Bill Scher: Republicans Can End the Government Shutdown Today

"If Republicans don’t want a bipartisan deal, they can kill the filibuster. So why aren’t they?

The longest federal government shutdown in American history is 35 days, spanning December 2018 and January 2019. Technically, it was a partial shutdown because appropriations for some agencies were approved before the beginning of Fiscal Year 2019. It is also the only government shutdown directly instigated by a President of the United States, one Donald J. Trump, who wanted to hold the government hostage until Congress agreed to give him billions for building a border wall.  

Since then, America has had 2,440 days of fully operating federal governance. (Joe Biden pitched a perfect game.) Trump is back, and the streak has ended. With zero Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations bills passed by Congress, this shutdown is total, save for essential employees. 

My bet is that this shutdown will break the 35-day record, with no partial shutdown asterisks. 

Why? Because Trump doesn’t care if the government shuts down. He has no interest in what most of the federal government does, beyond what it can do for him. Through the Office of Management and Budget, he has the power to deem certain government workers essential, which fulfills his desire to exert unilateral power. 

Democrats, all things being equal, do care about what the federal government does. But Trump is already stripping the civil service down to the studs while asserting unlimited executive powers. Democrats, for the most part, do not want to abet Trump’s agenda with passive votes for Republican spending bills, nor are they afraid of taking blame for any of the consequences of a shutdown.  

Perhaps they should be. I have already expressed my disagreements with the tactical choices by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. But Trump begins this standoff with much of the public aghast at his chaotic authoritarianism; a new New York Times poll shows majorities believe Trump has “gone too far” by pressuring media outlets, sending the National Guard into cities, and with immigration enforcement generally. Trump has been such a colossal chaos agent and has been so dismissive of bipartisan negotiations that Democrats have reason to believe he won’t escape blame for one more act of chaos, even though Democrats have complicated their preferred narrative by making their own demands regarding renewal of expiring health coverage subsidies. 

Moreover, Democratic Party favorability is already pretty low, just 33 percent in the Real Clear Politics average. A shutdown probably can’t make it go much lower and could give it a slight boost if frustrated rank-and-file Democrats are energized. Having said that, the poll number Democrats will want to keep a closer eye on is the generic congressional ballot, where they now hold a slight edge. Slippage there in reaction to a shutdown may prompt calls for surrender. Short of that, Democrats should have no problem allowing the federal government to stay closed and pinning the resulting chaos on the person tagged as the “Chaos President” before he even held the office.  

Might Schumer wobble? Some Democrats were frustrated when he shied away from the shutdown standoff in March. And Punchbowl News’s Andrew Desiderio reported on Monday that “Schumer has approached a small group of Senate Dems to see if they’re OK with short-term [spending bill] (10 days, for example), but with a caveat—assuming Trump agrees to a negotiation on [Affordable Care Act] subsidies.” Punchbowl subsequently reported that the small olive branch “drew the ire of House Democrats.” Schumer didn’t propose it when he met with Trump.  

Just as rank-and-file Democrats are pressuring Schumer to walk away from the negotiating table, Trump is doing everything possible to push him away. Following that meeting, Trump posted on his social media page a deepfake video of Schumer telling a sombrero-clad Jeffries, over a track of mariachi music, “we have no voters anymore because of our woke trans bullshit” so “if we give all these illegal aliens free health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us.” Republicans had some ground to stand on in arguing Democrats were instigating the shutdown by insisting on renewing expiring health coverage subsidies. Still, they sacrificed that ground by lying about what Democrats were demanding. Beyond the substantive dishonesty, attempting to humiliate Schumer only gives him a political incentive to stand his ground.  

And so does Trump, spending precious time, as the shutdown clock ticks, telling military leaders to expect deployment to American cities to fight a “war from within” in apparent violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.  

Furthermore, Democrats have an available response to Republican attempts to shift all the blame onto them: Republicans don’t need us to open the government. They can change Senate rules and suspend or eliminate the filibuster on a party-line vote. And Republicans can’t argue that they think changing the rules on a party-line vote—the so-called “nuclear option”—is a terrible violation of Senate norms because Republicans literally changed the rules on a party-line vote three weeks ago to speed confirmation of judicial nominees. If they don’t go nuclear and kill the filibuster to keep the government open, that shows how little they care about keeping it open, and how much they care about creating excuses for vilifying Democrats.

(Longtime readers of my work know I like the filibuster, so I have no ulterior motive in goading Republicans into abolishing it. But let’s get real: Senators in both parties have gone “nuclear” enough that the filibuster rule is already hanging by a thread.) 

All this is to say that we shouldn’t expect a shutdown to end anytime soon, primarily because Trump is a reckless authoritarian with no obvious interest in negotiations or in maintaining the bulk of what the federal government does, and far more interested in scurrilous political combat.? 

