Somehow, progressives didn’t realize losing the Presidency would mean losing their influence over events, or for some even stranger reason, they were under the impression that the man they impeached twice, tried to jail and bankrupt, and called every evil name under the sun would be inclined to take their advice on important matters of policy.
Democrats and their progressive supporters have been desperate for a win, any kind of win, ever since Vice President Kamala Harris’ stunning defeat last November. After having convinced themselves that a fascist who flirted with Adolf Hitler couldn’t possibly prevail, they seemed blissfully unaware that once and future President Donald Trump’s triumph, taking the White House, the Senate, and keeping the House of Representatives, essentially blocked them from the halls of power for at least two years, offering the party that had controlled two out of three next to no input on the daily operation of government, little control over the lawmaking agenda, and in an era where reconciliation has run wild, little control over the potential passage of significant legislation, assuming Republicans can maintain a united front. Thus, the President has been free to pursue much of his agenda, from securing the border and initiating mass deportations to slashing the size and scope of government with nearly unfettered power, operating beyond their control, leaving Democrats praying that the courts can somehow restrain him, using powers that they themselves claimed the courts didn’t have as recently as last year. While no one I’m aware of has actually come out and said it, the subtext of much of their continuous outrage since President Trump took office on January 20 appears to be predicated on their utter powerlessness. Somehow, it seems to me at least, that Democrats and progressives didn’t realize losing the Presidency would mean losing their influence over events, or for some even stranger reason, they were under the impression that the man they impeached twice, tried to jail and bankrupt, and called every evil name under the sun would be inclined to take their advice on important matters of policy. It’s as though they believed the occupant of the Oval Office could change, but their own standing and influence would not. Though the golden rule in politics, if politics could be said to have such a thing, is don’t pick fights you are certain to lose, Democrat voters have been clamoring for a pitched battle on everything and everything, even when they have no chance whatsoever to change the outcome. Last month, CNN reported that “Democratic lawmakers have faced eruptions of anger at town hall meetings across the country this week, as constituents have coupled their fury over President Donald Trump’s actions with deep frustration over what they see as a feckless Democratic response.” Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, along with his colleague Ruben Gallego were told to “fight dirtier” and “get in the mud.” “When are they going to take the gloves off and actually do something,” someone said under their breath. “They’re preaching to the choir.” “We want you to show some of the backbone and strategic brilliance that Mitch McConnell would have in the minority,” a man told Maryland Representative Glenn Ivey. “They should try actually fighting for once. They should try to actually be the opposition party,” another told Illinois Representative Sean Casten.
Though this outrage had been simmering beneath the surface for some time, CNN and others believe it burst into the open after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to endorse shutting down the government over what amounted to a five month difference in the length of a recent spending bill. He, along with a few other Democrat Senators, prevented a filibuster on the issue to keep the government open under a largely GOP negotiated funding bill. Under normal circumstances, this shouldn’t have been the least bit surprising. For decades, Democrats have argued that a government shutdown is a true worst case scenario, something so tragically disruptive it is to be avoided at almost all costs, and by that logic, a less than half a year timing difference certainly shouldn’t be an adequate justification. In 2018, Senator Schumer himself said that federal workers were being held hostage to President Trump’s “temper tantrum.” Senator Elizabeth Warren used much the same language claiming “This is democracy, and in a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t win their fights through elections.” Senator Jack Reed said a “shutdown of any duration would harm hard working Americans and our economy,” adding that “Shutdowns cost taxpayers billions of dollars per week.” Then Congressman, now-Senator Adam Schiff claimed “Had the government shut down, hundreds of thousands of people would not have gotten their paychecks. Federal employees would have been furloughed, sent home.” Senator Chris Murphy, “Our military won’t get paid. Head Start teachers won’t get paid. Our wildfire fighters won’t get paid. Federal prison guards won’t get paid,” “Shutdowns cost the economy billions of dollars.” Even more recently, Democrats have argued that each and every government worker is essential, claiming that disruptions in government initiated by Donald Trump under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cause planes to fall out of the sky, even outside the US, and every other conceivable manner of calamity. Somehow, however, a significant number of progressives convinced themselves these long held positions could simply be abandoned over a short difference in timing alone. As a result, CNN claimed “the anger that greeted Democrats at their own town halls left them returning to Washington next week without appearing to have gained great political momentum during their time at home – instead offering a vivid window into the party’s struggles during the first two months of Trump’s presidency.”
Since then, this anger has only been building, prompting some high profile Democrats to step into the breach and attempt to position themselves as effective leaders of the anti-Trump resistance. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined forces in a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour of Western states, what amounted to a series of completely fact free rants accusing President Trump and the Republicans of various atrocities that either haven’t happened yet and indeed have no plans to happen at all. “This isn’t just about Republicans. We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us too,” Representative Ocasio-Cortez told sizable crowds to applause, “But what that means is that we as a community must choose and vote for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class.” In her view, the President had “handed the keys to Elon Musk and is selling this country for parts to the richest people on the planet for a kickback. In exchange, they will bankroll his campaigns and those of his allies.” “They are like heroin addicts – they need more and more and more,” Senator Sanders claimed, “And if they destroy Social Security and Medicaid to get what they want, that is what they will do.” One of the attendees at a rally, Stacy Short, went with her 19-year old son, Bruce, who was born with a rare condition that requires $25,000 in treatments per month, paid for by Medicaid. She too insisted the program was at risk despite no evidence and many statements to the contrary. “If those cuts happen and he loses those benefits, I don’t know what we’re going to do to keep him healthy so he can live his life,” she said while arguing Democrats needed to fight more. “I wish I could say I was proud of my party for standing in front of buildings and getting arrested,” she explained. “I wasn’t there, but it reminds me of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and I just want to know who’s our MLK here? Who’s getting arrested in the streets? Who’s sitting down and saying, ‘No, I’m not moving because you’re not getting in this building. Because you don’t need to be here.’”
