Time To Play Hardball

It’s risky, but allowing Trump to remain unchecked is worse

Credit: Getty Images

Here’s hoping you are ready to pay attention, my Steady friends. You are about to read some ideas that may seem far-fetched, even radical, especially for Democrats. But the dissolution of our great democracy is happening faster than most rational Americans thought possible. Time to be calm and steady, yes, but also time to think tough and be smart.

For many who oppose Donald Trump and his race toward authoritarianism, the lack of a coordinated national effort to counter him has been frustrating to say the least.

We face some tough truths. Democrats have virtually no power — not none, but not much. Trump holds the White House and both houses of Congress and rules his party with intimidation and actionable threats. The dearth of Republicans willing to stand up to his illegal measures is testament to that fact. He’s also got the Supreme Court eating out of his hand.

But Trump is not the all-powerful behemoth he believes himself to be. He is a very unpopular president with an even less popular agenda. Eight months into his second term, no modern president has been as unpopular as Trump, except for Trump the first time around. A majority of the American people don’t just dislike his policies — he is underwater on everything from immigration to the economy — but they deeply dislike how he is governing.

All this means Trump is vulnerable if congressional Democrats can find an effective way to fight back. They will have that opportunity in the next couple of weeks.

Back in March, Congress passed, with the help of Senate Democrats, a continuing resolution that funded the government for six months. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was vilified by many in his party for capitulating to Trump and getting him the votes he needed. Schumer had his reasons, but six months later, those reasons no longer hold water as the September 30 deadline looms.

The Republican-controlled Congress has three options: pass a full-year appropriations bill, which is extremely unlikely; pass another continuing resolution, for which they again would need votes from Senate Democrats; or shut down the government.

Democrats are once again between a rock and a hard choice: fund Trump’s illegal authoritarian regime, or stand against it by shutting it down.

If they support funding, they will have the leverage to get measures into the continuing resolution that are popular with the American people, such as restoring Medicaid and food assistance funding, curtailing overreach by the Department of Homeland Security, and reinstating due process, for starters.

But even if those provisions are in the CR, this Congress and this administration have proven they are not to be trusted to follow the law.

“I’ve obviously been the lone ‘no’ vote in the Appropriations Committee on these budgets, because I don’t understand how we can trust that any of the agreements we make are going to be adhered to by an administration that is acting illegally every single day,” Senator Chris Murphy said to reporters.

If Democrats decide to vote against a new CR, the government will run out of money, causing a shutdown. This is where it gets interesting.

Ezra Klein in The New York Times brings a new argument and a new reasoning to this debate: “[J]oining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition. It’s complicity. If there’s a better plan than a shutdown, great. But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need new leaders.”

Klein is someone to whom Democrats in Washington listen. He’s finally saying enough is enough. Democrats should not be party to Trump’s lawlessness. He says (and the record bears him out) that Trump is corrupting the government the way the Mafia corrupts industries. To be effective, Democrats need a plan — one that would have the support of a majority of Americans.

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“But the government has to serve the people and be accountable to the people. ICE can conduct legitimate deportations, but there can’t be masked agents roaming the streets refusing to identify themselves or their authority. The Trump family cannot be hoovering in money and investments from the countries that depend on us and that fear our power and our sanctions. There have to be inspectors general and JAGs and career prosecutors watching to make sure the government is being run on behalf of the people rather than on behalf of the Trump family.” –Ezra Klein

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Shutting down the government is not something that should ever be taken lightly. Many government workers will be furloughed. National parks will close. Government payments will be delayed. Federal court proceedings will be disrupted. And Trump will blame Democrats for a debacle of his own making.

For national Democrats, who have virtually nothing to lose, it is an ace up their sleeve when it seems like Trump holds all the cards, according to Klein.

For state Democrats, it’s a different and arguably rosier picture. Their multiple efforts are focused on navigating and circumventing the administration’s harmful policies, rather than trying to stop Trump.

The Supreme Court created the legal framework that is allowing states to disregard Trump’s initiatives. The court has contended, in more than one case, that the federal government cannot force states to implement federal programs.

In a 1997 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the federal government cannot “issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers … to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.” And in 2018, Justice Samuel Alito argued that federal law cannot put state legislatures under “the direct control of Congress.”

During the first Trump term, Democratic attorneys general filed 130 multistate lawsuits against it, with an 83% success rate. Today, Democratic governors and AGs have organized a state-based resistance to the Trump administration. Both groups reportedly meet regularly on Zoom to coordinate strategy.

Democratic AGs have filed more than 40 multistate lawsuits in just eight months. According to Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, AGs have a unique role to play in combating Trump’s federal overreach.

“Attorneys general have the power and authority that no one else does. We can sue him, and we have sued him. Our authority comes from the sovereign power of our states. People forget that we are a federation of 50 sovereign states, independent of each other. So when the federal government violates our sovereignty, we can exercise our power,” Tong said in an interview with Steady.

Blue states are serving as a firewall by building parallel systems to make the federal government less necessary.

• California, Oregon, and Washington state have created the West Coast Health Alliance to provide evidence-based immunization guidance, filling the gap created by the chaos ensuing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• Representatives from eight New England and Mid-Atlantic states met last week to form their own health care coalition in response to Trump’s dismantling of public health safeguards.

• Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Colorado Governor Jared Polis launched Governors Safeguarding Democracy, which provides resources for states to oppose Trump’s agenda.

• Massachusetts has defied directives from DHS, and the governor said she will “absolutely not” assist ICE’s deportation efforts.

• Oregon is stockpiling abortion pills.

• California has signed its own climate accord with several countries with the goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.

• Eight states’ new state voting rights acts exceed federal protections, as Trump and Republicans systematically disenfranchise voters.

Some are calling these efforts “soft secession,” though that term makes more than a few Democrats uneasy. Secession is unconstitutional. And so far no one is suggesting any state unilaterally secede — except Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has said she wants a “national divorce.”

Part of the quiet discussion of “soft secession”— or as Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken calls it, “uncooperative federalism”— is economic leverage. Most blue states are considered “giver” or “donor” states, meaning they provide more to the federal government in taxes than they receive in services. And conversely, many red states are “recipients” that are subsidized by the blue state tax base.

In 2023, New Jersey received $0.83 for every dollar it sent to Washington, while West Virginia got $2.48. Blue states cannot simply stop sending taxes to Washington, but collectively they can use their economic power to pressure the federal government.

Whether it is national Democrats pulling the purse strings from Trump or state Democrats refusing to enforce laws and mandates deemed illegal, resistance is building. And Democrats need to build it fast. They can’t wait for the 2026 midterms to check Trump’s power grab.

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Stay Steady,
Dan