Source:Wikipedia with a look at U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (Republican, South Dakota)

From The Washington Monthly

As I wrote about this 10 days ago: 

"So, under The Anti-Deficiency Act, when the government shutdowns, the executive branch, under The White House and Office of Management Budget, gets to decide who is essential and who is nonessential, when it comes to the federal workforce. Meaning, who gets to show up to work, who has to stay home, who has to show up and work for free, during the shutdown. 

In case anyone who sees this, was born last night, (and if you are able to read before you even reach 1 day old, I'm fairly impressed) Donald John Trump is currently President of the United States and Russell Vought is currently the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Do you really want these two "gentlemen" in charge of what stays open and is closed, who gets to go to work, who stays home, who has to work for free, during a government shutdown? 

Mr. Vought is 1 of the chief authors of Project 2025, which is a document that lays out how a President Trump could claim and use more executive authority, then the Constitution currently gives the President of the United States. And how they could essentially get away with that. Is this who you want in charge of the government shutdown in Washington? 

At least if Congress passed a government funding bill, (whatever you actually think of the actual bill) there are laws there that the courts can protect, requiring the executive branch to spend this amount of money, with this amount of workers in place enforcing those spending requirements. But put Trump and Vought in charge, thanks to your shutdown, there's no one left in place who could even try to hold the President and OMB accountable during a shutdown... 

From The New Democrat

My colleague Kire Schneider and I have thought about the last 4-5 days (of the 2025 Schumer shutdown) about what Bill Scher is talking about here, about how Senate Republicans should simply end the shutdown and eliminate the filibuster on appropriations and omnibus spending bills, which is what is currently being blocked in the Senate, by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

And I don't personally know Senate Majority John Thune... never even met the man, but he's been in Congress long enough, has been in the Senate Republican Leadership long enough, he's smart enough, that it would be surprising to anyone who is familiar with him and Senate rules, to believe that he also hasn't thought about doing this himself. But to Bill Scher's question: why hasn't he already done this? Or my question: why isn't he planning on doing this? 

Bill Scher is right and I've already argued this myself and covered that 10 days ago... the President doesn't need Congressional approval to do what he wands to do as President, which is execute his tariffs on our democratic allies around the world, use the government to pressure his political and ideological opponents and protect his political allies through government power, regardless of what they have done and the evidence against them. 

If The Anti-Deficiency Act and OMB Director Russ Vought isn't enough reason to convince you of how world record breaking, politically stupid and tone death, that the Schumer shutdown is, how about the fact that the Trump Administration doesn't need to the government to be fully operational to do what they've been doing, since they came back in power in January. 

This, along with the ADA, should be game clinchers for you. Either 1 of them, you could rest your case to being opposed to the Schumer shutdown and supporting Senate Democrats votes to end debate on the Senate funding bill and to reopen the government, today. 

I get the fact that Chuck Schumer is now 75 years old and has dedicated his life to being a career politician and political leader. 44 years in Congress, 20 of those years in the Senate Democratic Leadership, are pretty good smoking guns there. And I get the fact that he doesn't want to have to run against Representative Alexandria O. Cortez in 2028, just to save his Senate seat. But this is not Chuck Schumer versus the Trump Administration. Every political decision and political tactic that he pulls as Senate Minority Leader, especially when they're public, effects his caucus, the Democratic Party, and the rest of the Federal Government. Especially the civil service, when you are talking about government shutdowns. 

I guess my message for Leader Schumer and the left-wing (to be kind) of the Democratic Party is this: the Democrats lost in 2024. That's why we have a big Orangeman in The White House, who is crushing (or certainly trying to) everyone who has opposed him before, or is trying to block him now. (To mix my metaphors here) 

And when you don't vote, or you vote for the other party, or vote for a party that in a good year, gets 1-3% of the vote, your party loses and generally loses badly. And there are real consequences to being out-of-power, like being both the opposition party and the minority party at the same time. The 2 biggest ones being accountability and not being able to set the agenda... not writing the legislation that ultimately becomes law. 

Democrats can say this is about protecting health care and the ACA subsidies all they want... this is about protecting Chuck Schumer's political career, at the expense of everyone else and appeasing the far-left of the party. Who would burn down the house to save a plant. And if you think health care is a good political issue for you... the people are with you on that 1. Why not take that to the campaign trail and make it a huge issue for yourselves for 26. That's 1 of the advantages to being the out-party: you get to make the case against the in-party, while not having to take any responsibility for when the in-party screws up... as long as you don't shut the government down!!! 

If I'm Senate Majority Leader John Thune right now, I'm calling for the nuclear option to block filibusters on Congressional appropriations bills. Which means that Senate Democrats could use that against him and Republicans in 2029, if Democrats are completely back in power then. But it would be good for the country to not have to through this anymore twice a year, it would give Congress (House & Senate) more incentive to pass their appropriations bills every year, knowing that the Senate Minority Leader won't be able to block any of them, just with his caucus. 

