Congress is withering as an institution. For it to revivify, creaky old procedures have to go and legislating has to become possible. If you don’t like the imperial presidency, you should really hate the filibuster.
One of the most important things Democrats need in their next President is someone willing to work with Congress to move power from the Executive back to the Legislative Branch. That will require a Congress that can actually legislate, though, which is incompatible with present Senate rules.
The correct synthesis is that both the filibuster and the concept of the government shutdown are bad and dumb and entirely self-inflicted and we can just get rid of both of them.
Yea I kind of liked ending the debt ceiling as a thing Dems should set up a path for Rs/bipartisan support, but I think ending filibuster might be "easier"? Do think dems should take advantage of the weak trifecta and go for a longer term goal of how congress operates.
I think risk averse scenarios are based on if dems only had "been nicer" Rs would eventually have checked executive power...and well that seems slippery logic (but you can't completely discount it).
I mean I like the internal logic of "force Rs to carve out the filibuster/cloture bc dems cannot trust any funding deals due to previous actions earlier in the year" more than "remove the debt ceiling permanently and we won't use the filibuster/cloture as a blocking point on the partisan R lean House spending bill".
My take is: I agree with you that theses two features are dumb and we should get rid of them both.
My take is also: if Republicans are too stupid to do spike the filibuster and debt ceiling, Democrats might as well use these two tools to their advantage, at least given the seriousness of the emergency our policy finds itself in. Any port in a storm...
How sure are you that "Dem's current strategies aren't working"? Lots of folks feel that way, but I'm not convinced that another strategy would be "working" better, and surely there's room for them to work less well. Trump and Republicans are very unpopular. They're losing the public's trust on issues that are traditionally their strength.
"Let the opponent continue to fail" is a viable strategy, and its easy to make a case that it's working right now. So what are the specific upsides of a high variance strategy here? Unclear.
To me, it comes down to this bit:
"If Democrats really pull it together and deliver a focused, coherent message, I think they can maybe navigate this situation."
When was the last time the Democrats delivered a focused, coherent message on anything in a way that got through to the public? Why would the current amorphous leadership be expected to do so now?
1. Democrats' approval numbers are low right now because people who vote for them "don't approve" of them. Why? Because they're unpopular. Do you see that maybe this is a tail we don't need to wear ourselves out chasing?
2. People don't vote for "Democrats," because we do not have a parliamentary system, they vote for a candidate.
"turn to the right on cultural issues" the election was about immigration and inflation. Americans are generally by default live and let live about how people choose to live their lives. Democrats should come out against abortion?
Dems need enthusiasm and fundraising to win broadly in 2026 and right now they’re way down in the polls (among their own voters) and fundraising is a disaster. These are huge blinking alarm bells.
FWIW, Lakshya Jain argues this is nothing new. For example, the democrats' favorability within the party is at 73% but for comparison, the 2009 republicans were at a dismal 63%.
Following that, they won some seats in 2010 and then got wiped by Obama and the Dems. The result was increasing party dysfunction and then the party was internally couped by Trump. This is not a happy story you're telling.
How did they 'get wiped by Obama and the Dems'? The Republicans held the House from 2010 up until 2018- a very long stretch in a polarized country. And no don't tell me about gerrymandering- they won the popular vote for the House in 3 out of those 4 elections
The GOP lost about half the House gains they made in 2010 and also experienced a pretty substantial popular vote and EC loss across two sequential Presidential elections. It wasn’t a great showing. There’s a reason Trump was able to take over the party.
You made a claim about 2026. I gave Lakshya's counter-claim about 2026. Extrapolating further is hard not least because we're unlikely to have an Obama- or Trump-like figure in 2028.
I'm genuinely curious- what would "working" look like? They're the minority party. The republicans control Congress and the WH, with a sympathetic Supreme Court. I see people criticizing the Dems for not stopping republicans from doing things, but it always strikes me as akin to saying that an NBA team who has all 5 starters on injured reserve has a terrible strategy because they're losing to the Thunder. If your team is injured and the other team has all the cards to play then winning just isn't feasible no matter how brilliant your strategy is.
Having said that, I don't think the dems have been employing a brilliant strategy. They can absolutely improve their messaging. But that's about putting them in a better position to have electoral success in 2026. What I see a lot of people saying (and what I'm inferring you're arguing for here) is that the dems are failing at getting things done NOW, and I just don't understand what that would mean. What do you think a better strategy would accomplish in the moment?
