Republicans dare Senate Democrats to shut everything down

Call it the ultimate example of budgetary FAFO — or “F- around and find out”: Republicans are practically daring Democrats in the Senate to follow through on Chuck Schumer’s threat to vote against the six-month continuing resolution passed by the House Tuesday night on a near-party-line vote. With Senator Rand Paul joining his fellow libertarian-minded Kentuckyian Representative Thomas Massie in opposing the measure, Republicans likely need eight Democrats to cross over. And despite Schumer’s claim yesterday that Republicans won’t get those votes, everyone in the know in Washington believes the old man’s threat is fist-shaking at clouds. As Politico’s Rachael Bade reported, the mood from the White House is total confidence either way: “They’re 100 percent gonna swallow it,” one White House official told me. “They’re totally screwed.”

The dynamics of this CR are atypical, given that the recent experiences regarding shutdowns have pitted fiscal conservatives against big spending Democrats. This time around, you have the stalking green-eye shaded Mearcstapa threat of DoGE, ready to pounce in the event of a government shutdown that would necessarily require the furloughing of vast portions of the bureaucracy. For those who understand the potential of a Democrat-engineered, Republican-managed shutdown, you’d have to have an appetite for destruction to want it at this particular moment. And following the embarrassing display of chaotic behavior at Trump’s joint address to Congress, Democrats would be contributing to the impression that in the Trump 2.0 era they are flailing about to find the best path of resistance.

What this entire moment reveals is that Democrats truly haven’t figured out what path to take with confronting this president. They’ve already fallen into the trap of defending the most unpopular spending the federal government does — foreign aid and massive, bloated bureaucracies — and now they’re setting themselves up to provide a toothless, unserious opposition to what amounts largely to a typical DC can-kick. It’s the worst of both worlds: they’re wavering and ineffectual in opposing a president whose agenda is on tilt, speeding forward on a minute by minute basis. 

The speed-demon approach to leadership leads to mistakes, but it also leads to getting a lot of things done too rapidly for the opposition to keep up. How long can Team Trump keep it up? At the moment, given the scattered nature of the Democrats, it looks like it’s going to go as long as they want.