And the Senate nuclear option here would establish that when 1 party if elected with both The White House and Congress, that they'll be able to get their own budgets and budget agenda through Congress every year that they're in power. 

I would also be in favor of requiring that all Congressional appropriations have to be clean and can't add to the deficit, in order not to be subjected to the Senate filibuster, so this is power is not abused. As as allowing the minority party (House & Senate) to be able to offer relevant amendments and alternatives to the appropriations bills on the floor. But I doubt that's what Majority Leader Thune would pass, if he went nuclear on this. 

Chuck Schumer, who up until a month ago, still seemed like he was 1 of the best political tacticians in the entire Congress. But his gross incompetence and political selfishness, his own political self-preservation, has really angered The New Democrat here and is making us sound like Independents now. What the fuck, Chuck! (To be frank) But don't worry, we're still JFK Democrats.

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Bill Scher: The Democrats’ Shutdown Strategy Is Bad

"The president’s decision to threaten mass layoffs of federal workers should prompt Democrats to shift course.

With little chance of passage for legislation to keep the federal government open before the new fiscal year begins on October 1, President Donald Trump instructed federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs—not temporary layoffs during a typical government shutdown, but permanent layoffs that would leave thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of American workers unemployed.  

The Washington Post asserted that “the directive increases pressure on congressional Democrats.” This is incorrect. The directive is intended to pressure congressional Democrats because they don’t want to see the civil service decimated, but it does the opposite. By eagerly compounding the negative consequences of a shutdown, Trump is complicating any attempt to pin a shutdown solely on Democrats.  

Meanwhile, Democrats are flying close to the political sun by making policy demands in exchange for keeping the government open, focusing on the looming expiration of enhanced levels of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Last week, Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor, “We want to keep the government open by engaging in bipartisan negotiations, where we can address some of the grave harms Donald Trump has caused to our healthcare system and help Americans with the cost of living.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also centered on health care, telling reporters on Wednesday, “Any agreement related to protecting the health care of the American people has to be ironclad and in legislation.” 

As I wrote earlier this month, every past attempt to use government shutdowns to extract policy concessions has failed, even when the policy demands are politically popular, because “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.” 

Democrats might take solace that Trump is blundering towards at least partial ownership of a shutdown, but they are still at high risk of owning a piece for themselves.

From The Washington Monthly

My counsel to Democrats was and is to walk away from the negotiating table completely, because Republicans have already broken faith by clawing back money from the last bipartisan spending deal. With Trump and his budget director explicitly trashing the idea of a bipartisan appropriations process, Democrats have additional ground to say: Republicans want to keep the government open by themselves, so any shutdown is their problem to solve, not ours. If that means Republicans need to suspend or end the filibuster to do it, that’s also on them. Last week, Trump even said of the opposition party, “Don’t even bother dealing with them.” 

In a New York Times column, Nate Silver argued Democrats should swap tariffs for health care as the issue to link to keeping the government open, since Trump’s tariffs are demonstrably unpopular and could “drive a greater wedge between Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans.” I believe this still violates the cardinal rule about shutdown demands: No matter how popular the demand is in a vacuum, that popularity will be overwhelmed by the unpopularity of the shutdown.  

Silver expressed sympathy for my proposal but fretted, “The message—actually, we’re not negotiating, we’re refusing to negotiate; you have your majorities and all of this is your problem—would require a lot of discipline in practice, and Democrats aren’t very good at that.” I disagree! It’s a simple message succinctly articulated by Nate Silver!  

It doesn’t need detailed policy explanations. Reporters can’t probe for weaknesses by suggesting hypothetical compromises. Once Democrats say they’ve walked away from a table that Republicans never invited them to join, there’s essentially nothing left for them to discuss or do. Media attention will quickly shift away from the Democrats, as the focus turns to: So, what will Republicans do to address this crisis? 

To quibble with Silver’s summation of the message, “we’re refusing to negotiate” should be replaced with “Trump is refusing to negotiate.” Combined with Trump’s mass layoff plan, this gives Schumer and Jeffries an off-ramp from their current doomed-to-fail strategy. Democratic policies that poll well cannot bring Trump to heel because the president is a budding authoritarian who ignores polls. If you propose an idea that helps people, he will counter with one that harms them and dare you to escalate further.  

If it wasn’t clear that Trump and his Republican allies were not good-faith negotiating partners before, it should be now. Forgive the glib sports analogy, but you can’t win a game with someone playing an entirely different game. So, stop playing...  

