Donald Trump wants congressional Republicans to walk off a cliff and shut down the government. The right political move for Democrats would be to let them.
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Donald Trump enjoys owning and putting his name on stuff, like tall buildings, golf courses, failing casinos, a fraudulent university, golden sneakers, NFTs, etc. On Tuesday, he expressed his desire to own another government shutdown and put his name on it… and Democrats should let him.
Now that Congress is back from summer recess, lawmakers still have to go through their annual routine of passing some kind of temporary funding measure to keep the government running.
This usually involves plenty of posturing from Republicans before they either tuck tail or insist on a shutdown, for which they invariably get blamed.
Right now, we are in the “posturing” stage.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has proclaimed that he wants to attach the SAVE Act to a continuing resolution (CR), i.e., the measure that has to be passed to keep the government open.
WhoWhatWhy readers will know that the SAVE Act is the legislation that seeks to outlaw something that is already illegal – specifically, it would keep noncitizens from voting, which is currently a felony.
So, what’s the point of doing that? Simple. It’s a thinly veiled attempt to suppress votes.
It is already clear that the SAVE Act won’t make it into the final CR. It may not even pass the House, it can’t pass the Senate and, if it somehow did, President Joe Biden would veto the entire thing to prevent this latest GOP attack on democracy.
In other words, this is yet another piece of Republican performance art.
However, Johnson wants to forge ahead, and Trump wants the GOP to shut down the government over it.
“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” the former president wrote on Truth Social.
Normally, no politician in their right mind would want to shut down the government ahead of an election… especially if they know that they are going to get blamed for it.
This is doubly true for GOP lawmakers, who are running on a platform of shrinking the government. That’s not a winning message when millions of Americans won’t have access to countless services they rely on.
However, Republicans are so beholden to Trump that they may not be able to help themselves and will do his bidding no matter how nonsensical it is.
And then it will be up to Democrats to decide whether they want the GOP to walk into a trap of its own making.
Politically, it makes the most sense to let them and call it the Trump shutdown.
Of course, if Democrats decide to go down that path, Americans will suffer. Which is why this will probably end like all these other GOP charades: With Republicans tucking tail and Democrats getting most of what they want.
