If you’ve managed to avoid political news over the past week — as many Americans do — you may not be hyper aware of the reality that we very nearly had a government shutdown. Others — many, many others — have offered their opinions about whether Senate Democrats should have held the line with their House Democrat counterparts, and while I think they should have for intraparty solidarity reasons, in the end, I’m of very mixed opinions about a prolonged shutdown. I thought this post did a good job taking stock of the overall situation and discussing how this all works, and what’s important about it, and I can’t improve on it.
Strategy and tactics are two different things, though, and regardless of what Schumer intended to do, his strategy at every step of this process was either poor or non-existent, with the result that he screwed up both. He seems to seriously have damaged both his relationship with Hakeem Jefferies, and his relationship with his own caucus, at a time when he really can’t afford to damage either. At a pretty critical moment when solidarity through the party is desperately needed, Schumer bucked a super majority of his own caucus and nearly every single House Democrat to put his thumb on the scale. I’ve seen a lot of people attribute malice to these choices, but I think it’s more likely that he’s sincere about believing this was the least bad of all bad outcomes — but leadership carries responsibilities beyond doing what you think is right in your heart, and he chose to reject them.
Anonymous Senate Republicans are having a riot of a time gloating about their success, though, before anyone takes that too close to heart, I think it’s worth remembering that they’re a party of trolling now, and that’s increasingly the only thing they stand for — they’ll declare victory at every opportunity and rub the libs’ noses in it, no matter how small.
Despite their insistence, this wasn’t an enormous triumph of their will; the continuing resolution they passed allows the federal government to limp through until September, it was initially supposed to be a budget bill (which they cannot currently get enough consensus to pass), and a CR is Congressional leadership on the easiest tutorial mode. Still, it was a very poor showing from Senate Democratic leadership and an unforced error which will likely cause them headaches and phone calls from voters like, well, me, even though my Senators did their jobs. It’s grim, and I have concerns about what Schumer and his lieutenants will do in the future, but it’s not a Vichy betrayal of their values, and I think people (online, where else?) have gone a little overboard in fashioning the leadership team as a new set of Judases, even though I’m in agreement that Schumer and Durbin, at a minimum, probably need to step down and sit down for the remainder of their terms.
What the Feds Think
Initially, I had intended to publish a roundup of comments from the folks I’ve spoken with for DOGE IS FOUR LETTERS, anticipating that we were, at the least, in for a short shutdown. I decided that there’s still some value in hearing what these workers — both those still employed and those who’ve been fired (often illegally, and increasingly reinstated) had to say, because these are complicated matters that deserve more than overheated takes from disinterested third parties venting their spleens. What follows are a few different thoughts from the people I’ve been talking with, and you’ll see some pretty consistent trends.
Super mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, it’s absolutely going to make a bad situation worse, as services across the government face not just illegal impoundment of funds, but also legitimate absence of funding, due to a lapse in appropriations. I worked in the Louisiana state government for the long 2019 shutdown, and remember having meetings about what we would do if the state ran out of federal SNAP money.
On the other hand, it seems like we are governed by a group of people who cannot understand the idea of abstract consequences to their actions, so maybe the pain of a shutdown will personally impact them and cause them to change course?
Ultimately, it’s a no-win situation and I am mad that our ruling class is full of spineless and craven losers.
I am very pro, at least until Democrats extract nominal concession. Even though it would hurt me personally if it went on for a while, this is the first moment of the administration where Democrats have a chance to have some narrative control and define things. A shutdown would mean pleading our case to the public on national television every night, because it would be the only real story, unlike the chaos and multi-vector approach of the first few months.
They are already developing RIF plans, and they have the trigger in their hands if they want to avoid that. If that was Republican’s plan, they would just shut the government down on their own. My job being sort of transferable has me less worried, maybe. Although, this is the best job in law.
Nate Brought
I think it’s one of the most dangerous moments our country has ever faced. If we shut down, I think Trump will take the opportunity to go full Putin takeover. If it doesn’t shut down, he’ll still get there. It’ll just take longer and use a different excuse.
Its standard fascist takeover stuff. If they shutdown, he’ll say Congress is broke and can’t do its constitutional duty, so fuck ’em. If they don’t shut down, he’ll continue his anti-First Amendment bullshit, and gradually criminalize dissent and “others.” They’re already testing whether or not they can disappear and/or deport dissenters who are LPRs. Then it’s a very short leap to doing the same to anyone else. Martial law and using the military against civilians if the protests get too loud, in either scenario. It’s a choice of which flavor shit sandwich you’re gonna get stuck eating.
Note: When I mentioned I was publishing these anonymously, Nate made sure to tell me the following:
Fuck that, put my name on it again.
Begrudgingly, I’m rooting for a shutdown. I think Dems need to show some backbone at this moment. I’m not sure why they’re scared. It’s what their base wants. If Republicans were in this position, they’d do it. But at the same time, I just got reinstated with backpay. So I hope nothing fucks that money up. I could use it.
When I’m feeling optimistic, I can appreciate that we’ve all gotten a very immediate bad taste of the regime’s intentions of a permanent shutdown. They were so stupidly excited to openly harm and commit crimes that they just couldn’t slyly lead us into it, and now virtually everyone I know (including my clueless in-laws) is fucking done with this clown show — something I find oddly comforting to see.
All this to say, I would rather go through the orderly version of a shutdown on Monday than further enable every non-orderly and illegal thing that we’ve seen over the past couple months.
(In my case at work, we’d go through the orderly shutdown rigmarole and then have to come right back for no pay.)
That’s it for this week; thanks for reading.
GOLIKEHELLMACHINE 