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.
Hi,
While JL’s votes were an issue I think it was his public attacks on other Democrats who did not believe the same things he did that upset our fellow Dems to vote the way they did. It was disengenuise for him to come out a week before the primary with a line about how much he welcomed different opinions and for him to come out with a line a few days after bolting from the Democratic Party with a line about how much of a Democrat he is. I supported him up to the Gore/Leiberman ticket but have been very concerned with his constant Republican light version of being a Democrat via the New Democrats DLC. It might have been a wonderful thing for his national profile but the people who elected him before where not looking for a Republican lite they were Connecticut Democrats, Indies, and Republicans who support Real Democrats and our agenda to promote health care, the citizens in the armed services and thier families, and the general welfare of our nations people.
Of course, it is hard to give up power as graciously as George Washington, or any of our Presidents have. I sort of feel sorry for him until I remember how much he covered GWB’s tail.
Sen. Leiberman was a GOP insurgent who found cover in the Democratic Party. He supported the failed Bush administration as effectively, but not as openly, as Zell Miller.
Leiberman’s loss, and Lamont’s victory, merely validate the Circus Rule. He finally lost the ability to fool a majority of the Democratic and independent voters.
Let us put Mr. Leiberman’s to rest and not speak ill of a Democrat who has passed from the scene.
Ron Alley
Lieberman has claimed that it is the far left wing of the Democratic Party that caused his primary defeat, but the fact that Independents re-registered to vote for Lamont puts the lie to Lieberman’s remark.
While my knowledge of the voting paterns of CT voters is virtually nonexistent, I think I can say this much: Lamont played the game of politics as shrewdly as I have ever seen anyway play it. But politics really isn’t that hard, and the political analysts working on big-stake campaigns know this. The american public is generally uninterested in politics and is looking for a quick piece of information to hold on to, without questioning it. Bush did it in 2004 with John Kerry as the “Flip-Flopper” and Lamont has successfuly engeineered a campaign that painted Leiberman as the “Bush/Iraq war supporting anti-democrat.” Now I can’t claim to be a supporter of Leiberman myself, but his position on the Iraq war has not been different from that of many of his congressional democratic colleagues, and his voting record on domestic issues typically follows the party line. Other than being a career politican and a total bore, he’s not that bad a guy. If is refreshing however to know that after 18 years in congress, new blood can force it’s way in, even if the campaign was superficial. But hey, that’s politics for ya.
Read an analysis that discusses the political strategy ramifications of the Lamont win and how the Democratic position on Iraq will be a key to success in November…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com