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.
I am a Virginia Tech Hokie, and also a proud Democrat. While I lived in Blacksburg, I worked with any of the local elected Democrats. Sad to say, not all of them at the time felt a need to support better gun laws. In fact, one boasted of their endorsements from the NRA.
While I do not want anyone politicizing the tragedy my school and my fellow Hokies have suffered, there are certainly efforts that can be done, much as Gov. Kaine(D) did when he issues the executive order preventing mental patients from obtaining weapons. Every state should have similar laws on the books. It is not much, but if we cannot do even that, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
Ut Prosim
At Americans for Gun Safety (the forerunner of Third Way), we conducted a lot of in-depth research on guns. We wanted to understand how an issue like closing the gun show loophole, which polled 88-9% in SOUTH DAKOTA (!!!!), was universally thought to be bad for politicians.
Here were our conclusions: A lot of voters supported gun safety laws but were unconvinced that they would make a difference in reducing crime.
Many voters felt that when politicians talked about gun safety, they were talking about someone else’s concerns – not their own.
And last, Democrats had real baggage on the gun issue. People thought Democrats were hostile to gun owners and didn’t respect the values that gun owners held.
We counseled Democrats to solve these problems by both pairing the right to own a gun with the responsibility to pass laws that kept them out of the wrong hands. We told Democrats to wrap gun safety proposals around local values (“I’m bringing West Virginia gun values to Washington.”). And finally, we told them to win the crime argument and enlist local chiefs and sheriffs in the fight.
Gun safety isn’t bad politics when it is handled correctly. When it is handled poorly, politicians run from the issue like a stampede. We then see the results in the lives that are lost around the nation.
Jim Kessler.
I doubt that the number of “GUN TOTIN’ MANIACS” out there actually have enough voting power to stop real legislation on gun control. The NRA does. The Emphasis needs to move onto and into the NRA and its’ influence on the US Congress.
Many of us are well aware of this situation, but I believe that millions still see the NRA as that farmer friendly group of good ole boys that hold gun classes for young hunters, not the lobbyists for Remington Firearms and Colt Mfg. Start putting the truth out there on TV and across the internet… Gun Control starts with NRA CONTROL!!!
I think Bruce Reed makes a good point. Most people who want to maintain their right to have guns are not thinking a “criminal” should have the same right.
For some time Democrats have not taken advantage of this dichotomy.
However, I do wonder if there is a need to institute harsher penalties for illegal possession of guns along with tougher gun laws.
Just making it tougher to get a gun may not deter some criminals who will just buy them off the street.
Plus, some voters will perceive of laws making it tougher to get guns less than useful if not supported by measures to really make criminals pay for possessing and using guns.
David