This has been quite the chaotic week or so, and one of the byproducts of the nihilistic conduct being displayed by Donald Trump and his allies has been a decided end of Democratic cooperation, and I welcomed that development at New York:
Following the time-honored ritual of giving a new president a “honeymoon,” a good number of prominent Democrats made friendly noises about their nemesis after Donald Trump’s November election victory. Some, like Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, seemed inclined to cross the partisan barricades whenever possible, praising Trump’s dubious Cabinet nominations, calling on Joe Biden to pardon Trump to get rid of his hush-money conviction, and even joining Truth Social. Others, notably Bernie Sanders, talked of selective cooperation on issues where MAGA Republicans at least feigned anti-corporate “populism.” Still others, including some Democratic governors, hoped to cut deals on issues like immigration to mitigate the damage of Trump’s agenda. And one congressional Democrat, the normally very progressive Ro Khanna, promoted cooperation with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative, at least with respect to Defense spending.
This made some sense at the time. After all, Democrats, having lost control of both Congress and the White House, didn’t have much power of their own, and there was always the chance that having achieved his improbable comeback, Trump would calm down and try to become a normal chief executive in his final term in the job.
Now it is extremely clear that is not the case. The past chaotic week or so has convinced most Democrats that Trump has zero interest in compromise, bipartisanship, or even adherence to the law and to the Constitution. Musk and his Geek Kiddie Corps are ravaging agency after agency without the slightest legal authorization; OMB is preparing its own unilateral assault on federal benefits that don’t fit the Project 2025 vision of a radically smaller social safety net; and congressional Republicans are kneeling in abject surrender to whatever the White House wants. Democrats are resigning themselves to the mission of becoming an opposition party, full stop, making as much noise and arousing as much public outrage as they can. They shouldn’t be credited all that much for courage, since the new regime has given them little choice but to dig in and fight like hell.
OMB’s January 27 memo freezing a vast swath of federal programs and benefits, inept and confusing as it was, kicked off the current reign of terror. It reflected (and was likely dictated by) the belief of Trump OMB director nominee Russell Vought that the president can usurp congressional spending powers whenever he deems it necessary or prudent. Yet Congressional Republicans went along without a whimper. House Appropriations Committee chairman Tom Cole, who would have gone nuts had a Democratic president threatened his role so audaciously, said he had “no problem” with the freeze. The federal courts stepped in because OMB’s order was incoherently expressed, but there’s no question the administration will come back with something similar. As a sign of belated alarm over OMB’s direction, Senate Budget Committee Democrats boycotted Vought’s confirmation vote in reaction to this challenge to the constitutional separation of powers. After Republicans gaveled him on through without a whisper of dissent, Senate Democrats held an all-night “talk-a-thon” to recapitulate past and present concerns about Vought, a self-described Christian Nationalist and one of the principal authors of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a radically diminished federal government. He will be confirmed by the full Senate anyway.
Musk’s guerrilla warfare on the federal workforce and the programs they administer made the OMB power grab unfolding at about the same time look like a walk in the park. Even as his landing teams of 20-something coders took control of multiple agency IT systems and fired anyone who got in their way, Musk himself was on X making wild charges about the programs he was short-circuiting and all but cackling like a cartoon villain over his unlimited power. When Ro Khanna upbraided him for his lawlessness, he responded as you might expect, tweeting at Khanna: “Don’t be a dick.”
Khanna’s centrist Democratic colleague from Florida, Jared Moskovitz, had actually signed up for service on the DOGE oversight panel Mike Johnson created, despite its clear purpose as an ongoing pep rally for Musk. Now he’s out, as Punchbowl News reports:
“I need to see one of my Republican colleagues in the caucus explain the point of the caucus, because it seems that Elon doesn’t need them, because it seems what Elon is doing is destroying the separation of powers. And I don’t think the DOGE caucus at this moment really has a purpose … Whether I stay in the caucus, I think is questionable. I don’t need to stay in a caucus that’s irrelevant.”
Meanwhile, as all this madness was unfolding from the executive branch and its outlaw agents, congressional Republicans have been laboring through the process of putting together budget legislation to implement whatever portion of Trump’s agenda that wasn’t rammed through by fiat. Democrats are not being consulted at all in these preparations to produce a massive bill (or bills) that is expected to pass on a party-line vote and that cannot be filibustered in the Senate. Because of the immense leverage of the House Freedom Caucus over this legislation, the plans keep shifting in the direction of deeper and deeper domestic spending cuts at levels never discussed before. Per Punchbowl News:
“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Republican committee chairs initially proposed between $500 billion to $700 billion in spending cuts as part of a massive reconciliation package. Yet conservative GOP hardliners rejected that, saying they wanted more. They’re seeking as much as $2 trillion to $5 trillion in cuts.”