SourceThe Washington Monthly: 

"Democrats' Shutdown Strategy: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., hold a news conference on the GOP reconciliation bill, at the Capitol in Washington, on Wednesday. Schumer and Jeffries are gambling with government shutdown brinkmanship. But Trump’s plan for mass federal layoffs is proof he won’t negotiate in good faith, and the Democrats should walk away. Credit: Associated Press"

From The Washington Monthly

As I wrote about the almost Chuck Schumer government shutdown back in March: 

"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

And as I wrote about this last week: 

"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...

From The New Democrat

And just for a point of clarification: when I said last week about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's political 'intelligence": "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...

Yeah. looks like I've overestimated Leader Schumer's political "intelligence" on government shutdowns... at least so far. he still has 4 days and some change to fold faster than the "House Freedom Caucus" when it comes to big government funding bills. Or, like a mouse who is surrounded by a pack of kitties. 

Or, maybe Leader Schumer did lose his political brain in the Potomac River 1 night. 

Or, Leader Schumer went out drinking with Senator Mullin (inside Washington joke) and gave up his political brain cells for all the alcohol that he could pay for. Perhaps Senator Mullin was an inside plant by The White House to get Leader Schumer drunk one night, so he would be political braindead to even contemplate doing this. (Ha, ha)

This is the point that I want Democrats, especially left-wing Democrats, who read this to focus on and it's from Bill Scher, who is no one's MAGA man or, even a conservative: 

"The president’s decision to threaten mass layoffs of federal workers should prompt Democrats to shift course.

With little chance of passage for legislation to keep the federal government open before the new fiscal year begins on October 1, President Donald Trump instructed federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs—not temporary layoffs during a typical government shutdown, but permanent layoffs that would leave thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of American workers unemployed...

So, under The Anti-Deficiency Act, when the government shutdowns, the executive branch, under The White House and Office of Management Budget, gets to decide who is essential and who is nonessential, when it comes to the federal workforce. Meaning, who gets to show up to work, who has to stay home, who has to show up and work for free, during the shutdown. 

In case anyone who sees this, was born last night, (and if you are able to read before you even reach 1 day old, I'm fairly impressed) Donald John Trump is currently President of the United States and Russell Vought is currently the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Do you really want these two "gentlemen" in charge of what stays open and is closed, who gets to go to work, who stays home, who has to work for free, during a government shutdown? 

Mr. Vought is 1 of the chief authors of Project 2025, which is a document that lays out how a President Trump could claim and use more executive authority, then the Constitution currently gives the President of the United States. And how they could essentially get away with that. Is this who you want in charge of the government shutdown in Washington? 

At least if Congress passed a government funding bill, (whatever you actually think of the actual bill) there are laws there that the courts can protect, requiring the executive branch to spend this amount of money, with this amount of workers in place enforcing those spending requirements. But put Trump and Vought in charge, thanks to your shutdown, there's no one left in place who could even try to hold the President and OMB accountable during a shutdown. 

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said so himself back in March: 

"I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country, to minimize the harms to the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open, and not shut it down.

A government shutdown would give President Trump and his allies "the keys to the city, state and country. While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse."

From CBS News

If you are a person of the Left, (whether you personally identity as center, left-wing, or far-left) and you think that shutting the government would be a good thing, because as actress/comedian Nancy Lee Grahn said the other day: 

"Democrats, the Republicans are gonna shut down the government which will cause unspeakable pain to Americans. Make them own it. And use that time to explain and educate the world in easy to understand language as to what the Republicans have done, and why THEY and their billionaire benficiaries and donors are to blame for everyone's pain." 

From Nancy Lee Grahn

Maybe you are a leftist who thinks this is your way to get back at Donald Trump: "Yeah, man... this is our chance to take a stand against the man!" Or in this case, The Donald. Perhaps unaware that 1969 ended 56 years ago and militant left-wing groups like The Weather Underground and Students For a Democratic Society went out of business not shortly after the 1960s ended... at least on our calendars. 

Or, as Nancy L. Grahn said: "Democrats, the Republicans are gonna shut down the government which will cause unspeakable pain to Americans. Make them own it... Which translate to, let the government shutdown and then try to put that blame on the Republicans for it.

And another thing; taking political advice from entertainers, like in Nancy Lee Grahn's case who is so good, it can be difficult to tell when she's being serious... that's like taking medical advice from your local mechanic and ignoring your doctor. Except in that case, you are only putting your own health a risk. But in this case, you are putting the country's economic health, as well as out system of checks and balances, at risk. 

Again, as Nancy L. Grahn said: "Democrats, the Republicans are gonna shut down the government which will cause unspeakable pain to Americans. Make them own it... If this is your line of political "thinking" right now, I have some really bad news for you.

Just think about how badly this week as gone for Trump and company: 

Jimmy Kimmel back on ABC

Democrats win their 2nd straight House election in 2 weeks, with overwhelming numbers

House Democrats and Representative Tom Massie (Republican, Kentucky) now have the votes in the House to pass the release of the Epstein files

Even Sinclair has brought back Jimmy Kimmel, with their announcement today. 

