Having closely watched congressional developments over the last few weeks, I’ve concluded that one much-discussed Democratic tactic for dealing with Trump 2.0 is probably mistaken, as I explained at New York:
No one is going to rank Mike Johnson among the great arm-twisting Speakers of the House, like Henry Clay, Tom Reed, Sam Rayburn, or even Nancy Pelosi. Indeed, he still resembles Winston Churchill’s description of Clement Atlee as “a modest man with much to be modest about.”
But nonetheless, in the space of two weeks, Johnson has managed to get two huge and highly controversial measures through the closely divided House: a budget resolution that sets the stage for enactment of Donald Trump’s entire legislative agenda in one bill, then an appropriations bill keeping the federal government operating until the end of September while preserving the highly contested power of Trump and his agents to cut and spend wherever they like.
Despite all the talk of divisions between the hard-core fiscal extremists of the House Freedom Caucus and swing-district “moderate” Republicans, Johnson lost just one member — the anti-spending fanatic and lone wolf Thomas Massie of Kentucky — from the ranks of House Republicans on both votes. As a result, he needed not even a whiff of compromise with House Democrats (only one of them, the very Trump-friendly Jared Golden of Maine, voted for one of the measures, the appropriations bill).
Now there are a host of factors that made this impressive achievement possible. The budget-resolution vote was, as Johnson kept pointing out to recalcitrant House Republicans, a blueprint for massive domestic-spending cuts, not the cuts themselves. Its language was general and vague enough to give Republicans plausible deniability. And even more deviously, the appropriations measure was made brief and unspecific in order to give Elon Musk and Russ Vought the maximum leeway to whack spending and personnel to levels far below what the bill provided (J.D. Vance told House Republicans right before the vote that the administration reserved the right to ignore the spending the bill mandated entirely, which pleased the government-hating HFC folk immensely). And most important, on both bills Johnson was able to rely on personal lobbying from key members of the administration, most notably the president himself, who had made it clear any congressional Republican who rebelled might soon be looking down the barrel of a Musk-financed MAGA primary opponent. Without question, much of the credit Johnson is due for pulling off these votes should go to his White House boss, whose wish is his command.
But the lesson Democrats should take from these events is that they cannot just lie in the weeds and expect the congressional GOP to self-destruct owing to its many divisions and rivalries. In a controversial New York Times op-ed last month, Democratic strategist James Carville argued Democrats should “play dead” in order to keep a spotlight on Republican responsibility for the chaos in Washington, D.C., which might soon extend to Congress:
“Let the Republicans push for their tax cuts, their Medicaid cuts, their food stamp cuts. Give them all the rope they need. Then let dysfunction paralyze their House caucus and rupture their tiny majority. Let them reveal themselves as incapable of governing and, at the right moment, start making a coordinated, consistent argument about the need to protect Medicare, Medicaid, worker benefits and middle-class pocketbooks. Let the Republicans crumble, let the American people see it, and wait until they need us to offer our support.”
Now to be clear, Congressional GOP dysfunction could yet break out; House and Senate Republicans have struggled constantly to stay on the same page on budget strategy, the depth of domestic-spending cuts, and the extent of tax cuts. But as the two big votes in the House show, their three superpowers are (1) Trump’s death grip on them all, (2) the willingness of Musk and Vought and Trump himself to take the heat for unpopular policies, and (3) a capacity for lying shamelessly about what they are doing and what it will cost. Yes, ultimately, congressional Republicans will face voters in November 2026. But any fear of these elections is mitigated by the realization that thanks to the landscape of midterm races, probably nothing they can do will save control of the House or forfeit control of the Senate. So Republicans have a lot of incentives to follow Trump in a high-speed smash-and-grab operation that devastates the public sector, awards their billionaire friends with tax cuts, and wherever possible salts the earth to make a revival of good government as difficult as possible. Democrats have few ways to stop this nihilistic locomotive. But they may be fooling themselves if they assume it’s going off the rails without their active involvement.
Ruy has to highlight those polls which are flawed or else people will simply hang onto them as truth and become deflated… he is doing the right thiing…
A Democratic Pollsters’s Response
It’s tough to cut through the spin at this stage of the election cycle. But, in the spirit of at least trying, check out Mark Blumenthal’s — a respected democratic pollster — analysis of Gallup and MoveOn.org on his very new (and excellent, by the way) blog.
Check it out:
http://mysterypollster.typepad.com/main/2004/09/moveon_vs_gallu.html
Rory
“The ad is terrific – it looks good, it reads well, and the numbers are damning. But while I’m no friend or sympathizer to the Christian Right, it’s possible that part of the story about that ad (and the news flurry about MoveOn and other 527s will continue) will be the mocking tone of the final paragraphs’ description of George Gallup, Jr’s Christian bent. It’ll be too easy for many to dismiss it as more “godless liberals” – and speaking as one, I’m tired of being dismissed.”