The worst thing about this post is that prior to Matt's Bloomberg column, the state-of-play was that Chuck Schumer wanted to exchange Dem votes for temporary subsidy extensions. Many smart people argued that this was dumb, for a dozen reasons, but high among them the fact that [as Matt has suddenly noticed in this post] negotiating with a President who rejects Congress's control of the purse is stupid. So Matt's column was essentially a no-op supporting a bad status quo, and even Matt agrees that it's a flawed take.
Now we're here, days later in Matt's (presumably less-read) Substack and he's suddenly agreeing that the compromise is stupid. But instead of phrasing this as a proper mea culpa and offering better advice, we get a civics lecture on ending the filibuster. (And I agree! We should get rid of the filibuster.) But Matt has said this for years; it's an old take we all agree with. I'd like to see Matt offer some contemporary takes on today's politics that he can stand behind for more than three days.
Yes, seeing this as a way of ending the filibuster is answering the wrong question. The Democrats can't control that; only the Republicans can. Will the Republicans end the filibuster if the Democrats shut down the government? Maybe, but what gives us reason to think that would happen? Which party suffers more from a shutdown?
Someone else's idea I saw was state dems will now have an intention to change senate rules in the future to align with a simple majority (for budget/spending/tax matters) and won't vote for the bill but let the vote happen.
I can see some value in "should dems be prepared to (not) say the filibuster is useful again because of their particular circumstances" (future hypothetical).
I disagree - the administration's main political strategy is to dominate attention and fire up partisan feelings by provoking high-profile fights. Without a hot partisan controversy, its support withers away as there is spare attention available to notice its corrupt and incompetent governance. Providing a big partisan battle - from a very weak position! - is helpful to the administration and should be avoided.
The Financial Times had a column more or less to this effect some days ago, generally that Trump is successfully baiting the Democrats into "resistance" on all fronts - i.e. to fight battles on his picked terrain.
This rather reminds me of war anology to emotional appeals that one Must Do X in battle against a hated enemy -which leads generally to failed offensives, wasted effort / lives and nothing gained, only your own forces weakened.
Being hot headed and charging at the red flags that Trump waives is playing into his hands, fighting on his preferred ground and terms.
If one is not Cosplaying then in real serious terms, "resistance" isn't blindly battling everything and bleeding away limited resources (and confirming weakness) but picking strategic attacks on terrain most favorable to you / least favorable to the enemy.
Shut down is nothing more than emotionalism, one "Must" do a Pickett's charge to show the enemy how angry we are! No matter that every prior shut-down action was the equivalent charging into prepared cannonfire and a failure. No one must show one's Fighting Spirit!!!!
Perish the thought of working in a real resistance terms with a full understanding of one's weakness - and so not charging into a prepared terrain, but sniping and sabotaing and setting up exchanges that weakend the enemy on ground favorable to you (EG Inflation - I mean look at the disaster for farmer's that Trump has set up: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/business/china-us-soybeans-farming.html - pivot on the cultural and talk markets, inflation
The thing is, "his picked terrain" is still extremely unpopular for him, and there's a good argument to be made that when your opponent shows you an opening on their strongest issue, you take advantage of it.
My point is just that he's not picking fights on topics where he's above water -- his immigration stuff is very unpopular and gets more so the more light you shine on it. Occupying cities is very unpopular.
Whether there's a winnable fight there is an open question, but none of these fights are really on "his turf".
Very unpopular is Inflation (-31% net), Trade (-17odd), Economy (-16odd).
Immigration. -4... And you want to fight on the part he's holding up best on. .... Democrats really are shit generals.
This is the very picture of getting sucked and suckered into fighting on the terrain the opposing general wants to fight on by getting the other side blinded by its' own excitement and blind eagerness to Do something & fight.
Occupying citeis is ... unpopular with people who already hate him and says FuckAll about wider USA popularity. *and for clarity none of this do I think is good and supportable, but I don't fool myself into thinking non-urban-non-Democrat America actually gives a real fuck about this.
There is no open question about "winnable fight" over shut-down where the entire history of shut-downs is the shutting party gets blamed every goddamn time and the Democrats are already more underwater than goddamn Trump for fuck's sake.
You people whole focus tells me you still have not learned the lesson of focusing on Not You to win over.
