"Democrats shouldn’t abet authoritarianism by supporting MAGA spending bills. But neither should they own a government shutdown. There’s a better way.
The headline of Ezra Klein’s buzzy New York Times column—“Stop Acting Like This Is Normal”—is correct, because “Democrats cannot pretend this is a normal Republican administration.” The narrow prescription Klein offers congressional Democrats is correct: “Should Senate Democrats partner with Senate Republicans to fund this government? I don’t see how they can.”
But with the September 30 deadline for passing spending bills necessary to keep the federal government open, Klein takes his strategic advice for Democrats one step too far. He wants Democrats to force a government shutdown and take the credit for it.
The case for a shutdown is this: A shutdown is an attentional event. It’s an effort to turn the diffuse crisis of Trump’s corrupting of the government into an acute crisis that the media, that the public, will actually pay attention to. Right now, Democrats have no power, so no one cares what they have to say. A shutdown would make people listen.
This is the assumption that every shutdown agitator has made and learned the hard way is completely wrong. I summed up the legacy of shutdown failures two years ago for the Washington Monthly:
The late 1995 to early 1996 Republican-led shutdown couldn’t force President Bill Clinton to swallow deep budget cuts. The 2013 Republican-led shutdown couldn’t force President Barack Obama to defund his signature health care program. The 2018 Democratic-led shutdown couldn’t force President Donald Trump to accept legislation protecting “Dreamers” from deportation. The late 2018/early 2019 Trump–led shutdown couldn’t force congressional Democrats to fund his border wall.
These failures taught us that shutdowns make people forget what you have to say. Public attention shifts to how shutdowns hurt average Americans and how one political party is willing to harm constituents to play political games. Once public opinion quickly turns, the shutdown agitators invariably realize the shutdown failed to provide negotiating leverage and eventually cave...
I completely agree with Bill Scher on this and surprising to no one, I completely disagree with Ezra Klein on this. And to show you how consistent I've been on this, here is some of what I wrote about this issue back in March and last week as well:
"So it looks like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and company have selected option a, which is to try to block this bill in hopes that Senate Majority Leader John Thune would sit down with Leader Schumer and they would work out a compromise. That's a really risky play. A lot of political incentive for the Majority Leader to say:
"No. We're in charge, we won the elections, we have The White House and Congress. Go ahead and shut the government down and take the blame for it".
Which would be my response even as a Democrat, (from a political standpoint) if the Democrats controlled The White House and Congress right now and someone was drunk, high, stupid, and crazy enough (trust me: plenty of people with all those characteristics at once in Washington) to elect me Senate Majority Leader.
If John Thune doesn't compromise here, this would be the best case scenario:
Senate Democrats relent and buck their leader and maybe 10 of them vote for cloture, just to avid the government shutdown on Friday.
Worst case scenario: the government shuts down this weekend because Leader Schumer holds his members together and. So now we're in a shutdown next week and maybe Senate Democrats relent then because the politics here for them (especially if they're up for reelection in 26) is too bad for them...
From The New Democrat
"If I'm Ken Martin (the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) right now, I want September to be about the slowing Trump economy, with weak job growth, rising prices, and weak economic growth, etc and winning the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the Epstein files.
Again, if I were Chairman Martin, I don't want September to be the month of Chuck Schumer's government shutdown and when will Federal employees get to go back to work and will the one's who are still working during the government shutdown... will they get paid for the work that they did when the full government reopens, etc.
I don't want the Democratic opposition to be the issue this September and remind voters why Democrats lost in 2024. I want everything to be about MAGA and this MAGA government and their incompetence and corruption, led by their Dear Cult Leader, Donald John Trump.
Everybody knows what the Democratic Left wants... they want total chaos and then try to blame all that chaos and gridlock, on Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader John Thune, and President Trump. And you do that by literally blocking everything that comes to the Senate floor. They want Chuck Schumer to become Mitch McConnell's political twin brother in Congress. The problem is, no one else in the country wants that and when you only at best represents maybe 1/3 of even your own party, you are not in charge of anything that's important in Washington, anyway...
From The New Democrat
There is a very good reason why we've only had 1 government shutdown that was pushed by the opposition party when they were also the minority parry in Congress, but had enough seats in the Senate to prevent funding bills from going through, with just a simple majority vote... at least in the Internet age: this would never work!!!
The Ezra Klein's, the Ron Filipkowski's, and anyone else on the activist far-left in America, will just say:
"Republicans are in complete control of the government. Even a Senate Democratic led shutdown would be blamed on The White House and Congressional Republicans, because they are in complete control. And most Americans don't understand the cloture rule in the Senate".
Fine. But there's 1 big problem with that: Most Americans still get their news from the media. The national Washington media understands Congressional rules and procedures that look like they could've been written in Greek or Arabic, as far as how complicated they are.
The voters will learn very quickly that if the government shutdowns, it will be because of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Senate Democrats. If Leader Schumer lost his political brain in the Potomac River or some place... perhaps he went out drinking with Senator Markwayne Mullin 1 night and lost all his brain cells. (Inside Washington joke)
Again, as I wrote about this last week:
"If I'm Ken Martin (the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) right now, I want September to be about the slowing Trump economy, with weak job growth, rising prices, and weak economic growth, etc and winning the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the Epstein files...
The Democratic Left wants the Democratic Leadership to fight back. Great. But you don't do that by shutting down the government, putting people out-of-work, especially in this weak Trump job market and forcing Federal workers to work for free, especially when grocery prices are going up thanks to President Trump's tariffs.
This is how Democrats fight back:
This week Congress is debating the 2025 Defense Authorization Act. Senate Democrats, led by Leader Schumer, have an amendment that would get Congress to force the DOJ to release all the Epstein files, that are currently classified and hidden from the public. Senate Democrats could also force the Senate to vote on amendments that would repeal President Trump's tariffs.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his House Democrats can force the House to vote on resolutions to release the Epstein files and repeal the Trump tariffs as well.
This is how you "fight back", you continue to pressure this MAGA Congress to vote on amendments and resolutions, that are popular with the public at-large, but are very unpopular with President Trump and his voters. And you do this for the next 12 months as well, or until the Epstein files are completely released and the Trump tariffs are gone. But you don't "fight back" by politically blowing up a building and hoping you can get out of the building before the whole damn building blows up and you aren't hurt by it.
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