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.
Christopher,
Edwards said in 2004 that he would keep arresting sick people in states that allow medical marijuana. He has yet to take a position this round. I can’t vote for those that I love to suffer… otherwise Edwards would be my choice.
Richardson would make a great president, Edwards could learn something about compassion while serving under him.
Sincerely,
Stephen
Edwards for Prez and Richardson for Veep. In my smoke-fogged dreams. Carter is right: first, do no harm. Jail for a joint? No thanks, it costs too much. We could use the money saved to pay for things like, say, hand counted paper ballots, maybe.
But if we don’t make it clear that hand counted paper ballots are the only way to preserve our true democratic rule, or if we are too lazy to count even our own votes, then perhaps we don’t deserve to have our votes included in the count.
The usurpers will repeat with their DREs, and marijauna will remain out of legal reach for the millions of people who could relieve their suffering through the use of some legal pot.
It doesn’t have anything to do with the pot itself or whether anyone gets physical or mental relief through its use. It has to do with the thousands of jobs that are created in the useless, nay harmful, prohibition of the drug.
Lots of people make lots of money simply because marijauna is illegal. That’s what it boils down to.
It is about time a national politician has taken the side of the hurting public. Kudos to Governor Richardson for telling it like it is. People have been suffering needlessly for years and medicalizing marijuana is the educated, civilized, ands proper thing to do. JUST LOOK AT THE ETHNOBOTANICAL HISTORY. Txtracts and tinctures of cannibis have been used as immuno-stimulants and as a wide spectrum antiobiotic used in treating gonorrhea.
Good for Richardson. This is both a problem that needs to be addressed and a political winner. It’s long past time that we re-assess our harsh and unproductive drug laws. Gov. Richardson has helped both himself and millions of suffering Americans. I look forward to seeing him rise in the polls once people realize that Hillary is not what the people or the country needs or wants and Obama is just too unformed as yet.