Day 365: This is the Democrats’ Moment
Legislatively excluded by the GOP, they must capitalize now.
One year into Donald Trump’s presidency, the Democrats are at the crossroads of their biggest moment. The government is set to shut down in mere hours, and the Republicans need Democratic votes in the Senate to prevent it.
Despite what Trump claims, the military won’t shut down, TSA will keep operating, the intelligence agencies will continue doing what they do and the sky will not fall.
Yes, many workers will be furloughed and non-essential jobs will halt. But that’s the price to pay for getting a few key wins.
The Democrats have largely been excluded from everything in the Senate for a year. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) changed the rules for Supreme Court nominees, preventing a Democratic filibuster. Republicans tried to jam through an Affordable Care Act repeal through the reconciliation process, also avoiding a Democratic filibuster. McConnell and company were successful in using the same tactic with a tax bill.
Now, they need Democrats, who have been sitting on the legislative sideline for a year. If the Democrats don’t capitalize now, when will they? They’ve already agreed to a couple short-term funding bills, but the longer the can is kicked down the road, the weaker their leverage.
Democrats should — and are — pushing for a permanent fix to DACA and CHIP. The former would allow undocumented individuals, brought to the U.S. at a young age, who know no other country, and meet a set of standards, to stay without threat of deportation. Known as Dreamers, these are Americans in everything but status. They serve in the military, they are educated, they are business owners. Finding a solution for them is overwhelmingly popular by Democrats and Republicans. CHIP, meanwhile, is a vital program providing health insurance for children that also enjoys wide bipartisan support.
Republicans are only staring down the DACA barrel because Trump rescinded the Barack Obama-era policy, telling lawmakers to come up with a permanent fix. He swore he would sign whatever came on his desk. However, when a bipartisan deal was reached, he flip-flopped, leaving everyone unsure what to do next.
Republicans are on TV and social media trying to blame Democrats for a shutdown, but in reality this is mostly on Trump. He knows the president is the one who gets blamed when a shutdown occurs.
Democrats must know that the last thing Trump wants on the one year anniversary of his inauguration is to hold the distinction of being the first person to oversee a shutdown when his party controls the presidency and both chambers of Congress.
Republicans, for many years, have capitalized on the Democrats’ willingness to bend. The Democrats have a year’s worth of evidence of being excluded from every conversation and decision. It would the poorest of poor decisions to cede when given an iota of power.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) must hold the other members of the party strong and call Trump on his bluff: Tell McConnell they will never support a funding bill unless it provides CHIP funding and protection for Dreamers. These aren’t only moral things to do, but key tenets of the Democratic platform. In exchange, of course, Trump would get funding to for more border patrol agents and military and whatever else he wants to claim a victory on.
Does anyone actually believe Trump would veto such a bill? Of course not. Trump would quickly sign the bill, call it a bipartisan, multi-faceted victory, anoint himself a genius negotiator and the government would continue to operate in full.
Just because Trump has created this mess, doesn’t mean the Democrats must clean it up for him without any reward.
365 days in, 1097 to go
Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer
