Democrats, Shut Down the Government
The New Republic (nprofile…6kn7)
In a moment of extraordinary political division, there is consensus on one subject at least: Senate Democrats are screwed. They are, to be fair, in an unenviable position. Earlier this week, House Republicans passed a continuing resolution that would fund the government until September—and set a trap for Senate Democrats. That bill is awful—it guts funding for health care and homeless shelters, and increases spending on the military and mass deportations. It’s also the only way to keep the government open past Friday’s deadline, and it needs eight Democratic votes to pass. “There are really only two options: One is vote for a pretty bad C.R. Or the other is to vote for a potentially even worse shutdown,” said Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats. “So it’s a very tough choice.” King may be understating his party’s dilemma. The assumption guiding nearly all coverage of the continuing resolution is that the party would be blamed for a shutdown—which is reasonable, given that Democratic votes will decide whether the government stays open or shuts down for the foreseeable future. It gets worse! Writing in Politico, Rachael Bade argued that shutting down the government would undermine what may be their most effective attack line. “For weeks they’ve been lambasting Trump and [Elon] Musk for tearing apart the government,” Bade writes. “Democrats in a shutdown would effectively have to argue that they’re trying to protect the government by shutting down the government.” Democrats can either endorse the ongoing destruction of the federal government by continuing to fund it, or they can lose their ability to credibly criticize Trump and Musk’s wrecking ball approach. No wonder Republicans are giddy! It really is a very tough choice. At least, that’s true if you accept Bade’s framing. The idea that Democrats would automatically be blamed for a shutdown certainly makes logical sense. But nothing is logical about American politics right now, and the idea that the party would automatically “own” the shutdown—an obsession of the blinkered Beltway media—is hardly guaranteed. In fact, there are several reasons to believe that the Trump administration would carry most of the blame for the shutdown. For one, they are literally running the government and control both chambers of Congress. For another, public opinion has moved sharply and steadily against Trump in recent weeks, as voters recoil from the chaos and destruction he and his minions are currently wreaking everywhere and, in particular, the economic turbulence he has unleashed. Bade presents the Democrats’ hypothetical justification for unanimously opposing the C.R.—shutting down the government to save it—as self-evidently absurd. “Good luck making that argument to anyone outside the Democratic base,” Bade sniffs, as if, from her perch in the Beltway, she can gaze into the soul of Middle America. The assumption, shared I’m sure by many lobbyists and congressional staffers, is that the simple, hardworking independent voters of the American heartland would immediately call bullshit. They may be right! But—full disclosure, from my perch in New York—I’m not so sure. Whereas voters outside the Democratic base may not be so moved by the cause of saving the federal government, many of them are seeing the impact of the administration’s cuts. In just two months, tens of thousands of workers have been laid off while billions in aid money and grants has been frozen. This is affecting workers and businesses across the country, including many who supported Trump, and recent polls show that a majority of Americans—including more than two-thirds of independents and even more than a quarter of Trump supporters—are worried that Musk and his cohort are going “too far.” So voters likely will be very receptive to any effort to stop this oligarchic wrecking crew—including shutting down a government that is already hobbled anyway. In fact, a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday found that only 32 percent of voters would blame Democrats in Congress for a shutdown, versus 53 percent who would blame Republicans in Congress or Trump.Trump may have claimed a sweeping mandate, but his narrow victory didn’t spring from excitement over his devotion to nineteenth-century economic approaches or the hope that he would remake sectors of the federal government in his image while destroying others. Instead, he won because voters were sick of inflation, and many of them held a rosy picture of the pre-Covid economy during his first term and believed he would bring it back. Trump’s approval rating is cratering because he has made worse an economy that most Americans already didn’t like. With characteristic hubris, Trump and his allies are almost certainly overstating the strength of their position. The president’s willy-nilly use of tariffs has led the country into fighting a multifront trade war; the drastic cuts pushed by Musk and his band of Gen Z groypers have already devastated huge swathes of the federal government, but the full economic impact of thousands of job losses and billions in cuts has not yet been felt. In two months, Trump has the country racing toward what can only be described as economic suicide. If a recession comes—and it looks increasingly inevitable that it will, soon—he will be blamed. Shutting down the government will only further it along. It’s possible that a shutdown will result in Democrats sharing the blame for that economy with Trump, but voters typically hold the president, not the opposition party, responsible for the state of the economy—and voters are already wary of Trump’s handling of it. The politics of a shutdown, in other words, are more beneficial to Democrats than the current conventional wisdom assumes. But it still carries some risk. As Bade noted in a separate column, bureaucrats can assume vast powers during a shutdown—which means that it might be possible for Vought and Musk to use one to supercharge their campaign of destruction. When weighing their options, Senate Democrats must assess the risk of inadvertently empowering them. But Vought and Musk have already assumed vast powers and are already remaking the federal government with minimal oversight, of course. That ultimately is the best argument for a shutdown: This is a dire, existential moment. Democrats, fully in the minority in Washington, have thus far been powerless to stop the daily parade of horrors. Shutting down the government is a way to actually do something about it. It may be the only way.
