The Democrats' Best (Only) Strategy Now Is to Let the Republicans Shut Down the Government
In the midst of all of the horrible things that are happening in the world, it is almost quaint to notice that the federal government of the United States is on the brink of yet another semi-shutdown -- where "semi" refers to the fact that "essential workers" are required by law to keep the government partially open, even when they are not being paid. Notwithstanding that qualification, I will continue to follow the established practice of calling such an event a government shutdown.
Shutdowns used to be exceedingly rare, but because the world stopped making sense years ago, here we are again. The current law funding the federal government will expire in 14 days, and we have no idea what will happen next.
For what my opinion might be worth, I agree with those who are telling congressional Democrats not to bend on this one, even if it means that the government goes into another of the shutdowns that we have all been forced to endure in recent years. And to address the snark in the room, my opinion might in fact be worth something in this particular situation, no matter what one makes of my thoughts on other issues.
Why? I might have been the only commentator on the left end of the American political spectrum who aggressively defended Chuck Schumer's decision back in March of this year to provide the votes needed in the Senate to pass the continuing resolution that has kept the government open for the last six months. In a Verdict column on March 19, I argued that the beleaguered Minority Leader was right to make the truly difficult choice of enabling the Republicans to push through an absolutely awful spending bill, because a shutdown would have been much worse.
As I made clear in that column and in followup commentary on Dorf on Law (most directly here and here), I am no fan of Schumer or the style of defensive-crouch center-right politics that he personifies. And that was before John Oliver (who is the only evidence that there is still some measure of justice in the world, as he pulled down two more Emmys for "Last Week Tonight" earlier this week) exposed Schumer's weird, decades-long fairy story about "the Baileys," a Trump-loving suburban "imaginary couple" that Schumer invented to justify Democrats' capitulation on issue after issue. Watch the video. It is shocking that Schumer has a job -- any job.
I was, therefore, fully on board when Mehdi Hasan called for both Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to step aside. Even so, Hasan's bill of particulars predictably but cringe-inducingly included a line about the March shutdown vote, saying that Schumer had "shamefully backed down from a confrontation with Trump over a government shutdown in March and earned the scathing soubriquet 'Surrender Schumer.'"
I should also note that the very existence of that widely held, badly mistaken view that Schumer was wrong in March could be an argument in favor of my position today. That is, if one were to say, "Hey, Professor Buchanan, why did you change your view about this over the last half-year?" it would be tempting to reply that we need to listen to the wisdom (or not) of the crowd, if for no other reason than to acknowledge the dispiriting effect that we saw when the left collectively misread the situation back then.
After all, there are still very good reasons to worry about the current Democratic leadership, as currently demonstrated by its shameful effort to distance the party from its own nominee in New York City's mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani. It seems that every time the Democrats are given the gift of a compelling candidate, they do everything possible to throw it away. And if this month's standoff over the expiring federal funding authorization becomes yet another instance of disappointing the base by voting for a Republican bill, the political consequences would be ugly.
I have to say, however, that if that were the only argument in favor of changing my position, I would reject it, if for no other reason than it carries the very strong odor of a heckler's veto. If the situation were the same today as it was back in March, I would hope that Schumer and others would somehow conjure the ability to communicate effectively and explain to their voters why a shutdown was the more-bad of two bad choices, but even if they were as inarticulate as they always are, what matters is the substance.
And boy oh boy, the substantive arguments have changed. Jonathan Alter recently managed to get The New York Times's somnolent (at best) op-ed page to publish a very good guest piece explaining not only why the situation has changed but also how the Democrats can hammer the Republicans on three key issues -- "health, tariffs and troops in the streets" -- to win the politics of the moment.
But before getting there, one must overcome the threshold issue: What has changed? Yes, I have more than buried the lead here. The story, however, is simple. Whereas in March we needed to worry about the Democrats inadvertently giving Trump power to take advantage of the gaping hole where appropriations bills should be, we now know that he is barely paying attention to the law anyway. Moreover, we now also know what we only suspected/feared during those first chaotic weeks of the new presidential term, which is that the Supreme Court's reactionary super-majority will do nothing to stop Trump from doing his worst.
I argued back in March that "Trump would not be required to do anything" if there were a shutdown, because there would be no spending laws to obey. I added that "because an unrelated set of backup laws allow some core functions of government to continue even during a shutdown, Trump could claim that the government was still functioning, and he could even say that this was exactly the right level at which government should function."
Again, today is different because the Trump people are no longer even bothering with the veneer of following the law. Republicans in the House and Senate even allowed Trump to "rescind" spending that was required under that March spending bill. In particular, they "rescind[ed] $9 billion in previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — a move that cuts all federal support for NPR, PBS and their member stations — and about $7 billion in foreign aid."
And more recently, the Trumpists have come up with the "pocket rescission" gambit, which is plainly illegal. Will anyone stop them? Of course not.
At this point, then, the key reason from back in March to avoid a shutdown -- to maintain at least some minimal legal framework to which Trump must adhere -- is laughable. I also argued that "Trump and Musk [Remember when he was ubiquitous in the Oval Office?] would have no reason even to agree to any legislation to reopen the government—ever—because a President’s discretion is much wider during a shutdown than it is at other times. Trump would love to be in that situation." But Trump, thanks to Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court, now undeniably has amassed all of that power.
That is all to say that I was sadly prescient when I wrote these words in my March column defending Schumer:
To be clear, Trump might well be in the final stages of pulling the plug on the rule of law entirely, which would mean that he will not even abide by the requirements of the CR that has now passed (and that he himself signed). If that is where we are headed, however, that would not make Schumer wrong but instead would mean that nothing matters anymore. If Trump is going to spend what he wants, and only what he wants, then Congress will be irrelevant.
Again, however, saying that Schumer was right in March does not at all mean that the same answer applies in September. Essentially, the only thing left for Democrats now is to "win the politics" of the shutdown. Republicans will go into their usual holier-than-thou song and dance about "far-left Democrats," but Democrats can simply say that there is no reason to support a bill that they have no reason to believe will be honored in any case.
That does, by the way, put Alter's strategy in a somewhat different light. He is arguing that Democrats should push hard at the negotiating table to have their priorities (again, "health, tariffs and troops in the streets") included in the final bill, which implies that they should then sign on if Republicans agree. To be fair to Alter, there is no way on this earth that Republicans would ever do that. But my argument is that Democrats might as well load up their demands with everything from a progressive wish-list, because the last thing they should want is to be backed into voting for what would surely be called a bipartisan, centrist, compromise bill that overwhelmingly moved the Republicans' agenda forward.
Even though I continue to believe that the Republicans will never allow the Democrats to win back power in Washington (see, for example, the latest gerrymandering insanity), this is Democrats' only remaining option. After standing aside to allow Republicans to prove once again that they cannot legislate responsibly, Democrats should then refuse to bail them out. Avoiding a shutdown made sense last time, no matter the wailing that ensued. This time would be political suicide.
- Neil H. Buchanan