Over the past week, the nation was treated to the return of Trump chaos. Congress needed to pass a “continuing resolution” to fund the federal government or it would shut down at midnight last Friday. Because of the process that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson used, the CR required a vote of two-thirds of the House. The House is almost evenly divided between the two parties, with a slight Republican majority. Mike Johnson had to get a bipartisan deal that satisfied both parties, and he did. On the day of the vote, Elon Musk unleashed a flurry of tweets ridiculing the deal, warning that he would fund primary challengers for any Republican who supported it and lying about the contents of the bill.
Several hours after Musk attacked the bill, Trump chimed in and warned Republicans to vote against it. He too said that any Republican who voted for it would be challenged by another Republican in the next election. Trump demanded that any CR raise the debt limit, so he could renew a big tax cut for the rich and corporations in the spring. The new round of tax cuts is expected to cost $1-2 trillion. The onus for raising the debt limit would be Biden’s, not his, he hoped.
Musk tweeted that the government should be shut down until Trump was inaugurated. Only 33 days, he tweeted. He didn’t care that government employees and members of the military would go without a paycheck for 33 days. Or that many would not have enough to get by. How would he–the world’s richest man–know?
Under pressure from Musk and Trump, the bipartisan deal failed. Speaker Johnson then cobbled together a new budget to please Trump and Musk. It raised the debt limit and deleted items that Democrats wanted. All but two Democrats and 38 Republicans voted against it, and it too failed.
Then Speaker Johnson tried again, forging a deal that members of both parties supported. It passed 366-34.
Here are the 34 Republicans who voted against the bill.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.)
Sen.-elect and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.)
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah)
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas)
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.)
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas)
Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.)
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.)
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.)
Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.)
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.)
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)
Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas)
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.)
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas)
Jamelle Bouie wrote that we should all take heart. Trump does not control every Republican in the House. We will find out in February and March whether every Senate Tepublican is willing to confirm Trump’s totally unqualified choices for major roles: Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth.
The recurring theme of my writing the past few weeks is that Donald Trump is not invulnerable. His win did not upend the rules of American politics or render him immune to political misfortune. Like everything we experience, his victory was contingent — a function of specific people in specific circumstances making specific choices. To change any of these variables is to change the ultimate destination.
To put this a little differently, whatever you think of the nature of his win, Donald Trump is still Donald Trump. He is overwhelmingly strong in some areas and ruinously deficient in others. He holds so much sway over his supporters that, as he famously put it nearly 10 years ago, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose “any voters.” He’s almost incapable of managing himself or the people around him. His White House was notoriously chaotic and he remains as impulsive, dysfunctional and undisciplined as he was during his first term.
There was, in the first weeks after the election, some notion that this had changed, that we were looking at a new Trump, ready to lead a united Republican Party. But as we’ve seen over the past few days, this was premature. First, the Republican Party is far from unified, as their struggle to pass a bill to continue to fund the government showed. It took days. What’s more, Trump is not alone as a figure of influence among congressional Republicans; Elon Musk has imposed himself onto the president-elect as a consigliere of sorts and is trying to build a political empire for himself via X, the social media platform he essentially bought for this purpose.
It was from X, in fact, that Musk urged Republicans to kill the continuing resolution, throwing the House into chaos and prompting Trump to escalate the confrontation to save face, demanding a new resolution that suspended or raised the debt limit. On Thursday evening, Speaker Mike Johnson tried to pass that bill. But a number of Republicans broke ranks, and unified Democratic opposition meant it was dead on arrival.
Together, Trump and Musk have not only walked the Republican Party into an otherwise needless defeat; they also have given Democrats the jump start they apparently needed to behave like a real opposition. According to Axios, House Democrats even broke into chants of “Hell no” when confronted with proposed Republican spending cuts.
That’s more like it.
The absurd battle over the continuing resolution should stand as a vivid reminder that Trump is in a much more precarious position than he may have appeared to be in immediately after the election. With a 41 percent favorability rating, he remains unpopular. He cannot count on a functional majority in the House. He has no plan to deliver the main thing, lower prices, that voters want. And one of his most important allies, Musk, is an agent of chaos he can’t seem to control.
There have been enough presidents that there are a few models for what a well-run administration might look like. This is not one of them.
Other bad news:
There are so many memes on Twitter about “President Musk” that Trump responded, whining that he is the President-elect, not Musk. One meme shows Musk pushing a baby carriage, with Trump in it. Another shows them mouth-kissing.