If Chuck Schumer and his Senate Democrats shutdown the government next Wednesday... the media is longer talking about: 

Jimmy Kimmel and what he has to say about MAGA and company. 

They're no longer talking about Epstein files. 

Or another bad inflation report for The White House, or another bad jobs report for The White House. 

All they're talking about next week, is the Schumer shutdown. And the American people will learn very quickly who's fault this is. They'll know that Congress can't pass a government funding bill, even though the House already passed 1, because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer won't let his members vote for cloture on the House bill. Sorry for a lot of inside Washington lingo here. But this is where I live and work. 

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Jonathan Zimmerman: Don’t Shut Down Free Speech in Charlie Kirk’s Name

"The slain conservative activist was a vigorous debater in the public square. Silencing discourse in his name betrays the 31-year-old’s legacy as would canceling those criticizing his views.

Charlie Kirk championed free speech as a fundamental American value. So, it’s sad—and ironic—that the murder of the 31-year-old conservative activist has triggered a fresh round of censorship, alarmingly aimed at teachers and other government employees. Educators in a dozen states have been fired or placed on leave for online statements that criticized Kirk or expressed approval of his death.

Education Week notes the breadth of the surveillance of educators: Teachers in “California, Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas have been fired or placed on leave ahead of investigations into alleged social media comments critiquing Kirk and implying approval of Kirk’s death.” In Washington, D.C., at the State Department, Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary who essentially serves as the secretary’s number two official, wrote online that “I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action,” referring to Mr. Kirk’s killing. “Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the @StateDept can protect the American people.” And a Republican lawmaker in Colorado called on the state’s Democratic governor to dismiss a state employee who posted that Kirk was “a white man who spews horrid shit against every marginalized community.” John Phelan, the Navy secretary, posted a message saying that sailors or Marines found to be “displaying contempt toward a fellow American who was assassinated” would be “dealt with swiftly and decisively.

I thought that’s what happens in authoritarian countries: government officials monitor public expression and penalize those who say the wrong thing. But it’s happening in the United States of America.

Let’s be clear: teachers have no right to propagandize in their classrooms about Charlie Kirk or anything else. But the ones who were fired or suspended last week commented on social media, imagining it was a forum for free and open dialogue. While there may be some extreme statements for which educators might be investigated, even in their social media postings, such as racist and pedophilic remarks, their comments about Kirk were political musings not germane to their teaching duties. 

Republicans used to worry that technology companies censored speech via content moderation and other restrictions. Now they’re calling for restrictions to ensure nobody besmirches Kirk. One GOP representative said he planned to use “Congressional authority” to compel tech companies to ban any user who “belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

Many of these censors also praise Kirk as a tribune of free speech.

In many ways, he was. By his own estimate, Kirk spoke at 150 colleges and universities each year. He eagerly challenged left-leaning students via his signature tagline, “Prove Me Wrong.”

That rarely happened. Kirk was older and more eloquent than most of the students he took on. He was also a voracious reader, which helped him expose their ignorance and biases.

And he posted these exchanges on social media, drawing millions of viewers. In one video, a student claims that Kirk—who never graduated from college—lacks “qualifications” to speak about economics. “Who is Milton Friedman?” Kirk replies. Of course, the student doesn’t know... 

Source:The Washington Monthly with a look at MAGA activist Charlie Kirk.

From The Washington Monthly

As my colleague Erik Schneider wrote about free speech on Tuesday: 

"I'm just getting to Chris Cillizza's point here that free speech is not just for people who agree with you or me, as well as ourselves. It protects everybody, including people and speech that we think are personally disgusting and hateful. 

And for the Attorney General of the United States (Pam Bomdi) to say that people who speak out against someone she supported (Charlie Kirk) is not covered by free speech... then we have an Attorney General who doesn't even understand the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Which is very dangerous, considering all the power that she has. 

1 thing for a MAGA member on social media to not know what free speech is... we can tolerate that in our liberal democracy. But when someone with the power to prosecute people and put them in prison... have them arrested, then it becomes dangerous." 

From The New Democrat

And as Rik Schneider wrote about free speech yesterday: 

"I'm not 1 to who argues that America is a free market completely, when it comes to our economy or anything else, including our ideas. But our liberal democratic system gives us a free market to express what we feel about others and the country as a whole... any topic that we want to express ourselves on. Our market is feee to the point that the ignorant and hateful have as much right to express themselves, as the enlightened and educated... anything that they want to talk about. 

But since we do have a free market of ideas in America, we not only have a right to express ourselves, but others have the right to express (even in a hateful and ignorant way, as well as intelligent way) what they think about what we think and what we say. That's what's known as an exchange of ideas and open debate...

From The New Democrat

I would be the first to tell you that I'm not an expert on the late Charlie Kirk. Never met the man, never attended 1 of his speeches, etc. Really all I know about him right now, is from a few clips in the last week or so which him talking about his support for the 2nd Amendment and seeing his past comments about women, gays, and transgender people, all comments that put him probably as far to the right of the Phyllis Schlafly's of the world, the Patrick J. Buchanan's... far-rightists like that. 

I'm only saying this because The New Democrat is still trying to figure out if Charlie Kirk was a true believer when it comes to free speech, or was it just 1 of his partisan talking points that he like to throw around, when the fact is he only believed in free speech for people like him and perhaps everyone else on the Right... just as long as they never criticized him, or anyone else on the far-right in America. 

But as Erik and Rik have already mentioned this week, we believe liberal democracy and free speech is for everyone, not just people who agree with us. As the great Conservative Ronald Wilson Reagan said: 

"The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally, not a 20 percent traitor".

To make a partisan statement: I'm willing to bet anything that Donald J. Trump completely disagrees with President Reagan on this. 

The point we're making here at The New Democrat, is American liberal democracy is big enough for the Charlie Kirk's, the Pat Buchanan's, the Phyllis Schlafly's,.. even people as verbally disgusting as David Duke and Don Trump. As well as "The Squad" and their far-leftist allies. 

The main reason why the Communist Party is even allowed to exist in America, is because we have the First Amendment (that they don't believe in) and their ideology is so unpopular, that they would never even have any real power in this country, anyway. 

The reason why the far-right is able to exist, is agains because of the First Amendment. But their ideas are so bad an unpopular and even though they're in power now in America, at least the executive level, we still have checks and balances that can contain them. And they peacefully won the election last year. 

So America has never been a majoritarian democracy. As much as President Trump may want to rewrite the First Amendment, perhaps even erase it through executive order, our checks and balances won't allow him to do that. We're not a majoritarian democracy, we're not a social democracy. But America is a liberal democracy and 1 of our liberal values is free speech for everyone. Not just for the educated and the enlightened (to paraphrase Rik Schneider from yesterday) but for everyone that calls America home.

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Bill Scher: Ezra Klein (Almost) Gets It Right

"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... 

Source:New York Times columnist Ezra Klein.

From The Washington Monthly

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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Bill Scher: Budget Reconciliation Could Be the Beginning of The End of The Republican Party

"Civil War: Steve Bannon and House Speaker Mike Johnson represent dueling factions of the President's coalition. Asked by a reporter on Wednesday if he supported a millionaire’s tax, President Trump replied, “I think it would be very disruptive because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country.” Credit: Associated Press

“Presidential campaigns are like MRIs for the soul,” said David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former campaign strategist. I believe a corollary is that the budget reconciliation process is like an MRI for the soul of a political party.  

The filibuster-proof process often begins with assumptions of party unity on major issues members and activists, only to discover fissures festering under the surface. 

In 2017, Republicans found out the hard way they were not united around repealing the Affordable Care Act. After that reconciliation bill dramatically failed on the Senate floor with John McCain’s famous thumbs down, Republicans recovered with passage of a different reconciliation bill on the issue that had long kept the GOP together: tax cuts. 

Eight years later, Donald Trump is again president, Republicans are again in control of both chambers, and they again struggle to reach a consensus around health care. The House budget resolution—nonbinding legislation but a necessary step in the reconciliation process—instructed the committee with jurisdiction over Medicaid to come up with $880 billion in spending cuts. But the Senate version did not follow suit, and several House Republicans signaled they wouldn’t vote for Medicaid cuts that large in the final bill.  

It is not surprising that Republicans still lack unity on health care. The Affordable Care Act remains popular, but improving health care is a complicated subject, and complexity is not a strong suit of the modern GOP. Trump ran in 2024 claiming to have only

It is surprising that Republicans dove back into the health care thicket by making potentially unpopular Medicaid cuts a central focus of their budget reconciliation bill. And more surprising than that their other focus—taxes—is not uniting the party as it used to. 

The Washington Post reported earlier this week: 

President Donald Trump’s inner circle is weighing whether the White House should back raising taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million per year as part of the GOP’s 2025 tax legislation, according to two administration officials and three other people briefed on the matter.  

While the prospect of a tax hike has gotten a largely chilly reception among Republicans on Capitol Hill, Vice President JD Vance and budget director Russell Vought have expressed openness to the idea in internal administration deliberations and are viewed as supportive, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks. Stephen K. Bannon, who served as the president’s chief strategist during his first term, has been publicly urging Trump to endorse the plan in part as a way to defang Democratic attacks on the GOP as the party of  “concepts of a plan” regarding health care, an unintentionally farcical acknowledgment that there was little political upside in offering health care policy details.  

 the rich. 

