(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . It's hard to spin that budget vote as anything but a solid win for Democrats [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-01 It’s frankly astounding that facing a Republican-controlled House in the third year of his Presidency, Joe Biden would be in a position to happily place his stamp of approval on a stopgap government funding bill that, as Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin put it, gives the Democrats the “vast majority” of what they want. It’s even more astonishing when you take into account that the virulent conservative opposition to any agreement on funding the government was agitated by none other than Donald Trump, whose hold on the Republican caucus is an established and undeniable fact of life. There is no mystery why Trump wanted a government shutdown. He wanted to pin it on President Biden to try to bolster his own standing by painting the president as weak and ineffective. The best way to do that is to intentionally tank the economy and there’s good reason to believe that an extended shutdown would have done just that. For Trump, who like his rabid supporters lives in a hermetically sealed feedback loop of Fox News and similar right-wing bile, the real-world consequences of a shutdown to American citizens’ actual lives was entirely immaterial, because — as always — the only thing that concerns Donald Trump is (wait for it!) Donald Trump. Instead, we got a result that a week ago, quite frankly, would have been incomprehensible. As Tyler Pager, writing for the Washington Post, explains: It was a major victory for Democrats, who had uniformly opposed previous attempts by Republicans this week to pass measures that would have dramatically cut spending. It came only after McCarthy tried repeatedly to craft legislation that would attract enough House Republicans by slashing spending, falling short despite giving in to many of the demands of his most hard-line conservative members. “We’re on the path to avoiding an extreme MAGA Republican shutdown,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said after the House passed the short-term extension. “It was a victory for the American people and a complete and total surrender by right-wing extremists who throughout the year have tried to hijack the Congress.” Of course, Ukraine aid was taken out, but there was never any real likelihood that President Biden would have received the $20 Billion in further military aid to Ukraine that he’d sought from these Republicans — whose ranks now include an unabashed pro-Putin caucus — in this multifaceted budget bill. The Ukraine aid will now — most likely — be put up in a stand-alone bill and House Republicans will have to go on a clear, unmistakable record as supporting democracy or Vladimir Putin. We’ll see how that goes for them. As Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, quoted in Pager’s article, put it, very simply: “Majorities in both parties support Ukraine aid, and doing more is vital,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the votes. Again, no one should lose sight of the fact that, despite their seemingly terminal dysfunction, the Republicans still control the House of Representatives, and for better or worse, that gives them the power of the purse: Period. Giving the rabid extremism that infects their entire caucus, it is nothing short of miraculous that Democrats and the President were able to secure this kind of a funding bill. Yes, as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell warned this week, shutdowns have never been historically beneficial for the Republicans who perpetrate them, but this is a caucus woefully deficient on historical sensibilities to begin with. They’re only about posturing for Fox News, looking for soundbites to fundraise off of their social media feeds in the right-wing multiverse. It was actually quite stunning that the stopgap budget got so many “R” votes. The fact that it did suggests that while their bomb-throwers may get all of the Fox coverage, a substantial number of Republican representatives were actually worried about the prospect of a shutdown. Whatever the impetus of those 126 Republican representatives was, the much-vaunted conservative “Freedom Caucus” basically had its ass handed to itself. Here’s one of them whining on his “X” feed (the platform formerly known as Twitter). x Every single Democrat in the House, except for one, voted for Kevin McCarthy’s ploy to continue Nancy Pelosi’s budget and Joe Biden’s policies. Are we sure Hakeem Jeffries is not the Speaker? pic.twitter.com/DAnRWeVikn — Matt Rosendale (@RepRosendale) September 30, 2023 So the Republicans blew a chance to sabotage the economy — which Trump wanted — and instead the next week (or possibly the next month) will be completely dominated by vitriolic Republican inside baseball as they point fingers at McCarthy and each other. Meanwhile the Democrats acted with near-complete unanimity. In Saturday’s vote, there was only a single Democratic “no” vote (a completely understandable one, coming from a Democratic representative, Mike Quigley, whose Illinois district encompasses a substantial number of Ukrainian-Americans) while some Democrats who initially voted “no” switched their votes to “yea” as the vote count proceeded. Here’s how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez views it: x Here’s what went down: we just won a clean 45 day gov extension, stripped GOP’s earlier 30% cuts to Social Security admin etc, staved off last minute anti-immigrant hijinks, and averted shutdown (for now). People will get paychecks and MTG threw a tantrum on the way out. Win-win — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 30, 2023 So Trump got royally screwed, Republicans come away looking totally incompetent, and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is now vowing to oust McCarthy, whose only hope for survival may be in the Democrats’ hands. That suggests a full-fledged GOP civil war that in 45 days that could very well leave the GOP House in an even weaker position, when the next government funding fiasco begins and those “swing-district” Republicans have an election even more closely breathing down their necks. AOC is right. That’s what you’d call a “win-win” for Democrats, especially in this toxic political environment. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/1/2196648/-It-s-hard-to-spin-that-budget-vote-as-anything-but-a-solid-win-for-Democrats Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/