The one thing Trump can’t tolerate is being laughed at. The term #PresidentMusk was trending on Twitter.
We mostly assume that Trump will not be able to sustain his bromance with Musk because Musk is richer, smarter, and younger than Trump. But Never-Trumper George Conway said in a bulwark podcast that it won’t be easy for Trump to shed Musk. Musk owns the world’s biggest social media platform. Trump can’t afford to alienate him. He also loves Musk’s money. He may be stuck with the one guy who overshadows him and makes him an object of ridicule.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Although Bouie’s conclusions are reasonable, the supposition remains too conventional. If this were 1995 or 2006, Trump would be in dire straights. However, this is 2024. Trump is now in bed with tech bros who are intent on bringing the whole thing down. The entire purpose is the chaos, not the result. One example of our lost fourth estate is the fact that Trump openly wanted to end the use of the debt ceiling so that he could institute his massive tax cut while exploding the debt beyond its current state. I have yet to see a headline accentuating this fact. The press seems to believe that a=b=c in the political universe where our current circumstances have disproven e=mc2. More chaos means less accountability. While Trump nominates a clown car of cabinet secretaries, he and his more intelligent allies rearrange the deck chairs assuring they get the lifeboat. None of Trump’s allure is about governance and he knows this. The ongoing economic and social maelstrom most of us are experiencing has a black hole in the center where the new Gilded Age collects the good stuff. Money at the top of the pyramid, not economic principles, has declared governance moot. As long as traditional liberals like Bouie continue to follow predict conventional political results in this time warp we call the 21st century, the global cabal will continue to thrive.
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Exactamundo !!!
There’s a long tradition here of describing things as failures which are succeeding wildly in achieving their actual goals, just not the ones normal people assume they must have.
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Robert Reich referred to this as the MAGA sleight of hand magic trick.
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As Steve Bannon has repeatedly said, “Burn it all down”. Musk and tRump are in it for just that. tRump to stay out of jail and enrich himself further, Musk for control. Where is JD in all this? Waiting for tRump to burst and then he takes the reins, probably.
We need to remember Project 2025 is deeply embedded in this administration. While the puppet and puppet master create chaos, the architects are working in the background to make their agenda come alive.
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Project 2025 was THE ruse. The Koch /Mercer empire has passed and Bannon has moved onto deeper and darker ideologies. The Tech Bros are at war and the Dark Enlightenment crew (Bannon loves these guys) is aligned with Musk, Thiel and JD Vance. My theory (FWIW) is that trump will make all the selections according to plans and then will “retire” to play golf, leaving the reins with Vance to carry out the take over.
Curtis Yarvin is the guru of this clan….it’s the neo-reactionary movement vs the trans-humanist movement. Long gone are the days that Gates, Zuckerberg and Jobs/Powell etc were the kings and kingmakers. This goes far beyond Libertarianism.
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LisaM– You’ll have to help me understand your post. What is the Dark Enlightenment crew? How are “the Tech Bros at war” (other than the usual cut-throat competition) and how precisely can Tech Bros effect changes in governance without Congressional support (or do you think they have that)? Why do you say Koch/ Mercer have backed off?
Not attacking, just wondering what all that means and what evidence supports it.
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Granny– We also need to put Project 2025 in perspective. Most of it represents a radical restructuring of the executive branch, very little of which can be accomplished without Congressional legislation. Congressional action is required to establish (or dismantle) exec agencies, to fund them, and to determine the nature and scope of their duties. Trump doesn’t have the sort of Congressional majorities reqd to enact radical restructuring. He will do what he did before: appoint agency heads inimical to the missions of their agencies, and slow-walk staffing them. We got through that before, we will again.
The issues to focus on are those where Prez has the most exec power to act independently: negotiating with foreign leaders, immigration control, and rescinding/ rewriting implementation regs– the last-mentioned probably used most to please culture-warriors.
This is just my speculation: Trump will only have two years to get major goals accomplished. Presumably out of the gate he will go for tax cuts, immigration control, and tariffs. AND retribution of ‘enemies,’ via encouraging DOJ actions and Congressional investigations. All of that in combo could engender massive slowdown of any Congressional actions needed to enact some of the most harmful ideas put forth in Project 2025.