Earlier this week, Senator Cory Booker, who had previously called himself Spartacus, took his own unique shot at Democrat superstardom by holding the longest filibuster in Senate history, though it wasn’t even technically a filibuster given he was not responding to any particular piece of legislation or issue before the Senate. Setting aside the fact that Democrats have long claimed the filibuster is a remnant of slavery and Jim Crow, he held the floor of the Senate for over 25 hours, speaking almost non-stop even after he could barely stand up. He did this, even fasted before hand, had his staff prepare for it, and promptly promoted it on social media not to block any legislation, much less advance it, but in his own words merely to “protest” President Trump. In other words, he accomplished absolutely nothing, the equivalent of a prolonged instance of screaming at the sky from the once-hallowed halls of the Senate, and yet progressives were absolutely thrilled at this non-victory, believing it’s exactly what they needed. The New York Times’ Tracey Tully reported that “Cory Booker’s 25-Hour Speech Strikes a Chord at Home. Many Democrats, including in Mr. Booker’s home state of New Jersey, reveled in his stamina and moxie as he assailed President Trump in the longest Senate speech on record.” As she described it, “For 25 hours and five minutes, Mr. Booker, who will turn 56 this month, did not sit or exit the Senate chambers to eat or use a bathroom. His speech broke, by nearly an hour, a record set 68 years ago by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a segregationist who at the time was trying to block civil rights legislation. Americans noticed. The social-media-savvy senator streamed the speech live on his TikTok account, where it garnered more than 350 million ‘likes.’ And more than 110,000 people were watching on YouTube when Mr. Booker ended his speech in much the same way he began: with an homage to a mentor, the civil rights pioneer John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who spent three decades in Congress.” Generally speaking, progressives reacted with glee, “New respect for New Jersey,” a YouTube viewer wrote. “The Democrats have been acting like it’s OK what Trump is doing, and it’s not OK,” explained Angel Leston. “Now, there’s finally some fire.” Vivian Cox Fraser, president of the Urban League of Essex County, claimed “Somehow you have to demonstrate opposition. The one thing I hope is, it will be the impetus for a lot more — for us to stand up.” Ryan Haygood, a New Jersey civil rights lawyer and leader of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, said Senator Booker putting “his full self into it” was inspirational. “We need voices everywhere, on every level, fighting for the foundation and soul of this country,” he added. The notoriously anti-Trump The Bulwark had the honesty to admit that the speech accomplished nothing, but then claimed Senator Booker “was a voice of one crying in the wilderness. And that’s how you build a dissident movement: with simple acts of witness,” and “by God, Cory Booker’s filibuster mattered. Or at least it mattered to me.” MSNBC, meanwhile, insisted that the “speech was a rallying point for a party that has been lacking a guiding star for the last three months,” noting that “the energy that Democrats were radiating around the time Booker had been speaking for over 20 hours wasn’t there when he first took the floor.” Hayes Brown concluded, “The question is whether Democrats can keep this energy going beyond this specific moment. We need to see the party do this when there’s an inflection point, that is, when there’s a time where Republicans are demanding they move aside and they instead throw themselves upon the gears of the federal government. It makes little sense to engage in such a protest when the stakes are lower and not do so when they’re much higher. Booker has wrapped up his marathon speech, but if the Senate’s Democrats want to show their angry constituents that they’re listening, they cannot let the business of the Senate return to the old normal.”
Of course, the fundamental problem is that they have almost no power to do so, and for most of the foreseeable future will continue to be reduced to the purely performative rather than the substantive, which means the sudden surge of energy Senator Booker supposedly summoned will be just as wasted, as was every other sudden surge of energy they claim to have summoned since January 20 (remember all the hoopla about the protests at the President’s Joint Session of Congress barely a month ago?). Whatever they may claim, the “dissident movement,” resistance, or however you label it lost last November when they had far more power than they do now. The sequel is rarely as good as the original and reciting the same tired talking points is merely another rerun for the thousandth time. At the same time, give Senator Booker credit: He finally had his Spartacus moment, but perhaps he doesn’t know who Spartacus really was. Everyone remembers that he led a slave rebellion against Rome, but the rebellion was ultimately crushed by Marcus Licinius Crassus, who promptly crucified over 6,000 surviving rebels, lining them up along the Appian way like trees in perhaps one of the most gruesome displays in history. Before they met their end, however, Spartacus could have led his some 70,000 thousand followers to freedom out of the reach of Rome. Instead, he tried to fight for his own self-aggrandizement, believing he could topple Rome itself, sacrificing tens of thousands for his own vanity. Today, we don’t commit as bloody a sacrifice, in America at least, but the pointlessness remains.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 