The Art of Losing: Why Senate Democrats Folded to Trump and Musk

This was a failure long in the making that doesn't bode well for future fights/

Friday’s episode of Pod Save America featured my anger concerning Senator Schumer’s decision to fold his cards and support a partisan funding bill that cut domestic spending, further empowered Trump, and hurt the people of Washington, DC. After watching Schumer’s floor speech and reading his New York Times Op Ed, I thought about sitting down at my computer and firing off a missive about how Democrats massively fumbled the ball. But after staring at my blank computer screen for far too long, I decided to sleep on it. As I wrote last week, shutdowns are serious business and shouldn’t be embarked upon lightly.

With the benefit of a little rest, here are some thoughts on the Democratic capitulation, how we got here, and what it means for the coming fights with Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

1. Why Did Schumer Wave the White Flag?

I like Chuck Schumer. He’s excelled as a Senate leader. He held the Democrats together when Trump was President. Without Chuck Schumer, most of Biden’s accomplishments would not have happened. Schumer brokered the deal with Joe Manchin to pass the most significant climate bill in history. I don’t always agree with his strategy and status as someone who proudly uses a flip phone to communicate worries me, but Schumer is smart. Therefore, I take him at his word for why he voted for the bill. In the New York Times, Schumer wrote:

A shutdown would give Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk permission to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now. Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have wide-ranging authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff members with no promise they would ever be rehired.

This is true. Musk and DOGE would likely be on firmer legal grounds for the duration of the shutdown. It is also true that the people who want to destroy the government are not particularly incentivized to offer concessions to reopen it. Real people and real pain follow in the wake of every government shutdown. Our soldiers and the federal workers who were not furloughed would be forced to work without wages for some time without a guarantee of back pay.

This is all true, and many Democrats agree with Schumer privately, even if they are unwilling to say so publicly. Still, this argument doesn’t account for what is already happening to the federal government or what will happen next.

2. A Terrible Negotiating Strategy

In much of the coverage, the bill that Schumer et al helped pass is portrayed as a simple six-month continuation at the funding levels agreed to on a bipartisan basis when Biden was President. But that’s not the case. This is a partisan bill larded up with sops to the MAGA house members whose votes Speaker Johnson needed for passage. For example, this bill would:

• Cuts funding for Head Start and Community Health Centers and other domestic programs while giving an additional $12 billion to the Pentagon;

• Forces the District of Columbia to immediately fire teachers and first responders by mandating an immediate $1.1 billion cut to the city's budget; and

• Removes Congress’s ability to stop Trump’s unilateral tariffs.