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PABonner– Disagree, I think Bouie has it right. Right out of the gate, Trump starts with a House majority of just 3 seats until Waltz and Stefanik are replaced by special elections (both in staunch R districts). Waltz will probably be replaced sometime in Feb; Stefanik perhaps not until March or April. We’ve seen how little a 9-seat Rep House majority was able to accomplish [nothing]. Even with a trifecta in place, a 4-seat (Feb) or the full 5-seat (early April?) majority will be severely challenged, considering their disunity.
Sen Rubio too will probably be replaced sometime in Feb, but the Rep Senate majority isn’t all that. It takes only 4 Rep Senators to block confirmation of the most onerous of Trump’s cabinet picks.
This is underlined by present Congress’s stepping up to block Trump’s request for immediate debt ceiling suspension, which he would have needed to enact prompt extension of his 2017 tax cuts, (& probably “mass deportations” as well). It should be noted that 36 of the 53 R Senators’ terms [incl Lisa Murkowsky’s] extend throughout Trump’s entire term, so he can’t “primary” them).
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My point is that MAGA doesn’t really measure success based on legislation. It’s all about intimidation through click bate and money. Even if Congress keeps the debt limit, the Trump administration will explode the deficit through other means. I hope I am wrong, but recent behavior of Republicans in Congress is that of submission whether to Trump or the 2025 playbook. Checks and balances of the past will be irrelevant. At best nothing gets done, at worse entitlements get reduced while the tax cuts for the wealthy are extended. Either way, the fat cats will profit handsomely.
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I dunno. I blinked and Gaetz was gone.
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I hope Hegseth, Gabbert, and Patel exit as well, but I wouldn’t count on it. Any replacements will probably be unqualified as well. Again, my point is that depending on traditional checks and reasoned argument against Trump will not work. Bannon infamously advocates filling the zone with excrement. We will need to do the same with truth.
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Paul, don’t forget RFK as a member of the toxic four
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…Along with Trump’s picks for ambassadorships. All of these appointments have one purpose: To make the ship of state unnavigable. We hear many Washington insiders saying that institutions will hold Trump in check as they did, sometimes, after 2016. However, if these organizations are run by individuals who can’t sweep with a broom, such as Linda McMahon, then it is as effective as not having the organization at all. What Trump and his minions seem to have learned is that it is too much trouble to end departments, so just make them untenable. For all of the honorable officers in the Pentagon, it only takes a few Michael Flynn types to screw it up. I do not subscribe to the belief that we are headed the way of Russia, but I do think the people at the top of the Trump food chain are expecting to benefit financially as did Putins chosen oligarchs. Trump once said on the campaign trail that he didn’t care about his followers. He just wanted their votes. Nothing could be more true. He wants us in disarray and the easiest way to achieve this is through appointments that can’t screw in a light bulb.
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Paul, this is a brilliant analysis. In his first term, Trump tried to have a cabinet comprised of respected people (mostly). He’s abandoned that approach and wants not one thing of cabinet members: abject loyalty.
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Excellent analysis, Ginny! Trump will have a hard time getting anything through the Senate. But he can do a lot of damage by executive action.
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p.s., are you sure MSM hasn’t been emphasizing why Trump demanded extension of debt ceiling? If so, maybe they didn’t need to. Even the conservative-Rep-dominated msn news-feed commentariat I frequent was all over that. Some guessed it was about extending 2017 tax cuts, some didn’t, but they all figured it was about blowing up the budget/ national debt. The electorate is pretty cynical these days.
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If Democrats can work with sane Republicans they can derail Trump and his MAGA allies’ illusion that they have a “mandate” to dismantle our system of governance and destroy our institutions. The election was a lot closer than it appeared. In fact, some pundits maintain the difference was little more than 125,000 votes in three swing states that determined the outcome of the election.
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Respectfully, Trump’s declaration of mandate has little to do with the popular vote. His psychopathic narcism only allows him to see the “best” or the “worst” in everything. Because he has been given the keys to the kingdom once more with the added benefit of immunity and our failing system of justice, he believes he can do whatever he wants. This power of oligarchs around him and his perceived victories in the courtroom have basically resulted in a legislative branch that is no longer equal, but subservient. We just witnessed two years of what was possibly the worst legislative session in the history of our republic, yet Republicans were given power once again, now in both houses. The Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, have no idea, and many with no intention, of behaving as the opposition. The leaders in the Democratic Gerontocracy have managed to retake power within the party while their comfort with neoliberal policy remains. In other words, until the Congress determines that they matter, they won’t. Yes, we narrowly avoided another shut down, but this has been a play with many acts over the last decade. A 1500 page document, unread by most of the members, is the result. Do you really think that is going to temper Trump’s behavior? Everything is about attention and perception and none is about statute. Little legislation of import will pass while Trump signs executive orders in perpetuity. Whether any of this is enforceable as a matter of law is not the point. We will continue to have a government that serves the few while the rest of us will struggle with private and public bureaucracies to no effect. A new Democratic coalition with responsible Republicans is a fantasy. Money talks and the rest of us are forced to listen.