https://newrepublic.com/article/192732/government-shutdown-democrats-blame-musk
In a moment of extraordinary political division, there is consensus on one subject at least: Senate Democrats are screwed. They are, to be fair, in an unenviable position. Earlier this week, House Republicans passed a continuing resolution that would fund the government until September—and set a trap for Senate Democrats. That bill is awful—it guts funding for health care and homeless shelters, and increases spending on the military and mass deportations. It’s also the only way to keep the government open past Friday’s deadline, and it needs eight Democratic votes to pass. “There are really only two options: One is vote for a pretty bad C.R. Or the other is to vote for a potentially even worse shutdown,” said Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats. “So it’s a very tough choice.” King may be understating his party’s dilemma. The assumption guiding nearly all coverage of the continuing resolution is that the party would be blamed for a shutdown—which is reasonable, given that Democratic votes will decide whether the government stays open or shuts down for the foreseeable future. It gets worse! Writing in Politico, Rachael Bade argued that shutting down the government would undermine what may be their most effective attack line. “For weeks they’ve been lambasting Trump and [Elon] Musk for tearing apart the government,” Bade writes. “Democrats in a shutdown would effectively have to argue that they’re trying to protect the government by shutting down the government.” Democrats can either endorse the ongoing destruction of the federal government by continuing to fund it, or they can lose their ability to credibly criticize Trump and Musk’s wrecking ball approach. No wonder Republicans are giddy! It really is a very tough choice. At least, that’s true if you accept Bade’s framing. The idea that Democrats would automatically be blamed for a shutdown certainly makes logical sense. But nothing is logical about American politics right now, and the idea that the party would automatically “own” the shutdown—an obsession of the blinkered Beltway media—is hardly guaranteed. In fact, there are several reasons to believe that the Trump administration would carry most of the blame for the shutdown. For one, they are literally running the government and control both chambers of Congress. For another, public opinion has moved sharply and steadily against Trump in recent weeks, as voters recoil from the chaos and destruction he and his minions are currently wreaking everywhere and, in particular, the economic turbulence he has unleashed. Bade presents the Democrats’ hypothetical justification for unanimously opposing the C.R.—shutting down the government to save it—as self-evidently absurd. “Good luck making that argument to anyone outside the Democratic base,” Bade sniffs, as if, from her perch in the Beltway, she can gaze into the soul of Middle America. The assumption, shared I’m sure by many lobbyists and congressional staffers, is that the simple, hardworking independent voters of the American heartland would immediately call bullshit. They may be right! But—full disclosure, from my perch in New York—I’m not so sure. Whereas voters outside the Democratic base may not be so moved by the cause of saving the federal government, many of them are seeing the impact of the administration’s cuts. In just two months, tens of thousands of workers have been laid off while billions in aid money and grants has been frozen. This is affecting workers and businesses across the country, including many who supported Trump, and recent polls show that a majority of Americans—including more than two-thirds of independents and even more than a quarter of Trump supporters—are worried that Musk and his cohort are going “too far.” So voters likely will be very receptive to any effort to stop this oligarchic wrecking crew—including shutting down a government that is already hobbled anyway. In fact, a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday found that only 32 percent of voters would blame Democrats in Congress for a shutdown, versus 53 percent who would blame Republicans in Congress or Trump.Trump may have claimed a sweeping mandate, but his narrow victory didn’t spring from excitement over his devotion to nineteenth-century economic approaches or the hope that he would remake sectors of the federal government in his image while destroying others. Instead, he won because voters were sick of inflation, and many of them held a rosy picture of the pre-Covid economy during his first term and believed he would bring it back. Trump’s approval rating is cratering because he has made worse an economy that most Americans already didn’t like. With characteristic hubris, Trump and his allies are almost certainly overstating the strength of their position. The president’s willy-nilly use of tariffs has led the country into fighting a multifront trade war; the drastic cuts pushed by Musk and his band of Gen Z groypers have already devastated huge swathes of the federal government, but the full economic impact of thousands of job losses and billions in cuts has not yet been felt. In two months, Trump has the country racing toward what can only be described as economic suicide. If a recession comes—and it looks increasingly inevitable that it will, soon—he will be blamed. Shutting down the government will only further it along. It’s possible that a shutdown will result in Democrats sharing the blame for that economy with Trump, but voters typically hold the president, not the opposition party, responsible for the state of the economy—and voters are already wary of Trump’s handling of it. The politics of a shutdown, in other words, are more beneficial to Democrats than the current conventional wisdom assumes. But it still carries some risk. As Bade noted in a separate column, bureaucrats can assume vast powers during a shutdown—which means that it might be possible for Vought and Musk to use one to supercharge their campaign of destruction. When weighing their options, Senate Democrats must assess the risk of inadvertently empowering them. But Vought and Musk have already assumed vast powers and are already remaking the federal government with minimal oversight, of course. That ultimately is the best argument for a shutdown: This is a dire, existential moment. Democrats, fully in the minority in Washington, have thus far been powerless to stop the daily parade of horrors. Shutting down the government is a way to actually do something about it. It may be the only way.
https://newrepublic.com/article/192732/government-shutdown-democrats-blame-musk