Seriously, do Democrats think supporting the irresponsible, over-spending, secretive, wasteful, and fraud loving bureaucracy is the hill to die on?
The Shutdown Fight That Could Play Right Into Trump’s Hands
With President Donald Trump and Elon Musk taking a sledgehammer to the federal bureaucracy with their “Department of Government Efficiency,” Democrats are desperate to push back — and some are eyeing what they see as an irresistible piece of leverage.
Asked on “Meet the Press” Sunday if he was “prepared to shut down the government” when funding expires on March 14, Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said he was: “They are simply trying to dismantle the government,” he said. “I cannot support efforts that will continue this lawlessness that we’re seeing.” (snip)
But having covered more than a few of these shutdown fights, I can say confidently that this isn’t the leverage point Democrats and much of Washington seem to think it is. Not only is this a battle Democrats probably can’t win, it’s one that could play right into Trump and Musk’s hands.
To understand why, let’s unpack the practical and political ramifications of a DOGE-focused shutdown over Musk’s efforts.
Rachel Bade goes through a few reasons, like if this shutdown would look like the others (it’d be better for Trump) and how the 2018 shutdown only briefly hurt Trump’s poll numbers.
For one, Democrats would be embracing a tactic they’ve long shunned: holding the government hostage until they get what they want. The party has never been comfortable with that, and there’s little reason to think Democratic leaders would feel confident about doing so now.
Huh what? Democrats have pretty much been the ones holding the government hostage almost every time.
There’s also the challenging message of explaining to Americans that you’re shutting the government down in order to save the government. The argument might make sense here in Washington, but it’s pretty damn confusing for every other American. And Democrats know that, in a shutdown, the winning message wins the fight.
Ms. Bade almost makes it to the reality: Democrats are willing to shut down government to save the waste, the fraud, the theft, the over-spending, the irresponsible actions, the defiance of their supervisors and the president, the unwillingness to be responsive to the duly elected Legislative Branch and the American People, and a bloated bureaucracy. If they want to die on this hill, well, what will be the name of the political party that replaces the Democratic Party?
Democrats Stand Up for the Bureaucrats
You couldn’t invent a scene that better explains our current politics than the one last week outside the Treasury in Washington. Some genius in the Democratic Party evidently thought it a good idea to put some of the party’s most prominent faces, most notably Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in front of the cameras to protest Elon Musk’s efforts to get inside the books of the federal government in his presidentially mandated campaign to root out inefficiency.
Picture it: The Democrats, onetime tribunes of the people, fiercely defending government employees from the taxpayers; the party of the oppressed putting it all on the line to protect federal bureaucrats from the people they’re supposed to serve.
It was a tableau for the ages, one example of the many strange battle lines the Democratic Party has chosen to defend these past few years: illegal migrants over citizens, teachers unions over parents and children, criminals over victims, men-turned-women over girls. Good luck with that, Democrats. You might want to fire your pollsters.
It’s a much longer piece at the WSJ, which I’m reading via Webpage Archive. You get the idea. Democrats wouldn’t fire their pollsters: it’s who they are and what they believe.
If there’s any weapon that Elon and his several Musketeers have brought to bear, it’s the ridiculous and wasteful spending in which our government engages. Now we have specifics, spending FEMA funds to house illegals while simultaneously ignoring Mau’i and western Carolina, funding queer rallies overseas, and a whole host of other things. Enough has been exposed that the public are going to look with a very jaundiced eye at everything.
Meanwhile, Democrats like Jeff defend the wasteful spending with, “it’s not very much as a percentage” and “there is no proof that the waste was really happening”. Then there is the deliberate lying to the public: children will starve if USAID doesn’t keep sending billions to “Gaza”.
The Associated Press
Hegseth didn’t request over $137,000 in upgrades to his new military residence, official says
I’m pretty sure that rather than living in a private residence where Democrats would bomb him…he chose to live on BASE under the supervision and protection of Ft. McNair. The military decided to upgrade the home, Not Hegseth because he is 6th in line succession wise to the president.
If you believe that the Trumpians are interested in reducing spending, I have beachfront property in Gaza** to sell.
Inventing fictional spending is a tool ($100 million for Hamas condoms!, said King Donnie the Libertainer) they’re using to castrate programs they* don’t want to exist. (Read Project 2025).
Kidz. Please, please, please understand the trillion dollar programs are Defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Debt interest. South African citizen Musk wants to cut $2 TRILLION (about one third) from the US spending.
Big Donnie the Accountant has already hinted of reneging on paying the debt.
DON”T BUY US TREASURY BILLS! DON’T FLY (too dangerous ’cause retards, dwarfs, trannies).
Have Donnie and The DOGE presented ANY evidence to support their wild claims?
________________________
* They = American oligarchs (Musk, Kochs, Trump, Zuck, Bessent, etc), China, Russia, American authoritarians and other MAGAts, white supremacists and nationalists
** Gaza = Gaza, MO in Wayne County
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When there is a government shutdown, do the Democrats still get their kickbacks, or do they have to wait until the grift checks go out again? Just wondering.
The Grift checks get put into autopay. Once entered into the system, no employees need to be at work to make the deposits. Government shutdowns are totally without consequence unless the government takes special effort to punish the public. Public employees that are needed to punish the public will be required to come to work, Otherwise the public wouldn’t even notice there was a shutdown. During Obama administration Obama forced parks department to come to work so that they could enforce the parks being closed due to lack of employees. Truly mindless. By “parks” I mean even the national mall, which is just a big grass field in DC. They brought in horse-mounted park police to keep people off the grass because it was “shut down”. Eventually, the Democrats ended the shutdown because they discovered that the American people were perfectly satisfied with the government shut down and they might get used to it.
Also, the Democrats did everything possible to pay out all the grift before Biden left office. The Trump team is clawing that money back right now and that is why the Democrats are ferociously defending the wasteful spending as if it is coming out of their own pockets… because it is.
The government never really shuts down. Not even half of it shuts down. A real shutdown would be wonderful. The end of Washington DC is something to pray fo,r but Washington will die a slow death in its own time from its own dead weight, not because of any revolutionary action