This GOP defeat suggests Trump finally has a fight on his hands

It’s premature, but so far, I think the congressional Democrats have shown some spine in the face of another government shutdown.

Let’s hope they show more. If they do not, their public reputation for wimpiness is going to balloon. And I don’t mean among Republicans and independents. I mean among their own kind. This is no time for finding a comfy spot between freedom and despotism. The Democrats must fight, even though there’s a cost, as there always is, to fighting.

Last time, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer shucked and jived about 30-day extensions, all the while scheming in the background for face-saving ways to cave. In the end, he said keeping the government open was better than closing it, as Donald Trump would then have the power to redefine “essential services” and cut them to the bone. Nine Senate Democrats acquiesced. Did they get something in return? No.

But this time at least, Schumer isn’t messing around with 30-day extensions. The House passed one last week, with one Democrat for it and two Republicans against it, but it was killed off almost immediately in the Senate by a Democratic filibuster.

If Schumer were planning to shuck and jive again, he would have gotten his caucus to vote for it — it’s called a temporary “Continuing Resolution” – while claiming party leadership is still negotiating with Trump. He didn’t, though. For now, I’ll take that as a hopeful sign.

That’s partly because there’s no one to negotiate with. GOP leaders in the House and Senate don’t want to make any moves without the president’s say so. Meanwhile, the president himself seems to believe his party doesn’t need the Democrats to keep the government open. (This assumes Trump cares, and I’m very much unconvinced that he does: “If it has to shut down, it'll have to shut down,” he said.)

That Schumer isn’t messing around (so far, at least) with a phony CR extension comes from something else — monumental upward pressure from the base of the Democratic Party to stand firm against Trump, even if doing so undermines efforts at bipartisan compromise.

Poll after poll shows Democratic voters are themselves increasingly furious with party leadership, especially with its weakness in the face of tyranny. That can be explained in the plainest of terms. Trump’s evil is no longer theoretical. It is real, and it must not be bargained with.

Schumer now thinks the situation is much different, because the president and his party are weaker than they were then.

“The BBB bill, which they have passed, is highly unpopular with the American people,” he said. “Democrats are unified. We have been strong on the same message for a very long time, which is: We need to help the American people lower their costs, particularly on health care.”

A lot of people are asking the question: what then? In exchange for keeping the government open, the Democrats want the Republicans to agree to renewing Obamacare subsidies and rolling back cuts to Medicaid. If the Republicans balk and the government closes, how will it end? Will the Senate Republicans nuke the filibuster? Then what?

How do the Democrats win the argument?

Honesty, I don’t think this question is one of politics. It’s one of punditry. It’s the kind of question you ask yourself when you think of yourself as a disinterested arbiter who stands in remove of the words used by each party, and who assesses which side “won the debate.” It’s a whole lot of fun spending your time gaming things out (trust me), but in the end, it’s still punditry, not politics. And now, it’s irrelevant.

Trump acts like the Congress doesn’t matter. (The Republicans in the Congress act like the Congress doesn’t matter. The Republicans on the Supreme Court have ruled that in some cases, the Congress really doesn’t matter.) The president has pushed his party to claw back money signed into law by previous presidents. His administration has illegally impounded hundreds of billions of dollars in congressionally approved funding, all because it’s not “consistent with his priorities.”

He has said he has the right to do whatever he wants, however he wants, to whomever he wants.

“I’m the president,” he said.

He has determined press freedoms are “really illegal.” With the Supreme Court’s blessing, he’s arresting people for the “crime” of their identity. He has ordered prosecutors to indict at least one of his enemies by declaring him “guilty as hell.” (He said there’s no “enemies list,” but more indictments are coming.) And now, he has deemed that liberal groups that criticize him are “domestic terrorist organizations.”

He said, “they are sick, radical left people, and they can’t get away with it.”

And on top of this, the Republicans control everything.

As one observer put it: “You think people are going to blame the party that controls zero branches of the government and not the guy who repeatedly says he has the power to do literally whatever he wants?”

How do you win the argument against a criminal? You don’t. Absent the power to investigate him, all the Democrats can do right now is fight, and they must fight though fighting could come at a price. Yes, the shutdown may go on indefinitely. Yes, the Senate Republicans might nuke the filibuster. Yes, a lot of bad things might happen, especially to the Democratic base pushing the leadership to fight. But guess what? A lot of bad things are already happening and they will continue to happen whether the Democrats cooperate or not.

Those who are worried about arguments fear losing and won’t fight. Those who are willing to fight know they might lose and do it anyway.