The Republican Party’s branding as the party of tax cuts has already been besmirched by Trump’s tariffs, which, in effect, are taxes on imported goods. But no Republican in Congress voted to impose those tariffs; Trump did it alone. The prospect of voting for an income tax hike is far more combustible for the Republican rank-and-file, so much so that Trump quickly put out the fire.  

Asked by a reporter on Wednesday if he supported a millionaire’s tax, Trump replied, “I think it would be very disruptive because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country.” This is a bogus excuse. The Wall Street Journal noted, “To escape taxation, wealthy Americans would need to renounce their citizenship and pay capital-gains taxes as if they sold their assets. Even if they did that and moved abroad, they would still pay U.S. taxes on U.S.-sourced income.” But Trump’s public rationale is less important than the position itself. He appears unwilling to instigate an intra-party confrontation over taxing the wealthy.  

However, the mere introduction of the idea may prove to be a fatal toxin injected into the party’s bloodstream. 

Low taxes are not just an issue for the Republican Party; it’s the defining issue. As I cited earlier this month, the late conservative commentator Robert Novak once declared, “God put the Republican Party on Earth to cut taxes. If they don’t do that, they have no useful function.”  

But Steve Bannon, the former Trump administration adviser and MAGA movement leader, has promoted a reorientation of the GOP away from the “donor class.” In January, Bannon told conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, “I don’t want to increase taxes on the wealthy just because I believe in soak the rich. Maybe I do, but I would not want to be part of policy. I want to do that to get our financial house in order because we just can’t keep borrowing a trillion dollars every 100 days.”  

(Bannon also told Douthat that he supports “significant spending cuts, starting in defense.” In keeping with his supposed working-class allegiance, “Medicare and Social Security are off to the side.” On his podcast in February, Bannon offered a mixed message on Medicaid cuts: “Get into that discretionary spending. Get into the Pentagon. Get into Medicaid. You got to be careful because a lot of MAGAs on Medicaid … You just can’t take a meat axe to it though I would love to.”) 

Bannon could be discounted as just a loud guy with a podcast. But as the Washington Post story suggests, he appears to have a sympathetic ear with Vice President Vance, who is positioned to shape the post-Trump GOP. The Post reported: “Vance’s openness to higher taxes in some circumstances has provoked alarm among some conservatives given his strong position to claim the GOP presidential nomination in 2028. In 2023, Vance said he opposes further cuts to the corporate tax rate, which the president’s 2017 tax law lowered from 35 percent to 21 percent. While in the Senate, Vance also explored bipartisan measures to close tax loopholes for large businesses.” 

And a few members of the House suggested they were willing to raise taxes on the wealthy. NBC News reported that Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy of Texas said in an interview, “he’s open to any policies that prevent new deficits, including allowing higher tax rates.” Representative Andy Harris, the Freedom Caucus chair, told Fox News, “Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the highest tax bracket was 39.6%; it was less than $1 million. Ideally, what we could do – again, if we can’t find spending reductions – we say, ‘OK, let’s restore that higher bracket, let’s set it at maybe $2 million income and above’ to help pay for the rest of the president’s agenda.” 

These voices don’t come close to representing most of the House Republican Conference. Speaker Mike Johnson surely was speaking for the majority when he told Fox News on Wednesday, “I don’t think we’re raising taxes on anybody. What we’re trying to do is prevent the largest tax increase in U.S. history.”  

The second sentence was likely a passive-aggressive shot at Trump’s tariffs, revealing the intra-party tensions and intellectual incoherence, threatening the party’s fundamental identity. Bannon argues for higher taxes on the wealthy to reorient the party away from the “donor class” and toward the “working class.” But Bannon is a huge supporter of Trump’s tariffs, which are regressive tax hikes that are disliked by a majority of all Americans.  

Both sides of the GOP tax divide are trying to do the impossible. Bannon’s populists want to balance the budget, but, as Bannon told Douthat, “we’re not going to do it on the back of the little guy.” So he supports spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy, but also tariffs and, to some degree, Medicaid cuts.” Traditional Republicans like Johnson want to balance the budget, but they refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy, which pushes them towards politically dangerous, draconian spending cuts for popular programs like Medicaid and (for some) Social Security and Medicare. On Wednesday Bannon, recognizing that he has likely lost the argument for a tax increase on the wealthy, vented on his podcast, “The simple math is: Unless you raise the taxes at the upper bracket, the math doesn’t work.” 

Both camps seem to have forgotten the politically astute lesson from former Vice President Dick Cheney: “Deficits don’t matter.” Cheney’s running mate, George W. Bush, didn’t worry about deficits, pushed through traditionally conservative tax cuts, and tacked on a not-so-conservative expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drug costs en route to a re-election victory in 2004—the only time a Republican presidential candidate won an outright majority of the popular vote since 1988. (Then, in his second term, Bush tried to privatize Social Security, and his popularity sank.)  

