"Put on your big boy pants": Democrats rediscover a will to fight with government shutdown battle

"Put on your big boy pants": Democrats rediscover a will to fight with government shutdown battle
Democrats exploit the Elon Musk debacle to divide and demoralize Trump's coalition

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published December 23, 2024 6:00AM (EST)


(Salon) Early last week, Democrats seemed to be hitting new lows in the post-election slump. Progressives were especially demoralized by the failure to elect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. Democratic representatives instead gave the spot to a 74-year-old with esophageal cancer, Rep. Gerry Connelly, D-Va. It suggested Democrats weren't going to put up much resistance to the incoming president, Donald Trump. "Who's going to stand up to Trump if his actual opponents have embraced 'strategic silence' regarding all of his spiraling abuses?" lamented progressive pundit Brian Beutler in a newsletter headlined, "Democratic Capitulation Is Contagious." Everyone smart agreed that it was wise not to replicate the hair-on-fire-all-the-time tactics of The Resistance© for round number two of President Trump, but laying down and taking it also seemed like a poor idea.

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"Put on your big boy pants! Pass your own bill," Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., declared from the floor as the Musk bill went down in flames Thursday night. "We're only here because you guys can't agree amongst yourselves."

Friday night, hours before the government shutdown took effect, Democrats handed Musk —sorry, Trump — the first major loss of his presidency, a presidency which technically doesn't start for another month. The funding bill passed, with all the major provisions Musk tried to strip out returned. The fight left the Republican coalition divided and weakened. It also revealed that an aging, tired Trump is currently controlled by his biggest donor.

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Musk and Trump are lamely trying to blame the chaos on Democrats. This effort is doomed precisely because the two narcissists have dominated the news cycle so thoroughly that it's likely many Americans are unaware Joe Biden is still technically president. Plus, government shutdown antics are coded as "Republican" in the imagination of both voters and the media, to the point where even the tremendously powerful right-wing propaganda machine can't confuse people on this issue.

Democrats are taking full advantage, and using this to drive home a simple but important message: Trump and Republicans are puppets of predatory billionaires. The "President Musk" jokes flew fast and furious, helping reinforce the point that Trump is in this to enrich himself and his friends, at the expense of the poor souls who believed his lies that he wanted to do something about inflation. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/12/23/put-on-your-big-boy-pants-democrats-rediscover-their-will-to-fight-with-government-shutdown-battl/