Democrats can’t really do anything other than expose the extent and the effect of such cuts in the forelorn hope that a few House Republicans in particularly vulnerable districts develop their own counter-leverage over the process. But whatever emerges from the GOP discussion will have to be approved by OMB, where Russell Vought will soon be formally in charge. There’s just no path ahead for Democrats other than total war.
They do have their own leverage over two pieces of legislation Trump needs: an appropriations bill to keep government running after the December stopgap spending bill (which Musk nearly torpedoed in an early demonstration of his power) runs out, and a measure increasing the public debt limit. These bills can be filibustered, so Senate Democrats can kill them. There are increasing signs that congressional Democrats may refuse to go along with either one unless Trump puts a leash on Vought and Musk and perhaps even consults the Democratic Party on the budget. If there’s a government shutdown, it couldn’t be too much worse than a government being gutted by DOGE and OMB.
Republicans hope that Trump’s relatively strong popularity (for him, anyway) will keep Democrats from defying him. But they may not be accounting for the 47th president’s erratic character. On any given day, he may do something completely bonkers and deeply unpopular, like, say, suggesting the United States take over Gaza, expel its population, and build a resort development.
I agree. Who is the intended audience for this article other than NR readers? If I call the people I’m trying to engage in an arguments basically Luddites, Anti-American and Socialists over some pretty ridiculous strawmen (Does he really want more AI to replace the working class? I don’t get it?) Yeah, Leftist publications won’t print this because its a lousy article.
What’s happening is that working-class Hispanic voters really are no different than working class or middle class voters of Irish, Italian, Jewish or Slavic backgrounds. All of these voters from the mid-to-late 60s began drifting away from the Democratic Party either to become Republicans or perhaps a better descriptions is conservative-influenced independents. This was obvious in ’76 when Jimmy Carter should have won Illinois and California and New Jersey (and perhaps some more states) but didn’t because working-class voters in these states, especially in small and mid-sized communities and even in some big cities voted for Ford.
I think there comes a point for a lot of these voters where traditional affiliations cease as they become more a part of the American mainstream and such voters based their votes on what goes on nationally on questions of the economy, war and peace or the pandemic nowadays. To use the Nevada example, I can imagine a lot of working class Hispanics being put off when the casinos closed due to COVID-19, they’re out of work and they haven’t fully recovered yet to where they were back in 2019. Now you’ve got inflation on top of that in 2022.
So if the worse that happens is groups are more dynamic in their voting than just one party or another that’s actually a good thing. Having a segregated “white party” or a party of people of color is not good for American politics and just makes the polarization even worse. And there’s really not much the parties can do about it other than accepting this reality and run on a good record of governance to earn their votes instead of always assuming you’ve got their vote always.
It’s also disingenuous for Texeira to suggest he is forced to write in publications like NR because he has the this very site to use as a platform whenever he wants.
Wonderful article! I like particularly your highlight on getting bogged down in identity politics, instead of focusing on economic growth for all. There is, though, one important mistake. When you say that “useful public investments” wouldn’t have led to “more productivity, higher growth.” Public investment by Democrats, not only in infrastructure, but also education and health care, have supported higher productivity and overall growth. I have the data and charts, if you are interested. The superior growth in incomes of the middle class and poor under Democrats, compared to Republicans, is particularly striking.
Do you know of Rachel Bitecofer’s work? It seems complementary to yours. See, for example her comparative “head to head” video on the economy here: https://www.strikepac.com
Teixeira wonders why he is having so much trouble in his campaign to reform the party, particularly when there are kernels of truth to what he says.
Part of the problem is his constant references and links to vomit-inducing right wing media. Now he is using his praise from such media to try to convince us. Sorry, not working for me.
2+2=4 even if Stalin says so. 2+2 does not equal 5 even if the Buddha says so. The validity and even the truth of an argument do not depend on where it’s published.
IMHO, part of the problem with the Democratic Party’s brand favorability is the unwillingness of many Democrats to engage with people who do not agree with them. We fall into these groupthink tunnels that make it difficult to see that many of the people we believe “should” agree with us actually do not. We compound the problem by our inability to actually speak to people in ways that stand a chance of getting a hearing.
Finally, the single most important skill in politics is the ability to count. 50%+1 is an important number.
If only this were a question of “engaging with people who disagree with you”. I am referring to media celebrities and owners, not the people next door who may disagree on a few points.
Most of the former is dedicated to manipulation and does not concern itself with fact checking (please don’t try a false equivalence argument). Beyond that, it tries to get people riled up emotionally and often is hostile to any type of compromise. Good luck with engaging that mind set – if steadfast conservatives like Liz Cheney can be cast out for not being pure enough that doesn’t bode well for the rest of us.
I think there is truth to the notion that left wing people operate in silos which is often counterproductive, but I am also a realist about who is approachable or not.
And 80% of the people commenting in Democratic leaning forums are rabid partisans driving the rest away or into silence.