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.
Mark makes an interesting point, but I must defer to the key argument of the original piece: “State laws restricting felons from voting should be scrapped because the technology is not available to generate fair and accurate felon lists. As long as felon lists are inaccurate, innocent people will be denied the right to vote because they have the bad luck of having the same name as a convicted felon.” That is a powerful argument.
Another argument for restoring the right to vote to felons that have served their time – as decided by the people – is that felons are still required to pay taxes and abide by the laws of the land. As a former resident of Washington, DC, I am reminded of the 1990’s license plate: “Taxation without Representation” (tellingly, this tag was on the Clinton presidential limo but immediately removed as soon as Bush entered office). If we expect that felons will pay taxes and (hopefully) follow the law, then they should be given the right to decide, though a vote, which lawmakers are in power to make these laws.
But, no matter what side of the fense one is on, it can’t be disputed that the current policy must be reevaluated and become uniform at the national level. The right to vote is a national right and should not be left to individual states to decide. The current process leaves the door wide open for intentional and illegal abuse by those in power at the state level. A national policy would be more transparent, accurate, and fair.
This _IS_ exactly what the Democratic leadership is missing about the vast American Middle. It appears that the Democrats are pandering to convicted felons (many or most of whom deprived other Americans of their rights and are there fore where they deserve to be) for their votes just to gain power for the sake of power.
Most opinion polls would depict that the majority of Americans believe in fairness, but also in law and order. They go to work every day without stealing or harming their neighbors, and raise their families to do well in the world. The Felon Vote is the antithesis of middle America and its values.
If the Democrat leadership focused as much attention on Working America as they due on justly convicted felonss, they might actually win back power, and then be in a position to herald in some needed changes, but not if they keep courting felons.
What good is it to gain the votes of justly convicted felons, only to lose the massive voting power of law abiding middle america?