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.
Being that Bush has been re-elected (legally/officially) or
not, what differance does all this really prove or mean.
Like it or not, unless on 1/6 the Congress (Representitives &
at least 1 senitor) contest the election and somehow
the contest stands and Congress selects the P & VP.
(Kerry & Edwards ? unlikely under a Republican Congress,
wishfull thinking anyway).
We are now stuck with Bush for 4 more years. I’m not
sure about wanting him impeached either. Cheny would
then become P.
I’m just thinking that Bush is the lesser of two eveils, for
whatever better feeling that gives.
Is there a future in trading off intensiity of support for the war against breadth of support for the war, given a climate in which only 60% of the potential electorate, maximum, votes, and less than that in the next, mid-term cycle?
The 51% solution has worked so far, why would the Republicans not stick to it? As long as they get to determine by fair means — propaganda — or foul — Diebiold — 51% of *what*, it’s good enough to win.
I think Ruy understates it when he says Bush is “not out of the woods on Iraq yet.” Iraq is already a fait accompli disaster–it can only get worse and more humiliating. The election will inevitably result in a Shiite-dominated government that will most likely demand an accelerated, if not immediate, US troop withdrawal. Then all the sacrifice will have been to replace Saddam with a pro-Iranian Shiite Sharia-based government that will hand over oil redevelopment contracts to Russia, France, and Germany.
And I have to take issue with Larry when he says “God help us if we convince ourselves that in order to gain support from those currently on the other side we have to be more like the other side.”
I’m not sure what he means by being “more like the other side.” I don’t expect Democrats to initiate political strategies with an Orwellian super-state as the ultimate goal. But, the fact is that the goal is to win elections.
If Karl Rove had a revelation and became a Democrat overnight, would we not rejoice that the most cunning political strategist of the age was now on our side? Face it…he’s the Mariano Rivera of politics! And the Democrats lost not because the Republicans are such fascists, but because they are better at presenting their crap as ice cream. The Democratic campaign suffered an utter failure of marketing. We all know the list of mistakes. …
But high on the list of Democratic mistakes was to think that issues matter above all else. I’m not sure Rove is as tanked up about this war as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz. But he accepted it as the baggage he had to take into the campaign. He dealt with his handicaps very, very well.
Let’s remember next time that the goal is to take office, not to run a “campaign we can be proud of” as the losers always say. A winning campaign is one to be proud of.
Jeez, Larry, the election was for only a four-year term. If your apocalyptic scenario is right, then Dems will certainly be returned to power in our lifetimes–quite possibly in four years. Hopefully it won’t be, but we certainly can regain power anyway.
And if you look at the polls you’ll see not only Bush’s ratings slipping to or below pre-election levels, but you’ll see Democrats registering as equal or better than the GOP in terms of public image and party identification. That’s not what I call a “reviled” minority.
I discovered your site today and have bookmarked it so I can read it regularly. I applaud your enthusiasm and your optimism about somehow being able to return the Democrats to the majority. But I think you need to get ready for a lifetime of being the loyal opposition, a reviled minority that can only succeed by cutting deals with the governing party, or by parliamentary strategies to block the worst of what the government would like to do.
The Bush administration no longer cares about their approval ratings, and rightly so: They don’t need another electoral win. They are now free to pursue their global domination and personal wealth accumulation goals without concern for public opinion. We should not be gloating that their poll numbers are slipping. We should be trying to obstruct them when we feel that they are wrong – on preemptive war, civil rights, social security, the death penalty and so on.
It has taken at least a generation for the GOP to get control of the debate, but they have worked at it relentlessly behind the scenes since the 1970’s and they now are in charge of the most powerful election-winning themes: religion, bigotry, greed and blind patriotism. It will take until these people are dead before the left can hope to explain itself in ways that the general public can embrace, and God help us if we convince ourselves that in order to gain support from those currently on the other side we have to be more like the other side.
I have to wonder when torture becomes a war crime and when do war crimes become high crimes and misdemeanors under the impeachment provisions opf the constitution.
Will the media start talking about impeachment being a correct response for enabling torture.
jim