That’s exactly what happened on O’Reilly’s show last night. No talk of the actual ad, just the attack in the last two paragraphs. Moveon should have been a little more careful.
what are the implications of the fact that Gallup gets to choose the questioners at the 2nd (town hall) debate, according to the debate agreement posted on c-span?
MoveON made the right decision bringing this to the attention of major newspapers and mass circulation to reach the most readers — even if the NYT audience might be more educated and liberal than most swing voters.
But I can’t help but notice the emphasis of Ruy’s analysis has changed dramatically. IN the summer, Ruy would point to the internals and show the framework of issues and voter perceptions that could lead to pro-Kerry matchups by November. This was important for encouragement when Bush was radically arrogant, incompetent, or intolerant in his actions as POTUS — done in our name with our money– or worse, when he seemed to be getting away with his frauds and on the verge of four more hellish years. This was also important background for strategizing — not just at national and statewide levels, but also among key demographics, and also at the precinct level (organizing) and individual level (debates among aquanitances, letters to the editor, talking points).
I think DonkeyRising should return to elucidating what the internals of good polls say, rather than focus our energy on polls that are so clearly flawed.
There’s only six weeks left! The race may swing on the undecideds. We need to know who they are, what their issues are, and how they can be convinced that Bush is Wrong and Kerry can help to stop the bleeding and turn America on the right path again.
Folks: volunteer — your local campaigns and party HQs need you.
Pundits: what are the internals saying — the story being the sea of numbers? These armies of volunteers need to know what buttons to push!
The ad is terrific – it looks good, it reads well, and the numbers are damning. But while I’m no friend or sympathizer to the Christian Right, it’s possible that part of the story about that ad (and the news flurry about MoveOn and other 527s will continue) will be the mocking tone of the final paragraphs’ description of George Gallup, Jr’s Christian bent. It’ll be too easy for many to dismiss it as more “godless liberals” – and speaking as one, I’m tired of being dismissed.
Surely there’s a way for MoveOn to get the point across without sticking its foot in its mouth this way; they have the upper hand logically and ethically, but when “God, gays and guns” are wedge issues, they’re just widening the wedge.
The latest IDB poll shows a dead heat for both LV’s and RV’s. But Gallup is now reporting a 8 PT lead for LV’s and a whopping 11 point lead for RV’s! All in a three way race with Nader.
Look, it cannot just be the LV model in this case!!! The RV’s are even more out of whack than the LV’s in Gallup.
Have they thrown all caution to the wind? After all, who knows what commandments Gallup Jr. has received from On High with regard to the closing months of this race?
This is where I am afraid we democrats go wrong.
Harris, Fox News (RVs), and the latest IBD/CSM polls all have Kerry up. If the shoe was on the other foot and only 2 or 3 polls showed Bush up the republicans would be out in force, with a straight face, loudly crying that not only were these few polls right, but that they under represented Bush’s actual lead, and that all the rest of the polls were biased.
The democrats need to take a page from that book. Forget saying Kerry is only about 3 points down as Moveon has done. He is UP for crying out loud! Where is our swagger?
Ruy,
Karen Tumulty on Lou Dobbs Tonight called you, and people like you, a liar. She said your analysis doesn’t matter because you are only looking into the polling process because you don’t like the results.
I think you should write her and let her know what you think.
Just a thought….
Thanks for the link to Moveon.org for that story.
On target, and no doubt influenced by Ruy’s good work.
Has this website made any predictions about the electoral outcome? Percentage vote for each candidate, etc?? Thank you.
Good for MoveOn! More needs to be done. Kerry campaign spokespersons need to trumpet the mesage of Gallup’s sell-out on the cable and network outlets every chance they get.
People need to write in to USA Today and to CNN, both of whom, I understand commission polls from Gallup and then attach their logos to them, and let them know that Americans are on to their game of shilling for Bush.
Of course they will play up their polls. Its all about the competition of the media market place. If this is allowed to go on unchecked, this convergence of partisan interest with giant media companies using polling companies to tilt elections, then our democracy is truly in mortal danger.
Wow, that ad is incredible! I’ve heard Gallup’s numbers regurgitated too many times on the nightly news. Perhaps if you expose the “juggernaut” as being full of hot air, the people will believe the “juggernaut” is full of hot air, and then vote accordingly.
All this time while EDM was debunking the numbers I was wondering how to anyone could get the truth out. Thank you Move On!