It depends what you think the stakes are. If you interpret the political situation as a standard Democrat vs Republican fight, then increase the variance. But if you think that Trump is a wannabe fascist and our democracy is at risk, then it would be better to lower the variance.
I think the underlying assumption is that the Dem's current trajectory "isn't working."
The problem is that they're currently favored to win the House but lose the Senate in 2026, and have two Governor's Mansions within reach this year.
Is it worth jeopardizing House control for a slim shot at Senate control? I would actually think so because of the oversized importance of the Senate on changing the judiciary. But I could see an argument where gaining any levers of power is more important than going for the top one.
I've always said that the filibuster will end when one party has 50 or more but less than 60 votes to do something they really want to get passed. Is this that moment? I have no clue. Is it good for Democrats to force Republicans to end the filibuster at this moment? I also have no clue. But Matt is correct that all of this has always been dumb. And if Democrats do dare Republicans to either end the filibuster or shut down the government, they need to be able to fight any and all Murc's Law thinking: “the widespread assumption that only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics”. As Matt says, the GOP has all the power, if they want to pass a bad bill, or shut down the government, that's entirely in their power to do so.
The main reason that Republicans are viable as a party is because their worst policies have either been blocked by Democrats or because the electorate doesn't realize that Republicans are responsible for them (or even wrongly assign the blame to Democrats). Filibuster plays an important role here. We need clean accountability. Make it as easy as possible for a deeply ignorant and irresponsible electorate to connect the threads.
That’s a good counter argument. I’m not sure tax cuts are so unpopular and Dems are really bad at attacking Republicans on healthcare. It may also be too early to see the effects of the healthcare policies.
Sans filibuster we'd actually find out the revealed preferences of the electorate. Plenty of policies sound good on paper, but is unpopular in practice (recent example, TikTok ban).
You could make the argument that the GOP exploits that gap because they have the messaging advantage: crime is bad, illegal immigration is bad, taxes are bad, etc. But the inflation, exploding debt, cuts to Medicaid and rapidly expanding police state created by enacting those policies is already broadly unpopular.
I don't think so. Most of Trump's policies have little support, some of them extremely low. On the issues where he has better ratings most people thinks he goes too far, according to the polls. The problem is that the Dems refuse to moderate (for real, not just paying lip service) on issues such as immigration, crime, gun rights and trans issues. Dems need to capture the center, including the center-right.
Even in 2010, most only objected to the style, not the substance. They pretty much all voted to repeal the ACA, after all. Voted for Gorsuch. Completely supported the agenda.
My comment was that Republican policies are unpopular in the general electorate and that the filibuster saves them from accountability and you answered my comment with a "Republican policies are popular among Republicans".
Ehh... It's tricky. If Republicans actually followed through with all the crazy shit Trump SAYS, the economy would blow up. But Trump never actually does that. The closest he got was Liberation Week, and he reneged as soon as he realized it was tanking the stock market. If he passes a dumb policy that's a slow burn (like the tariffs we still do have) he won't respond.
As for right now, the formula is
1. Say a bunch of crazy shit
2. Do some of it
3. Back off on the stuff that has an obvious negative response
I'm in favor of ending the filibuster, but would it change the Senate's median passed legislation all that much? From Yglesias in this post:
"Democrats, too, spent all that time paralyzed over filibustering not really because of Senate procedure, but because members were relying on the filibuster to paper over disagreements on the merits."
This suggests if Manchin and Sinema got rid of the filibuster, median expected legislation would not have moved left from the status quo. On another note, it seems to me the main thing Republicans are aiming for is Senate Democrats to replace Schumer with someone who is perceived much more left-wing by voters.
Yglesias kind of sidesteps the Schumer question, but its elevation was a clear outcome of the dodged potential shutdown fight this Spring. Should Schumer have actually fought last Spring? If he's right about the filibuster being worth Dem ownership of a shutdown, why was that not the case last Spring too?
I think Matt is wrong here. The Dems have moved a lot of legislation in the past that died because of the filibuster. A favorite example of mine is the 2009 American Clean Energy and Security Act (enacting cap and trade for carbon pricing), which got through the House and died in an R filibuster despite a large Senate majority. You can make the argument that Dems were secretly happy about this, but I think it's more likely that they went to all the political trouble *because they really thought it could and should pass*. We talk about Manchin and Sinema so much only because the Dems majorities have been so small recently.
