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Ezra Klein in the pages of the NYT on why the Democrats need to Shutdown the government.
TLDR: Trump is an authoritarian.
Back in March, Democrats justified keeping the government open by saying that the courts were restraining Trump, that a shutdown would only accelerate his executive power, and that markets were already punishing his recklessness re tarrifs. But now with Trump firing dissenters, using federal agencies against political enemies, and enriching himself and his allies through foreign investments and unchecked power, Klein says that none of those arguments hold anymore. The Supreme Court is now backing Trump on key issues, DOGE’s chaotic dismantling of the bureaucracy has slowed because Trump loyalists are running it, and the markets have largely adapted to the new normal.
Maybe the markets have normalized, but we shouldn't according to Klein. Democrats are politically and morally failing by continuing to fund a government that has become an instrument of authoritarianism. He outlines how Democrats could frame a compelling message around corruption and abuse of power, citing Senator Jon Ossoff’s July speech as an example of effective messaging that ties everyday struggles (like high medical costs and housing insecurity) to elite corruption. Specific examples the firing of agency heads like those at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Defense Intelligence Agency for political reasons, targeted investigations into critics such as Senator Adam Schiff and Attorney General Tish James, the FBI’s raid on Bolton’s home, masked ICE agents now conducting raids without identification or warrants, and National Guard troops being deployed to cities LA and DC.
Remember when Joe Biden deliberately let in and imported 10 million people for no other reason than he wanted to? Yeah and the republican house just sat there and funded it all over and over.
The house did try to negotiate a "deal" and got somewhere but unfortunately Biden wouldn't budge on the "inport millions of people" part so the deal dieded.
If the democrats shut down the government without even a list of concrete demands that they want, they're going to look like absolute clowns and take all the blame. The only way to win a shutdown or win threatening a shutdown is to makde demands so reasonable and commonsense that the other party will look bad not giving in.
I'm annoyed by the "imported" framing. Biden didn't wake up one day and go out of his way to coax ten million people into coming to the US. These ten million people wanted to come, and Biden's government elected to not use violence to stop them. This is how any pro-immigration Left-winger thinks of the issue, and you are asking the wrong question at a very deep level if you wonder why they "want" to bring in millions of people. It's simply liberalism taken to its furthest extreme. These people want to come, therefore what right have we to infringe on their freedom by stopping them? How could any amount of missing paperwork justify bringing lethal force to bear against a human being? That's the impulse, and it is a fundamentally moral, compassionate one.
Let this not be mistaken for a pro-open-borders argument on my part. I obviously think America can't afford to let in literally everyone who wants in, for the same reason a private person can't afford to let all the homeless people in town crash on their couch. It's just not reasonable. But it is obvious why someone would "want" to do it - would feel a moral impetus to do it - and the "imported for no clear reason" framing obscures this, which is at once uncharitable to the decision-makers, and obscures the underlying issue of naivete which needs to be confronted head-on if anyone's minds are going to be changed.
First of all, thank you for stating clearly the view from within the pro-immigration left’s mindset; it’s one that is based on moral precepts very different from the ones we usually hear about ‘round these here parts, and it’s always good to get a periodic reminder of how the other half lives (and thinks).
Nevertheless, I want to answer the above-quoted passages in good faith, as a not-especially-pro-immigration non-leftist (though I am myself a child of immigrants).
How, indeed, could missing paperwork justify the use of lethal force? In the first place, I would argue that lethal force is seldom necessary to enforce sane immigration policy: simply patrolling the border properly—much easier nowadays with autonomous drones—and enforcing citizenship requirements for any government benefits plus employer compliance with E-Verify or similar, together with harsh penalties for violation and immediate deportation of illegal aliens, would suffice in almost all cases. Still, it is true that deportation is ultimately backed by the threat of force, up to and including lethal force should the prospective deportee resist hard enough. How is this OK? Because the alternative—that is, that we should never enforce immigration law—implicitly grants to every would-be illegal immigrant the unilateral right to nullify American law! Once we let that camel’s nose into the tent, everyone will start asking, quite reasonably, why they should be bound to abide by laws they find immoral, or even merely inconvenient, and what can we say to them? “Actually, the law is subordinate to my particular moral code”? Well, why are your morals better than mine, and by whose authority do your morals supersede the law of the land? And, more darkly, how do you propose to stop people with very different morals from using the same argument, should they ever get their hands on the reins of power? I am reminded of the famous scene from A Man For All Seasons: “Yes, I’d give the devil the benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
In short, respect for the rule of law—even when your morality disagrees with the law—is the ultimately the only way to prevent a Hobbesian war of all against all. In game theory terms, we most punish defectors, lest everyone think it’s a good idea to defect.
I would also argue that “imported for no clear reason” is the wrong framing—there is a reason, namely that Biden (or his handlers, or the Democrat activist class, or whoever else you want to blame for this decision) wanted to do so, and in particular wanted to do so out of the deeply-held moral sentiments that you have just articulated (in addition to base political considerations, of course). But even granting, charitably, that this policy was the result of well-intended moral judgments rather than mere political gamesmanship, I would say that the decision-makers here are very clearly in the wrong, and it is not at all uncharitable to say so.
The President is the chief executive of the federal government. That means his job is to carry out the law as Congress has created it (and as the judiciary has interpreted it): nothing more and nothing less. In particular, the President’s own moral scruples should play no part in how he faithfully carries out the duties of his office. I have no problem with the President using the “bully pulpit” to argue for or against this or that moral view; nor do I see any issue with an ex-President, in his personal capacity, acting according to whatever moral beliefs he may hold (see, e.g., President Carter and Habitat for Humanity); nor is there anything preventing the President from encouraging Congress to pass laws that accord with his morals. But when he is on the job, the President must hold his personal beliefs aside and execute the role that has been entrusted to him.
An analogy: would it be acceptable for the CEO of a public company to unilaterally decide to sell off all the company’s assets to raise money to give to charity? I would say no: the CEO is answerable to the shareholders, who endowed him with stewardship over their capital in the expectation that he would carefully husband the business to maximize their return on investment. The moral worth of the charity is irrelevant: if the shareholders want to, they can decide to donate to that charity with their own money—and if the CEO decides to give his bonus to the charity, or to briefly bring up the benefits of that charity at the next shareholders’ general meeting, then good for him! But in his capacity as CEO, he has but one mandate entrusted to him by the shareholders, which he is bound to carry out faithfully, personal morals notwithstanding.
Sorry, but this just doesn't do what you think it does. Even in the hands of the most scrupulous employers E-verify is hopeless.
I am 100% on the record that the Federal government should provide some accurate method for employers to verify that applicants are entitled to work (and, stretch goal, be continuously notified if that changes). That doesn't even remotely exist.
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