Prioritizing extreme deficit reduction forces Republicans to take positions that in one way or another threaten their coalition of business-class and working-class voters. This is why a budget reconciliation bill isn’t quickly and neatly falling into place.  

In the worst-case scenario, Republicans’ reconciliation bill effort will collapse, and in the ugly aftermath, their intra-party rifts will harden into existential schisms. More likely, a reconciliation bill with tax cuts of some sort will be stitched together, and a veneer of unity will remain for the time being. But Republicans will have to worry about how long that unity can last.  

The last major party to disintegrate was the Whig Party, which formed in opposition to Andrew Jackson’s aggressive exertions of executive power. Once Jackson was long gone and slavery became the dominant political issue, the Whigs no longer had a reason to exist, and so they didn’t.  

Since the Civil War, Republicans and Democrats have found ways to adapt to changing political circumstances—hot wars, cold wars, economic crashes, civil rights movements—and stay relevant. Today’s Republican Party is in a delicate position because the changing political circumstances are its own president and his allies violating its longstanding principles and losing public support in the process.  

In recent years, the GOP coalition has been held up by trust in Trump’s economic know-how, devotion to tax cuts, and culture war fearmongering. The faction of “Never Trumpers” during the first Trump administration wasn’t significant enough to prevent Trump’s takeover of the GOP. But the first Trump administration delivered a significant tax cut package and a few Supreme Court justices, to boot. This time, Trump’s tariffs have undermined the first two pillars, and the open discussion of tax hikes on the wealthy further destabilizes the second.  

Is culture war fearmongering enough to justify and sustain a party’s existence? If not, then it won’t." 

Source:The Washington Monthly with a look at Steve Bannon's MAGA Party. Mike Johnson is just a lieutenant or captain in Mr. Bannon's Washington.

From The Washington Monthly

I guess where I would disagree with Bill Scher here is that I think when the Republican Party fell into line with Donald Trump in 2016-17, that was "the end of the Republican Party". 

Let's just start with the fact that to be a "Republican" (in ideology, not registration) you have to first at least believe in the concept of a republic. If you don't believe in the separation of church and state, or you want an official religion in your country, (whatever the religion is) you are not a "Republican". 

I was talking to my mother today about the Canadian Federal elections. She asked me who do I think is going to win. I said probably the Liberal Party. And then I asked her: "Do you want to know why Donald Trump doesn't want the Conservatives to win in Canada?" She responded by saying: "Why?" And I told her because Donald Trump is not a Conservative. Canadian Conservatives probably remind Donald Trump of the so-called moderate Republicans in Congress. And he simply hates those people.

I mean that's what Donald Trump's political party is now. Sure, there are members of the "Republican Party" today who are still Conservatives, including in the Congress. Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky, Representative Mike Lawler from New York and perhaps a few others. But this is Donald Trump's and Steve Bannon's party now. 

The MAGA Party is not: 

pro-business 

pro-rule of law 

they are not a conservative constitutionalist party. 

This is a party that puts cultural over everything else. And if they believe in conserving anything its, it's Blue-Collar Joe from Youngstown, or whatever small, blue-collar town you want to name in America. They want to conserve small town, blue-collar culture in America. The MAGA Party is completely: 

anti-cosmopolitan 

anti-pluralist 

anti-multiculturalism 

anti-education, 

anti-elitism. 

They're basically opposed to anything that has made America great and what made us Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill. 

As far as the reconciliation process in Congress, this is what I posted about that in March and I have nothing to add to that right now: 

"This key point from Bill Scher is also my point as well: 

"Today’s GOP legislative agenda is severely constricted despite having a majority in both chambers. Congressional Republicans are mainly focused on what they can stuff into a reconciliation bill, which under Senate rules is filibuster-proof but can only include budget-related provisions. They are angling for radical cuts to Medicaid to finance huge tax cuts for the wealthy and may succeed. But we know from the Build Back Better bust of 2021 and the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 that passing party-line reconciliation bills is harder than it looks. " 

That fact that Congressional Republicans need reconciliation between the House and Senate, to avert a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, is all you need to know how effective the filibuster is. 

And the fact that Republicans need around 900 billion dollars in budget cuts to pay for their 880 billion dollar economic package, that includes new military spending, border security, and new tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations, as well as to extend their tax cuts from 2017, that mostly went to wealthy individuals and corporations, proves that the filibuster is still alive and well. 

Without the filibuster, Congressional Republicans wouldn't need reconciliation. They could just borrow the 880 billion or so and leave Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and Defense alone. Which would cause other problems for them as well. Which could be part of a future discussion. 

But the fact that Congressional Republicans need 880 billion either in new cuts, or in new revenue, to pay for their economic package and how unpopular those cuts would be and politically painful they would be, especially for mainstream House Republicans, who have a solid number of Democrats and Independents in their districts, proves that the filibuster is still alive and well and very effective right now." 

From The New Democrat

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