(And in any case, a policy the enables Dem cowardice is a bad policy. Make them face the voters and do stuff without political cover from the filibuster.)
I think this is a legitimate unknown because a great deal of legislation passes the House and goes to a vote in the Senate with the knowledge that the filibuster will kill it. How much would actually have made it passed without the filibuster is an interesting question.
If Manchin and Sinema got rid of the filibuster, we wouldn’t have been packaging everything into a single omnibus bill that needs 50 votes - instead, we could have divided it into a dozen separate bills, several of which would have gotten 50 votes.
Yeah, progressives hate Manchin for merely existing as a Democratic senator from WV. Do they believe that Patty Murray and Kirsten Gillibrand will vote to liquidate health insurance companies? Or that John Hickenlooper will vote to end all oil and gas drilling?
Indeed. Here's what Chris Pope noted in 2020 when the filibuster was in the news:
"The filibuster already has enough loopholes to let Democrats achieve their near-term policy objectives. Biden’s health-care plan, which mostly involves expanding Obamacare spending and establishing a public option, could be enacted under the budget reconciliation process. The most important barrier to the enactment of such ambitious policy goals is not the filibuster but fiscal constraints. Indeed, congressional Democrats may value the filibuster in part precisely because it absolves them of the painful task of explaining to their electoral base that their policy preferences are simply unaffordable."
I'm sure it's changed at this point, but the reason Trump won is that Democrats were underwater on every major issue but health care. Trump and the GoP are, therefore, viable mainly thanks to Dem weakness.
Republicans might be hiding behind the filibuster to paper over some of the nonsense from the House. The legislatures are probably going to be more risk adverse than the nihilists running the party.
The nonsense from the House seems like it's supported by the current party leadership, and the (relative) Senate R moderation won't be a long-term feature of the political environment.
It *has* always been dumb but to make this the centerpieces of Dem resistance at this point in time also seems *extremely* dumb and not a little tin eared to me.
Right now the Dems need to demonstrate to someone that they have the political strength to pick fights. This is critical for their approval rating, fundraising, and also to signal to outside parties (think Universities, law firms, media orgs) that there is a future that contains energized Democrats who can pick the fights necessary to undo some of what's happening. The current leadership has been consistently signaling that they cannot, and do not fight. Would you take political risks standing up to Donald Trump if you saw this leadership as the best-possible case for a Dem comeback?
Sometimes you need to stand up and get some licks in, even if you know you're probably going to lose the fight. Otherwise your actions are entirely defined by the threat. There's no point in having leadership that views the choice as [enact republican policy goals] vs. [guaranteed win] because then you're just enacting GOP policy goals.
The GOP's biggest liability right now isn't political: it's the weakening economy. A government shutdown might not make things worse, but they know it isn't going to improve things for them. They'll crow about how great the shutdown is, and how it only makes them stronger, but vulnerable Rs aren't going to mean it.
This is a case where you need to game out the entire scenario. Starting a fight feels good; losing said fight might feel a lot worse.
There really aren't good options here, and won't be until the Democrats get some real power (like winning the House, if not the Senate).
So my unhappy compromise (offered elsewhere in comments today) is to make it look like Schumer is forcing an angry recalcitrant caucus to swallow a bill and then be the scapegoat and resign as Minority Leader, opening the way for new leadership. Focus all our anger on him, and not the party as a whole. A sure thing? No, but I don't see any sure things.
Love it. Except I promise you that "falling on our sword and resigning from leadership" is not the route that leadership is going to take, so what then?
I wish. The GOP doesn't have all the power under the filibuster rules because the Democrats have the deciding vote. They determine what gets passed or if there is an open-ended shutdown.
Can they make the Republicans feel so much pain from a shutdown that they either give in or end the filibuster? Republicans will be happy to sit back and watch the country burn. In the immortal words of Ramsey Snow/Bolten: "If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."
Most Americans don't know what the filibuster is but do know that Trump is doing whatever he wants, regardless of Congress. My prediction: if the government shuts down, people will blame Trump. Dems have nothing to lose.
The simplest message is “We had an agreement, Trump then didn’t honor it. We had bipartisan funding for these programs and Trump decided not to honor it.”
Or simply “Trump’s a dealbreaker not a dealmaker.”
