Wednesday Morning Rant

As the Schumer Shutdown drags on, two things have become increasingly clear:
1. This is shaping up to be yet another example of how the party that initiates a shutdown battle rarely wins it.
2. Schumer has thrust the Democrats into a game of "chicken" with the Party's dual bases.

Trump's approval is hanging on and, depending on which polls you choose to examine, a sizable plurality or outright majority of people lay the blame for the shutdown where it belongs: firmly on the Democrats. This is in part because Trump is outmaneuvering Schumer at every turn. Unlike Obama, he isn't being petty with it. He's getting soldiers paid and working to gut Democrat programs while daring the Party to challenge him.

And the Party can't. They might even be right that Trump can't properly move money around like he is (I've read many analyses and there appears to be little agreement as to the limits of this particular gray area), but they can't come out as fighting to make sure soldiers don't get paid. Jeffries can refuse a funding bill to "reopen the government" and Schumer can refuse to back down on his demands, but the Party is unwilling - for now - to sue over Trump's money movements and turf whatever support it has left among normals. Trump has cornered Schumer so far, and Schumer now has the unenviable task of deciding which of his party's bases will be demanding his scalp.

As Ace covered yesterday, outlets are now beginning to report that the Democrats fear their radical far-left base and are terrified at the prospect of capitulating and passing a budget CR. Even their so-called "centrists" are afraid of the monster babies they've spent a generation cultivating, and are terrified to move. But on the other side of the monster babies is the other Democrat base and that base wants - in fact, desperately needs - the Schumer Shutdown to end.

That base is the government itself. Trump's share of the vote in Washington, DC in 2024 was a staggering 60.6% higher than it was in 2016, and an incredible 19.8% higher than it was in 2020 - and it came to a whopping ... 6.47%. Kamala Harris racked up 92.15% of the vote in the nation's capital. The government is not just a Party stronghold, it is likely the Party's most important and far-reaching stronghold. Not everywhere is thoroughly rotten as DC itself, but nonetheless "federal government employee" is a synonym for "Party member," and there are around three million of them. Three million people, virtually all of whom are Party members and, crucially, who work manfully day in and day out on the Party's business. They are the lubricant that the keep the gears of the Democrat gristmill turning at the federal level.

That base is being hung out to dry, and that probably has the Party at least as terrified as the monster babies do. The longer Schumer drags this out, the more damage Trump and his OMB can do. He will win the lawsuits and after the 30-day mark, I expect him to escalate dramatically. Every cut is a Democrat cut. When so many are Party loyalists, you don't even have to be careful with who you fire. As the scythes start cutting the government workforce in ever-greater swathes, the Party hurts more and more. These aren't just loyal members, they are important members.

The Party base in the federal government doesn't merely vote correctly and send twenty bucks to the candidate every four years. Day in and day out, it advances the agenda and the Party's ambitions. It allocates money. It administers programs as the Party wants it to. It implements policy - or refuses to. It punishes enemies and rewards allies. It smooths the road or obstructs it as needed and it does so automatically as the natural daily process. This Party base is vitally important and gets the daily work of the Party done, while the monster babies handle the street-level terrorism.

Schumer cannot have both. Trump is forcing him to choose. Schumer can satisfy the monster babies or he can satisfy the core workaday functionaries who keep the Party's lights on. The only thing that remains to be seen is which one he will choose to placate, and what the Party will offer to the other as it grovels for forgiveness.

My nickel is on ending the shutdown and defending the functional base of Party operations, probably within a week. Time will tell.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

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