‘The Only Practical Check That’s Left Is the Power of the Purse.’
In the baffling haze of dealing with ‘everything, all the time,' a few clear signals of where to take a stand. Let's start with Democrats all voting NO on a blank check for Elon Musk.
A famous Thomas Nast cartoon from the 1870s. He put ‘Brains’ in quotes, but left the money bags without annotation. Ie, then and now. money makes people think they are smart. (Smithsonian Institution.)
So much, so destructive, so fast.
Back in the fall of 1973, in Richard Nixon’s era, a total of two major resignations from the Justice Department, and one firing of a federal Special Prosecutor, were enough to dominate news coverage for the rest of that year. They’re still known as “the Saturday Night Massacre” half a century on. Legal and political pressure kept mounting against Nixon after these power-overreach moves. Less than ten months later he became the first president ever to resign.1
But in our times? It has been only a few weeks since Donald Trump unleashed the equivalent of ten Saturday Night Massacres.2 Yet in the onrush of news they are barely mentioned any more.
-The first-week firing of 17 federal-department Inspectors General, in apparent violation of the law requiring advance notice to Congress? The sweeping first-day pardon of all January 6 offenders, despite (now-AG) Pam Bondi’s explicit pledge that she would “look at each case, and advise on a case-by-case basis”? The petulant and bigoted firing of the distinguished (Black) combat veteran CQ Brown as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? The petulant and petty takeover of the Kennedy Center board? The childish “Gulf of America” re-naming, followed by a declaration that February 9 should henceforth be known as “Gulf of America Day”? The mass resignations of Justice Department officials because of the obviously corrupt Eric Adams deal? The proposed mass layoffs of IRS staff?
A thousand more examples. Each of them would have been banner-headline news before. Now they are mostly lost in the bywash of ongoing history.
The “thousand more” is the problem. Too much keeps happening too often to bear any but the most recent offenses in mind. Choosing Russia’s side over Ukraine’s—and the UK’s, France’s, NATO’s? Turning Canada, in many senses the US’s closest ally, into a foe?3 Torpedoing asset values across US stock markets? (With worse to come, as even the WSJ editorial page explains.) Threatening to worsen inflation, unemployment, and the federal budget deficit all at the same time? This is a rare trifecta, which few presidents including my former employer, Jimmy Carter, did not quite achieve.
It’s all too much, no doubt by intention. And this is not even to mention Musk and Doge.
So where does anyone start?
I’ve been trying to think about this. And here are some places where I would suggest digging in and drawing the line.
1) For Democrats in Congress: This ‘continuing resolution’ is actually a blank check for Musk, Trump, and destruction.
Do not vote Yes on it. Make the GOP own a government shutdown instead—rather than allowing them to dismantle the government.
Tom Malinowski, a former State Department official and two-term Democratic Congressman from New Jersey, has a new discussion with Greg Sargent in The New Republic, which I think crystallizes why the upcoming budget vote is where Democrats need to draw the line and take their stand. And how they should explain what they are doing.
“Normally,” as Malinowski points out, Democrats are on the side of, well, normal government operations. They oppose the theatrics of shutdowns and standoffs that Newt Gingrich destructively pioneered 30 years ago. They recognize that Social Security, the Veterans Administration, the National Park Service, and so on do valuable things that shouldn’t be wantonly disturbed.
So why should the Democrats risk being portrayed this time as absolutist and extremist, and bringing on a shutdown? Why should every single one of them, in the House and (more consequentially4) in the Senate, stand up against the “continuing resolution” measure, as Trump and the GOP has now presented it?
I heard a “savvy” pundit make the contrary case on TV last night: That the Dems would hurt themselves by seeming “irresponsible” or doctrinaire. And that if there is another shutdown, voters would dismiss it as one more chapter of “the mess in Washington” with all parties equally to blame.
I think that the pundit was wrong, that Malinowski is right, and that this time is different. Here is the heart of what he says:
Like most Democrats, I’m trained to believe that you always vote for [continuing resolutions]. Government shutdowns are a stupid idea. It’s the radical Republicans who want to shut down the government.
But this is a bizarre situation in which the president of the United States and this billionaire are already shutting down the government.
So if I’m a Democrat in Congress, why do I vote for a continuing resolution to fund programs that are not continuing? It really is just a blank check.
It’s like giving Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and saying, Spend it as you like…
This is the crucial “framing” point for Democrats. Stop saying “continuing resolution.” Start saying blank check for Elon Musk. Because that is what we are actually talking about.
This Republican-drafted budget resolution says nothing about the administration observing existing law.5 It says nothing about the Musk/Doge rampage through departments, or how their power might ever be limited. One example: Marco Rubio, in pathetic fealty to Trump, has already said that even if the State Department is fully funded, he will void 83% of the contracts authorized for USAID. Why should the Democrats vote to give him money, only to let him hold it back however Elon Musk sees fit?
But what should the Dems be saying instead? I agree with the way Malinowski lays it out: That they will approve this money and keep necessary functions going, only when Trump and his team promise to abide by the law:
I think they should use the leverage that this moment gives them, particularly in the Senate, to say, No, if we’re going to give you money, we need airtight guarantees that you’re going to spend it as Congress directs.
Every single penny. Even if we may not like the funding levels, even if we’re spending a little less on things Democrats care about, you have to spend the money as the Congress and the Constitution directs.
To be clear on the point here: The conceit of Musk, Trump, and “Big Balls” Doge is that they don’t care what the Congress says. They don’t care what the laws or Supreme Court decisions say. They don’t care about alliances of 80-years’ standing, or children who need food and medicine, or decades-long research studies that will be disrupted, or the 80,000-some veterans now being laid off, or anything else. They care about beating their little chests.
In those circumstances, the Democrats should not help them. Or give them one second’s benefit or the doubt. What Trump and Musk are doing is wrong. The cowering Republicans will not say that. So the Democrats must.
One last time from Malinowski:
The only practical check that’s left in [a] worst-case scenario is the congressional power of the purse…. For Democrats to give that up… it’s giving up potentially the last check against a tyrannical government in the United States.
2) For voters: Flood your representative with calls and messages. And show up at town halls.
-If that Representative is a Republican, say Do your job! and Who elected Musk?
-If that person is a Democrat, say Do your job! and No blank check for Musk!
Same for Senators too.
It’s a simple, clear message, which urges members of Congress to exercise their Constitutional power over spending, rather than weakly give it up.
If they’re impressed by detail, you can refer them to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which gives the Congress, not the president, authority over both revenues and expenditures of the US.
Do your job.
And by the way, for citizens, show up at these politicians’ district meetings and town halls. If your (GOP) representative is afraid to show up, invite the nearest-district Democrat. Or a Democrat who might run next year.
Most people don’t actually go to the trouble of calling or writing a Senator or Representative. So each time someone does, the office staff thinks: There are probably ten more people who feel the same way.
Let them know. It’s one way to exercise power, in a powerless-seeming time.
3) The power of the personal: negative side.
No individual can count on power against large corporate or governmental interests.
Many individuals, working together, can have power. Especially when brands or practices become pariahs, as I believe everything associated with Elon Musk and Donald Trump (plus Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, and increasingly Jeff Bezos) should become now.