There will be a negative PR cycle for whoever kills the filibuster. Both sides exploit the stupid rule and outsource legislation to the executive branch. On net I think Democrats benefit because it makes Republican governance and control of the current situation more clear.
By making Republicans kill it to end the shutdown. That’s if Republicans opt to. Otherwise you get some concessions and avoid a shutdown. The issue is Trump has used impoundment to not honor previous concessions.
MattY’s substack subscribers. I just don’t think Democrats should be bailing Republicans out from messes of their own creation. Especially when Republicans are doing bad things and don’t abide any concessions they previously made for votes.
Generally though, Democrats need something short. “Republicans are offering Americans nothing as the economy worsens and they demand we give them a blank check for Trump’s crimes.”
This 'stack is dedicated to teaching the politics of responsibility instead of the politics of conviction: less expression for expression's sake, more message discipline; less performative stance-taking, more calculating the consequences.
But if you have given the consequences a thorough interrogation, and no clear answer emerges, then the politics of responsibility offers no guidance on this question.
If you have, in addition, considered the consequences of acting on pure convictions, and even after a proper Weber grilling there is still a tie, then it seems to me time to act on conviction.
Sometimes, gaming it out only goes so far. When it yields no answer, do what expresses your own side's deepest convictions. You risk going down in flames, but the risk is inscrutable in this case. Better to go down saying what you believe, then to go down being too clever by half.
Whether Trump gets to keep impounding Democrats’ priorities or he gets to designate them as nonessential, the outcome will be negative for them. Why not get caught trying? Are we worried we’re going to be unable to explain impoundment to the country?
We won’t be able to explain impoundment because no one will even know it’s happening. All they will see is Trump governing unopposed, and doing what he wants. Anyone who will see Trump stealing congressional appropriation is already convinced that Trump is a double-crossing liar and will wonder why you didn’t realize that too when you agreed on a deal with him.
I'm having trouble getting past the absurdity of the idea the GOP would vote on an enabling act and then let it fail because of the filibuster. Come on guys. The idea that Dems should vote to fund our descent into authoritarian rule without a fight is ridiculous.
The main problem with the filibuster is that it makes it unclear to the deeply ignorant electorate which party is actually in power and responsible for what. Which in turn makes it more difficult than it already is (considering how willfully ignorant and irresponsible they are) to evaluate and properly reward and punish the parties in the next election.
People are like toddlers when it comes to politics and need every help they can get to vote in a somewhat rational and coherent fashion.
I push elitism hard because it's one of the most ignored truths about the world currently (it's depressing and out of sync with egalitarian myths). Truth is important, both in its own right, and to form a strategy for winning elections.
"On the other hand, I’m deeply sympathetic to any senator who looks me in the eye and says, “I don’t want to vote for a temporary budget that just keeps current spending levels in place that the president then violates at will.”
That should be the ballgame right there. Dems should be shouting from the rafters that a GOP budget, coupled with the OBBBA, will continue to kneecap our fiscal standing. Higher inflation, rising bond yields, faster compounding debt, putting the squeeze on millions of American via sunsetting of Medicaid subsidies. The list goes on. Trump was mainly elected on ending inflation and now we're headed back in the wrong direction on that front. I like the notion of negotiating in good faith to restore ACA subsidies but I also feel strongly that Dems should attack the GOP where they are vulnerable, and that is weakening our financial house through endless tax cuts.
"Shout from the rooftops" + "Packed to the rafters" = "Shout from the rafters"?
One difficulty is that a rafter is generally not visible on the outside, when you're on the roof. A second difficulty is that rafters are for sloping roofs so unless what needs to be shouted is very short one would have a hard time doing it from a pitched roof. Better to do it from flat rooftops.
But I think the problem is voters. The number of voters that wants cuts to entitlements AND higher taxes has to be under 10% And definitely not over 20%
Even though realistically that's the only way forward.
Despite generally being of the bleeding heart give people entitlements sort I've come to the conclusion that we can't keep on printing money forever. The sooner (and gentler!) we raise taxes and cut entitlements the less painful it will be.
Senators can allow a bill to come to a vote and the vote no. that's a viable option too. The idea that one must filibuster everything they don't agree with needs to end too.
