This was going to be a social media post. It grew beyond that, so I’m flexing it out here. It answers many of the common arguments I’m seeing from Democrats on who is to blame for the shutdown.
Regarding a Government Shutdown: It’s super simple. The party that filibusters the CR in a high-stakes attempt to get legislative concessions chooses the shutdown. Minority Leader Schumer met with Democrats and said no to any CR, launching a filibuster to stop any CR from passing Congress. Republicans offered many different CR’s in an attempt to keep the government funded.
“But Republicans control the White House, Senate, and House.”
Yes. They do. By thin margins. In the 2013 shutdown, Democrats controlled the White House and Senate. Shutdown still happened. You can thank Ted Cruz, mostly, for the stunt. See Bob Woodward’s “The Price of Politics” if you’ve forgotten what happened last time around. Republicans chose that shutdown because they wanted concessions from Democrats.
Democrats chose to shut down the government in an attempt to force concessions from Republicans on DACA. Democrats even admitted as much. Well, I shouldn’t say all Democrats, several red-state Democrats voted with Republicans to keep the government open. That’s important because there is a bipartisan majority willing to fund the government, just not 60 votes.
“DACA is should be part of the spending plan!”
No. It’s entirely new legislation. CR’s are resolutions to keep the government funded, they aren’t new legislation. CR’s aren’t even a budget. The original DACA memo was an unconstitutional creation by the executive branch when they didn’t want to legislate. How do I know it’s unconstitutional? It’s cousin, DAPA, was struck down on arguments advanced by conservatives. It was hinted, at the time, DACA would fail for similar reasons.
DACA legislation would have to be part of an overhaul of the immigration system because you’re creating an official new lane of immigration. I’m fine with that. Most conservatives are, actually. But CR’s do not do this sort of thing.
“But it’s all Trump’s fault because Schumer said they had a deal.”
If you believe anything out of a one-on-one meeting with Trump, I have beachfront property in the Sahara desert to sell you. Everything anyone said after this session was pure political spin. Full stop. Schumer was going to say this regardless of what Trump said. Trump was going to say what he said regardless. It was predictable.
“Democrats just want this tied to a promise that we can vote on DACA as a part of a major bill.”
You bet they do. Schumer and McConnell fear the political disaster of an immigration overhaul. Contrary to popular belief, neither party is monolithic on any immigration ideology. Both are pulled by the extremes. And neither party wants to expose its flanks to members who agree with the other side. For example, see Democrats in red-states who voted for funding the government. Among them, Doug Jones, newly elected Democratic Senator out of Alabama. You can bet that man wants to avoid immigration as much as possible, holding Jeff Sessions former seat. The far left and right are delusional in thinking their ideas on immigration are mainstream.
The shutdown was the plan of the Democratic Party. Full stop. Just own it and work from there. There’s ample evidence of dysfunction in the Trump White House. The shutdown isn’t one of them. A more prominent sign of dysfunction is the fact that a pornstar could’ve blackmailed a sitting POTUS. Makes you wonder how else he could get manipulated.
The shutdown should help Trump’s popularity, ironically. It did for Clinton and Obama. I expect the same here.
That said, both parties stand to lose a lot from this stupidity.
Also – this shutdown won’t matter in the 2018 midterms unless they just string it out all year.
One last thing: Note with this shutdown, the national parks and monuments aren’t closed with WWII vets being mistreated. That happened last time in 2013. They didn’t close wasn’t because of the government shutdown. The Obama White House ordered that. Just wait for the Trump tweet bragging about him being better during a shutdown. It’s coming.