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PABonner– I really have to take issue with your gloomy outlook. First, and most importantly, Biden is the first Dem prez since Carter to begin nudging Dems away from the neoliberalism that Clinton jumped into with both feet. And Biden got full support from the party, despite decades of neoliberal buy-in right through Obama presidency. It took decades to get where we are, and won’t be turned around overnight, but it’s happening.
Secondly, Congress has been ceding ground to the other two branches steadily for 45 yrs. Illustrated by the 1500-pp “omnibus act” a/k/a CR—a ritual for decades now. This wasn’t created yesterday by Trump or Biden, and it will be a long way back. Frankly I am delighted by baby steps Rep party has taken, first by pushing back on a few of Trump’s floated cabinet nominations, then by rejecting his demand for immediate raise of debt ceiling. I even see the reduction of the CR from 1500pp to 100pp—proves it can be done.
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Citizens United has allowed for the operational and economic take over of an oligarchic order. That is not gloom, but reality. Yes, Biden did significant good and did begin to turn the ship away from the recent neoliberal order. However, the refusal of the old guard in the Democratic Party to step aside after handing Washington to MAGA means there is little effective opposition. I hope some Republicans grow a spine but the last four years of denial concerning Trump’s crimes gives me little hope. Yes, the current situation is grim. An administration is about to take office that has been told it basically has criminal immunity. Trump has stated that money will be no object when he begins rounding up immigrants and his plans for Tariffs can be executed from the executive office. Trump and some members of Congress have expressed significant support for Putin’s world view and that of other autocrats around the world. Trump has basically ignored any propriety in regard to his financial dealings and a parade of tech bros has gone to Mara Lago to plea fealty in exchange for tax cuts and government subsidies. However, it isn’t Trump’s malfeasance that surprises me. It is the lack of a true oppositional party and the retreat of the fourth estate that makes overcoming Trumpism difficult. My point early in this thread is that comparisons to previous checks exerted by Congress over Presidents in the past are irrelevant if Congress is unwilling to challenge the Presidents worst impulses. Do you really believe the current Senate will stop any or all of Trump’s cabinet picks? Trump will have little success in this term because he doesn’t have the organizational chops to arrange a pick up game. However, the lack of accountability and the blatant disregard for average Americans will cause profound damage that will take decades to overcome.
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PABonner– Well, we are definitely on the same page re: money in politics, and the Citizens-United decision in particular. We already had too much corporate money in politics, although it was modestly (but at least somewhat) restrained by various laws and previous SCOTUS rulings. Cit-United overturned all of some and parts of others in a broad ruling that could have been a narrow one had the court used a degree of prudence and common sense.
Wikipedia’s article includes some interesting info under “political impact.” “Critics predicted that the Citizens United ruling would ‘bring about a new era of corporate influence in politics’, allowing companies to ‘buy elections’ to promote their financial interests. Instead, large expenditures, usually through ‘Super PACS’, have come from ‘a small group of billionaires’, based largely on ideology… Super PACs spent more than $1 billion, nearly twice that of every other category of contributors combined. In 2018, over 95% of super PAC money came from the top 1% of donors.”
…and this, which feels connected to that: “According to a 2021 study, the ruling weakened political parties while strengthening single-issue advocacy groups and Super PACs funded by billionaires with pet issue.”
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Maybe Elon Musk also got a rude awakening. It just could be that some of the legislators in DC could care less what Trump and Musk think at this point. Hopefully there are a few in DC that do not what to be puppets for Trump, Musk, and Putin.
It appears the legislators that voted against Trump and Musk were more interested in taking care of the people of the United States that the wants and desires these two low lives.
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Nice reflections here. Also, to things that continue to bother me.
First, about the missing pieces in the press coverage–I don’t see the point that, not only did the Troubled Two tank the first bill, and not only did Trump seem to think that everyone in Congress would go along with the lifting of the debt ceiling that he threw in at the last minute, but one of the reasons Trump threw it in NOW was because he wanted it to look like it was Biden who lifted it. What a guy.