If you do that, you're not actually fighting the thing you disagree with to the best of your ability. If you know you have the ability to stop the bad thing from happening, and you choose to refuse to do it, you really don't disagree with it.
there needs to be a category of things that we disagree with that doesn't rise to the level of requiring a filibuster. sure. you can literally filibuster everything. But this is a repeat game, and there are consequences to that. we are living in them. Once in this nash equilibrium, it's hard to get out, but another one exists in a repeat player scenario. And politicians need to be able to tell their interest groups 'no' sometimes--including when to filibuster and when not to.
I mean, what integrity is there in 'i disagree with this but i want it to succeed so i won't stop it'? Why elect an opposition politician who's not going to oppose?
"our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" (jurrasic park). I think there needs to be a set of things that we wouldn't vote for ourselves but don't rise to the level of invoking the filibuster and stopping the functioning of government. It's not an integrity issue. It's humility and maturity in my view that not every issue is worth a fight. For this reason, I disagree with filibustering and delaying most/all executive positions--the president should get to fill the branch with people he wants to execute his constitutional duties--unless there is a justifiably high standard/bar that gets met.
you elect the opposition politician because they vote for good things and don't vote for bad things. Again, they aren't voting for it, merely letting it the vote go through. If the idea is you aren't always doing 100% of the things you can do to stop something you don't like, it can take you too a really dark logical conclusion.
it's fine. we disagree. but i think the world i'm advocating for is better than the one we currently live in. The biggest issue is getting out of the equilbrium we're in now, but that's the job of boring holes into hard boards or whatever quote matt uses.
I do understand it, this viewpoint- that we should keep the power in place but only use it responsibly, but i think the purpose of rules in government is to enforce responsibility, rather than simply placing our faith in people to be responsible. Which is why i think you have to take away the filibuster entirely rather than just trust people not to be irresponsible with it. If a system only works if everyone involved is responsible, the system doesn't really work.
I'd almost agree with this idea of the filibuster if you could suddenly mind control the entirety of the senate and get some kind of really publically available idea of what's in and out of bounds, but humans are incredibly fallible.
You're absolutely right about the dark conclusion, but i don't really think the filibuster is out of bounds as a normal opposition tactic, given the rules.
But you can't stop the bad thing from happening. Shut down the government and then what, the government doesn't actually shut down. Especially with Trump a shut down will first immediately result in an even greater power grab. Play it all the way out to the end and the Republicans end the filibuster, and you still haven't stopped the bad thing from happening. There is maybe some small bit that dems can squeeze here, but largely not.
Cowen advertising a book on his blog on how italy dedcended into fascism and how it came out of it. I've only read the first part and it is quite good so far... ''don't count on venerable institutions to save you, they will act to preserve influence" seems like a recurring theme that checks out so far. Also, cowen sometimes seems to go to amusing lengths to keep his criticism circumspect, such as citing a Yglessias article more than a year old to make an argument against tariffs. "Here is a book you should read", and "the sound of music was so good, watch it again if you can" are part of the same theme.
The reason Hitler came to power is that most of the other parties including liberal and moderate ones ended up backing the Enabling Act. Hitler got a large majority to support them creating an air of legitimacy. If Weimar parties had maintained a firewall it never would’ve happened. Even something passed narrowly by the Nazi Party only would’ve never had the level of legitimacy that let Hitler become a dictator. The lesson is that there should never be collaboration with the far-right: even a paralyzed Weimar is far superior to what came after.
Ultimately the only check on Hitler was that Germany was not powerful enough to fight all the world’s other major countries at the same time. But there isn’t even that check on US fascism. The whole world is in for a dark future if Democrats act like the German Center Party.
That’s true, and an Important lesson for people on the left today. But it’s also notable that by the time of the Enabling Acts they were already banned and underground—if the mainstream parties hadn’t assented to banning the communists, they probably would’ve voted with the social democrats against the Nazis in the end (not that they would’ve had enough votes even with SPD support).
This ties in with Grigori's nod to Tyler Cowen and how institutions act to protect their parochial interests. The Enabling Act got its two-third majority when the Catholic Centre Party gave it the deciding votes, in Wikipedia's words, by agreeing "to support the law in exchange for assurances of [the] party's continued existence, the protection of Catholic civil liberties and Catholic schools, and the retention of civil servants affiliated with the party."
The current Democratic party would absolutely back the enabling act. Ezra Klein would write a long NYT column explaining why it was the only way forward.
