If preventing a shutdown is so desperately important to Senate Democrats, I just have a fairly straightforward question: why are they letting DOGE -- an operation expressly designed to shut down government all across our country -- say and do whatever it wants?
@GeePawHill From reading Josh Marshall and others, it seems most likely that:
1. They're afraid they'll get the blame for a short-term shutdown, whereas the Republicans will get the blame for what amounts to the same thing over time. (One of the executive orders gave that as an explicit goal: steady-state staffing to be at the same level as in a current shutdown.)
@GeePawHill Alas, *someone* did not do the prep work to prepare the public to understand the choices are temporary pain now or very likely permanent pain later.
@GeePawHill 2. In normal circumstances, the party that has the Presidency and both houses of Congress loses at least one of the latter in the midterms. Trump and Musk are so unhinged that the losses could be enormous.
3. Thus the Democrats will be able to start fixing things after the midterms. Not much worry about how hard it is to put a smashed vase back together again.
@GeePawHill 4. The Democratic base will not be angry enough to overcome the huge obstacles to successfully primarying the incumbent leadership.
I personally don't think Schumer, Durbin, Jeffries, et al would be that upset about being the permanent token opposition in a "managed democracy."
@GeePawHill Oh – I think it's unfair to say the Democrats have been letting DOGE run rampant. As Josh Marshall obsessively points out, forcing a shutdown was the Democrats' only point of institutional leverage. Prior to today, there really was nothing they could do but talk, write stern letters (my senior Senator's specialty!), etc. They barely tried at that, true, but that in itself could accomplish nothing.
This was their one shot, and they chose not to take it.
@marick @GeePawHill I think even their messaging has stunk.
And they probably could have been finding/accelerating more judicial opportunities, and jumping on that bandwagon....
@marick @GeePawHill I don’t know what to say about anyone who still thinks there will be typical midterms in 2 years. The time to act was two years ago. The time to stall is now. When this is done, “opposition” is going to be a mildly amusing afterthought.
@weltraumpirat @GeePawHill I don't know what will happen with the midterms. If the right-wing strategists are in charge, they'd be wise to make distortions large enough to get the desired results, but small enough that the façade can be preserved. They have a good amount of experience with that.
But they're winning so much that they might let enthusiasm carry them away. With luck, that could be their downfall.
@marick @GeePawHill those that get their news from fox or (Zeus help us) facebook will only hear that the democrats shut down the govt. I don’t like it, but this may be the better choice
@ChetHendrickson @marick @GeePawHill the Dems have been horribly ineffective at communication, they need(ed) to solve that problem.
Much like Bernie just ran off to do his tour, some other Dem(s) need to start doing their own messaging.
@billseitz @ChetHendrickson @GeePawHill That was my repeated emphasis in communications with my representatives. Get your face in front of your constituents. Flood the zone.
My congresswoman's weekly newsletter emphasized her bipartisan bill on the Post Office. She also "stand[s] ready to work with the President, Secretary Rollins, and the rest of the Trump Administration" to deal with bird flu.
Nothing about the continuing resolution.
@marick @ChetHendrickson @GeePawHill see "peacetime CEO vs wartime CEO" as parallel
https://hbr.org/2011/04/peacetime-ceos-vs-wartime-ceos
@ChetHendrickson @GeePawHill I believe those people already believe Democrats are <name your boogieman>. They will not change their minds.
Also, as an old-fashioned moralist, I believe there comes a time when things are bad enough that you must abandon considerations of whether you'll have a job in ~20 months.
@ChetHendrickson @marick @GeePawHill
It does seem that the billionaires own all the "news" and entertainment outlets. Including all the major social media platforms (except this one and a few others of minor influence).
I am inclined to think that regardless of what anyone does, the Republicans will blame the Democrats for everything. And then other "enemies of the state," such as Jews, Roma (Gypsies), non-Arians and other racial "inferiors," Jehovah's Witnesses, gay men, etc.
@JeffGrigg @ChetHendrickson @GeePawHill More pernicious than "own" is perhaps "shape the discourse." I've read a couple of times that the problem with lobbyists isn't so much that they buy votes as that, when all senators hear is representatives of the richie-rich point of view, they become unable to remember others.
@GeePawHill “Under the circumstances of an appropriations lapse, Trump and Musk can just furlough 100 percent of the federal workers they would like to lay off and declare whoever they don’t want to lay off “essential,” and they’ve already achieved their endgame.” https://substack.com/@matthewyglesias/p-159031586
