any elected Dem) and say “no way!” to the GOP budget for the next couple of weeks. Gov. Newsom oughta (publicly!) have some fine minds figuring out ways to help Californians through a budget standoff just to prove he’s serious..
Can you imagine Rep. Scott Peters' staff logging calls on “shut the damn country down!” “Please, please, please don’t sell your constituents out!”
Do it for the people of the cities where the military is likely to show up. Do NOT look away. It’s more important now than ever to stay informed and to understand what’s happening to our democracy.