I assume what you intended here was that I would give you a laundry list of some recent and cowardly Dem legislative roll-overs. Then you'd chide me for comparing the stakes of those fights to something as weighty as the Enabling Act.
The 2002 AUMF was certainly no Enabling Act, but it did actually have some very real stakes. The question now is: are you arguing that the Congressional Dems of 2025 possess political bravery substantially in excess of the Congressional Dems of 2002? Because I'd dispute that (and let's be honest, you don't believe it either.) Or are we just pointing out that they haven't yet encountered a similarly high-stakes vote? (I suspect they may in the future, and the way to prepare for it is to develop and exercise a set of political instincts they currently do not have.)
There's a reason Zentrum had to change its name and re-form as the CDU under the only major Zentrum figure that opposed the 1929-30 rule by decree 'coup'. The SPD came out of the situation clean.
The German SPD was right about Hitler and right about the Communists and right about containment and detente. They had a good track record in the 20th century compared to the other parties.
I took a course in undergrad about regime change with focus on how regimes change into authoritarian. This was in 2015, so pre-the-current-moment. I actually wrote my final paper about Italy and the conclusion I came to after reading that literature was that Italy did not really have very venerable institutions -- unified Italy was like 70 years old, the monarchy was weak and the idea of democracy was even weaker at the time Mussolini took over. The institutions were young and weak, and not unexpectedly so, as Italy had only really been a liberal democracy with decent suffrage for ~20 years (or less? I forget -- I should read this book!). In that regard, there is a notable difference with the US. Hopefully our institutions will not prove so weak.
All evidence is that our institutions are that weak... Corporate America, Big Law, the Universities, Congress, etc have been mostly treating him as a dictator since day one. They in effect have created his dictatorship; there's no law that makes it so.
Pre-January I was significantly more optimistic though not to the degree someone like Hannania was.
“I’m concerned that we would be plunging the country even deeper into a weird “state of exception” with no endgame.”
Who’s “we,” kemosabe?
If “we” means Slow Borers and the politicians most of us here vote for, then “we” aren’t plunging the country into anything. There’s one side that is willing to set everything on fire. AND that has power, and it ain’t us. Let’s at least keep that straight in our own minds as a precondition of convincing others.
I'm old enough to remember when the big problem with the filibuster was that the GOP was filibustering everything in an effort to hamstring the Democratic majority. Now we have a filibuster with so many exceptions that it's only functional purpose is messaging. "We blocked the bad things the other people want to do"; or "We couldn't do the thing you wanted because the bad people on the other side blocked it."
Without the filibusterer:
All the mundane stuff no one cares about still passes
All the bills that passed with >60 votes would still have passed (IRA, Chips & Science Act, First Step Act, Safer Communities Act, etc.)
Everything that can't be filibustered would still have happened: Judicial nominees, "budget reconciliation"
These would have passed: Supplemental Zika Virus Funding, Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 2200), Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123), Feinstein / Murhpy / Cornyn / Grassley gun control amendments
Fretting over the loss of the filibuster is just an exercise in FOD. Ending it is just putting down Old Yeller and seeing how much Young Yeller is like is dad.
I've been saying for a while that Ezra Klein really has disappointed me that he hasn't continued his anti-filibuster message. Around 2020-2021, that was a central message of his work, which focused on bolstering democratic processes. It would have been so much stronger of a message if he revisited this recently when Republicans are in power. If he had, he would have shown some ideological consistency. Instead, it comes across as just scheming for partisan advantage. EK's shift to focusing on abundance, AI, and Israel-Palestine is fine, but it's a real lost opportunity to abandon his focus on democratic process when its less politically convenient to do so.
So, I really appreciate MY coming out against the filibuster at a time when there's no partisan advantage for him to advocate for such a position. Highlighting that filibustering is distorting and that these shutdown fights are stupid and structurally set up for failure is the right call.
Voters should get the government they vote for. If they want bipartisanship, they should vote for a divided government. If they instead elect a Republican trifecta, they should get Republican policy. If they didn't want Republicans to have free rein, why did they vote for it?
If voters want normal moderate politicians, they should vote for them. If they vote for radical partisans instead, they should get a radically partisan government.
The problem with this argument is that voters are frequently voting on how the economy is doing, the price of gas, vibes, etc. They're not carefully parsing policy positions. A government in power can get so much more done than a voter can reasonably keep track of, even an informed one. TLDR, vote for one party because you're mad about the price of gas, get unexpected radically partisan government instead.
