F**king Monday: Fire Chuck Schumer, Tucker's Love for Putin, and the Escalating Constitutional Crisis
If Democrats won’t fight, they must go
In all my years of observing politics, I have never seen the Democratic Party look this weak and feeble. Having lost itself in a quagmire of identity politics, poll driven micro-targeting, and tone-deaf campaigning, the party has no ability to punch back against the GOP.
Trump has anointed himself King of America, hired a mentally unwell tech oligarch to decimate the federal government, and the best the Democratic Party can do is show up to Congress dressed in pink;
This is akin to taking a wet blanket to a nuclear showdown — which would at least be a start. Because outside the performative gimmicks, the party isn’t opposing Trump, it is helping him.
Last Friday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer gave Trump and the GOP a huge win by voting for a Republican-led spending bill to avert government shutdown. The bill included significant cuts to non-defense spending while increasing the Pentagon's budget. Schumer's backing was pivotal in its passage, as it allowed the bill to overcome a filibuster.
Schumer’s folding wasn’t without reason — he sincerely believed it was a tactical retreat to help the party fight a wider war, and that a shut down would give Trump and Musk even more power to wreck what is left of the government. But it came at the worst possible moment for Democrats, who are declining in popularity at a truly alarming rate. Polls shows clearly that Democrats want their leaders to stand up to Trump, and the perception is that they a) can’t and b) won’t.
I understand the arguments for Schumer’s acquiescence. As Charlie Sykes argues, there really were no good options and a government shutdown would have been far worse:
Remember: charging into the guns is not the same as victory; and a tactical retreat is not the same as surrender. Sometimes it’s the smartest play available.
In this case, the options were atrocious. The House GOP CR is a partisan mess and an extraordinary surrender of Congressional power (over tariffs) to the president. It was a poison pill wrapped in a shit sandwich.
But — and I really hate to write this — the alternative was worse, because Trump/Musk would love nothing more than to shut down the government that they are in the process of dismantling. And, as Schumer notes, there was no clear exit from a shutdown… no plausible way to “win”.
Worse, it would have allowed Trump/Musk to change the subject at the very time they are digging their own very deep hole.
The hole Sykes is referring to of course is the collapse of the stock market — an albatross around Trump’s neck that appears to be gaining rapidly in weight.
This argument would make total sense if it were anyone other than Trump. The GOP under Trump is not the GOP of old. It is a radical fascist movement tied to the impulses of a mad man — and one the public quite explicitly voted for.
Trump, as he consistently reminds everyone, has a mandate to govern. His party controls all branches of government is solely responsible for what happens to the country. If the stock market crashes, it’s his fault. If his party can’t pass a spending bill, it’s his fault. If the government shuts down, it’s his fault.
The Democrats have two main jobs right now: the first is to stand up to Trump, and the second is to let the public understand exactly what they voted for. That means letting Trump self-destruct. No bailouts and no Schumer-style backroom deals to avert catastrophes — like the spending bill last week. The public voted for Trump and they should be made to feel the consequences of that vote. Schumer’s job was to inform the public why the government would be shutting down, not helping Trump by trying to stop it.
Schumer is a skilled veteran of the Senate, a deft negotiator, and master of the backroom deal. But he represents a time in political history that no longer exists. The MAGA party does not want to negotiate, it wants to dictate. Democrats must learn to say “no”, and those who can’t should step aside for those who will.
Tucker Carlson: Europe would be better under Putin
Tucker Carlson hosted former Fox and Friends host Clayton Morris onto his show last week to discuss pressing topics like whether Emanuel Macron’s wife is really a man, and why female leaders are “the most bloodthirsty” (yes, really). When the discussion turned to the war in Ukraine, Tucker had this to say about the fear EU countries have about Russia storming into Europe:
“I really love Europe, truly, as an American, but like, it’s so degraded…I don’t even want to say it, I’m not even going to say would it be worse or not.”
According to Carlson, European countries have been overrun by Muslims, their leaders are censoring free speech, and Christianity is being phased out due to marauding lesbians and atheists. So therefore it might be better if it were invaded and colonized by a brutal fascist dictator.
This is genuinely what passes for intellectual discourse in right wing circles these days. Carlson isn’t some fringe character gaming Youtube algorithms for clicks (although he certainly does do that), he’s a major force in MAGA circles and hold considerably sway in Trump’s court.
My contention has been for a long time that Carlson’s main role in the MAGA movement is to prime the country for fascism. He’s a very talented performer with a preternatural ability to lie through his teeth while looking utterly sincere. This enables him to dress up fascism and make it palatable for conservatives looking to justify their support for Trump. If Tucker Carlson says it, it must be at least partially true.
The crazier Carlson gets the easier his little charade is to expose, but that might not matter any more given almost half of all Republicans now think Russia is a friendly country.
Definitely not a dictator
Trump posted this on Truth Social this morning:
This comes just after his administration ignored a court order preventing the deportation of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang:
This can only be seen as part of a clear strategy to break democracy and the rule of law in America. No American president has ever undone a pardon of the previous president, and it is exceedingly rare that a president outright ignores a court ruling (you have to go back to Lincoln ignoring the Supreme Court’s ruling over the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War for such a clear case). If that wasn’t bad enough, Trump is also publicly stating that he will go after anyone who attempted to hold him accountable for his actions on Jan. 6th.
If this isn’t a severe constitutional crisis, I don’t know what is.
The only one upside is that if Trump issues himself a pardon before his term is up, the next president can feel free to ignore it.
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This scenario with Schumer reminds me of the Weimar Republic. And Schumer is the embodiment of Franz von Papen, Chancellor of Germany in 1932 (before Hitler), and Vice Chancellor under Hitler in 1933; to Biden’s—Paul von Hindenburg, president of Germany from 1925-34 (death). Between these two incompetents, Germany had its bell rung and clock cleaned!
Both Franz and Hindenburg were outmaneuvered by Hitler at every turn. Hitler took power with 37% of the vote (sound familiar), and consolidated power in just 53 days.
That said, Donald Trump just came in as a close second, since Schumer, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street and AIPAC, just sowed the seeds of our destruction, and ultimate demise. He just might have signed our death certificate!
Furthermore, while a shutdown would have been bad, it would have affected the red states just as much as blue state, so I’m not sure how long the republicans could have held out. However, now that Trump has free rein to continue to lay waste to whatever is left of our Republic, any democratic victory into the future, is sure to be a pyrrhic one: Indeed!
I’m not sure how, or if, we can ever recover! Whatever little leverage we had, is no more. I can’t even be sure there will be another fair and free election in this nation. Stephen Miller (Deputy Chief of Staff) recently claimed on X:
“Under the precedents now being established by radical rogue judges, a district court in Hawaii could enjoin troop movements in Iraq. Judges have no authority to administer the executive branch. Or to nullify the results of a national election.”
So says the guy who constantly challenged Biden’s agenda in court; however, why add in the part about “Judges and elections”? Is Miller telegraphing their next play; saying the quiet part out loud?
Trump similarly said during his many incoherent campaign events last year that “after this election, you won’t need to vote anymore!”
So my only question left Is whether these statements represent a harbinger of things to come? Just asking for a friend!…:)
Except, of course, nobody thinks Trusk's "term is up" unless on a bier. So his "precedents" are irrelevant, even apart from SCOTUS newly (originated in Bush v Gore) discovered ability to write "in this case but not ever again" constitutional law.