Second, everyone is saying that Trump “won the election” fair and square. Uhhhhh . . . wait a minute . . . everyone also knows that Trump lied his way through the entire campaign, snookering everyone who would listen to him, using Musk’s money, and having Fox “news” to magnify not only his more recent lies, but also the whole vacant idea that the prior election was stolen from him. Where did THAT go?
But all is not lost–it seems the Maga Mob may finally be getting a glimmer–as when 70+ Republican House members voted against Trump’s last-minute wishes . . . when he shxt in their living room and put the lifting of the debt ceiling (for his rich buddies) on their front porch . . . when everyone also knows that the GOP has a history of debt-ceiling ire.
Lastly . . . Maga really is a “mob” in the classical meaning of that term, as when all laws are ignored and the idiots run amok and are only capable of creating havoc across the land. We have the rule of law precisely to avoid being overcome by the reactionary extremes of a “mob mentality” that, in fact, is the LCD of American politics, as is evident in anyone who commits to work for Trump and his flunkies. CBK
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Addendum: That is, . . . while the rest of the old GOP voters are ignorant of how bad things really are.
“I’m a Republican and so I vote that way.” CBK
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The follies of the week past demonstrate the dangers posed by what the framers called “faction”, as well as its limitations. Trump placed his faith in faction, ordering House Republicans to vote in lockstep for his demands. But the genius of the Constitution is that representatives must stand for reelection every two years. And most of them like their jobs and want to keep them, no matter the demands of “party unity”. But it’s more than that: It’s Trump’s insistence that everyone agree with him or face political failure, while representatives care far more about their reelection, which they must deal with every two years, unlike the president. And it’s an object lesson in why the branches of government established by Constitution are not, and never have been, “equal”. (How this patently wrong understanding of the Constitution ever gained currency is deserving of examination and a deep debunking.)
Now we see, too, why Trump is so inept. Last time around, he was pushed to hire people who were political pros. He mostly hated them, but they to some extent kept him in line. Now he wants to ignore the reasons for appointing the facially competent staffers and officers with expertise, and demands the appointment of the ignorant and the incompetent. We are lucky that Trump is doing this because he has managed to scare the crap out of everyone.
I expect his approval rating to descend precipitously quite soon.
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jsr: “I expect his approval rating to descend precipitously quite soon.”
Some, I think, will “waken” to having been sorely used and lied to, and some won’t; however, I too think it’s “in the cards” that his approval rating will soon drop. It’s just a matter of time.
Also, from my memory of the Federalist Papers, the extremities of factions, which are always present in a dynamically open democracy, are supposed to be in a relationship with one another so that the best truths of each faction can work their way “up” while washing out the violence and stasis also embedded in each. But even there, it’ played out as a hope and not as a given. Trump, on the other hand, is a nail in the dynamism of those gears.
I do wonder at what point Trump’s minions will regroup, and if they do, how that will occur, especially with the present Project 25 organizers. Musk seems to me like a political afterthought. Also, the pictures of Trump from over the weekend are the worst I’ve ever seen–and I think optics for the unintelligent take on more importance than for others. I don’t like myself much when I find immediate joy in someone else’s apparent impending demise, but there it is, along with the similar self-embarrassment of experiencing a moment of feeling glad that someone in the health industry was shot, and right-away noticing the great but abstract irony embedded in that event. I also wondered if, had he lived, would his company have taken good care of him. CBK
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jrstheta– Interesting take. I actually see the every-two-yr House elections as more of a weakness in the system, now that we have a revenge-fueled MAGA leader threatening to primary them next time they’re up if they don’t toe the line– backed by (in many red states) an electorate willing to go to the next-right extreme if fearless leader so dictates. However I love the Senate 6-yr term with its rotation of 1/3 Senators up for reelection every 2 yrs. That means that right now we have 2/3 of the incoming Senate who cannot be “primaried” during Trump’s last lame-duck 43 years.
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“There was, in the first weeks after the election, some notion that this had changed, that we were looking at a new Trump, ready to lead a united Republican Party. But as we’ve seen over the past few days, this was premature.” Since when was there ever going to be the “notion” that we would expect a Trump pivot? When is the media every going to stop with the “changed Trump” mythology? It will never happen, and any sane voter who saw the writing on the wall knows this. Stop with the gaslighting already.
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Oakland: . . .naivete, optimism, and hope die hard . . . the scary proof that the possibility of qualified change remains, even after the reality doesn’t pan out. CBK
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