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.
Because Democratic social engineering is race and gender based, rather than class based, the Democratic Party has surrendered the working class white male vote to the Republicans. The Immigration Reform billed failed because too many whites feel they have been socially engineered to death, and they know just whom to blame. The Party has to think more in class terms.
“try to imagine saying “the current debate in the Republican party is fundamentally neither anti-immigrant or nativist” with an absolutely straight face to someone whose opinion you respect without feeling an urge to either snort, chuckle or grin.”
OK Joe! You win on that one!
But I would suggest its much more than “a significant number” the vast majotity oppose this. Yes there are yahoo’s, but the vast majority are just American’s that oppose illegal immigration on legal, moral, economic, social grounds. Not because of race, not nativists nor any other tags from the tired ethnic lobby.
I guess I’m trying to say at present I believe we are on the wrong side of this question and the leadership is possibly sinking our ship.
It is true that there are a significant number of Americans who oppose illegal immigration but who are neither racist or against legal immigration. Speaking carefully to avoid needlessly antagonizing this group is a reasonable suggestion.
On the other hand, the idea that the current debate in the Republican primaries is fundamentally not “anti-immigrant” nor “nativist” is, to put it mildly, somewhat more of a stretch. Use the laugh test – try to imagine saying “the current debate in the Republican party is fundamentally neither anti-immigrant or nativist” with an absolutely straight face to someone whose opinion you respect without feeling an urge to either snort, chuckle or grin.
“There is no doubt that Romney and the rest of the Republican field will find an audience for anti-immigration rhetoric in the primaries.”
“Waldman predicts that the Republicans’ nativist rhetoric”
Opposing illegal immigration does not make you anti-immigrant nor does opposing illegal immigration make you a racist.
Calling people racists and using dishonest language to attack them will not serve us well.
Most Hispanics that are US citizens oppose illegal immigration, most democrats and independents oppose it. Last count over 74% of all US citizens opposed it.
Could it be that this type of racist pandering….advocating illegal immigration, encouraging breaking the law may cost us votes?
Courting openly racist organizations like LaRaza, throwing around charges of racism, xenophobia, nativsm when someone opposes illegal immigration is a loser for the candidate, the party and America.
We can’t depend on Republican rasicm as our organizing tool. The folks over at the Coronado Project have it right in their latest memo when they say that getting the Latino vote for the long-term will take actual organizing and structures that are currently lacking in the democratic party.