That's not even getting into, a party can simply lie about what their positions are going to be. Or, circumstances can radically change (Dubya ran against 'nation building' in 2000, etc.)
I think the Founding Fathers did sort of have the right idea with- professional politicians should check each other. Not, that we should expect the public to pay that much attention and line item veto out the stuff that they don't like about a party
" I don't think we can have a constrained presidency and a filibuster at the same time."
I don't see why they are mutually exclusive. But I do agree that I don't see major changes coming. SCOTUS has pushed back a bit but not as much as I would like so far.
Hopefully they will strike down the tariffs, that would be a good first step
1. 60 votes to clear the filibuster is too much. 55 would be a more reasonable barrier
2. I don't understand why we need a filibuster when we have divided government, which happens I think over 60% of the time now. It's like you're double counting- you already don't have free reign when the two houses are run by opposite parties, so why do you need a filibuster on top of that?
I'd like to maintain a 55 seat filibuster for unified government only
I was pretty sympathetic to calls to get rid of the filibuster, but after seeing Yuval Levin’s arguments about the dysfunction of Congress, I am more hesitant. He argues that for most of our history, we had a strong congress that fought a lot with the executive branch for control. Then, Newt Gingrich in the 1990s centralized most control in the speakership to keep his party unified against Clinton, but this fundamentally disempowered committees where most bipartisan deal-making actually happened. This trend just continued with each successive Speaker since and now in the 21st century. This results in a process where neither party is really trying to build a 60%+ coalition, they’re fine with being just 51% because then they get the speakership and either passes stuff or plays opposition party role.
I think he would argue that stronger committees and supermajority rules are actually processes that help push the parties to expand. Matt Yglesias has constantly written about how depressed he is that Democrats just don’t even seem interested in finding a coalition that could support 60 senate seats, and I think Yuval Levin would say that is because we have degraded the Legislative institutions that are supposed to form elected officials into dealmakers. With a centralized congressional leadership and 51% rule, official’s only incentive or role is to be a pundit on cable news or social media. With decentralizing congressional power to committees allow different electeds experiment with different coalitions in various committees which sets the ground work for either GOP or Dem 60 seat majority in 10-15 years. It also finally gives electeds actual jobs instead of just being commentators.
I think of this more as a client than as an armchair strategist. I don't know what Schumer can possibly get with the filibuster card. I doubt Yglesias or any of the activated partisans do, either. That's supposed to be Schumer's job: to get what he can with the cards he's dealt. I suspect it's more than nothing. As a Democratic voter, if he comes back with nothing like last time I'm going to continue writing $0 checks to the DNC, DSCC, etc., write that he should be replaced, etc.
Congress is withering as an institution. For it to revivify, creaky old procedures have to go and legislating has to become possible. If you don’t like the imperial presidency, you should really hate the filibuster.
One of the most important things Democrats need in their next President is someone willing to work with Congress to move power from the Executive back to the Legislative Branch. That will require a Congress that can actually legislate, though, which is incompatible with present Senate rules.
I think running on this and limited fiscal hawkishness (do simple stuff on SS, etc) could appeal to a pretty wide demographic.
I really doubt this will be atop Democratic priorities if they retake power, especially when the senate is the weakest link for them.
The correct synthesis is that both the filibuster and the concept of the government shutdown are bad and dumb and entirely self-inflicted and we can just get rid of both of them.
Yea I kind of liked ending the debt ceiling as a thing Dems should set up a path for Rs/bipartisan support, but I think ending filibuster might be "easier"? Do think dems should take advantage of the weak trifecta and go for a longer term goal of how congress operates.
I think risk averse scenarios are based on if dems only had "been nicer" Rs would eventually have checked executive power...and well that seems slippery logic (but you can't completely discount it).
Actually.... the debt ceiling as a Trump agenda item... that's playing some judo, working one of their internal splits. That would be quite clever.
I mean I like the internal logic of "force Rs to carve out the filibuster/cloture bc dems cannot trust any funding deals due to previous actions earlier in the year" more than "remove the debt ceiling permanently and we won't use the filibuster/cloture as a blocking point on the partisan R lean House spending bill".
Issue w the filibuster/cloture stance is, does a deal make sense and how and when...
When the bigger fight over an authoritarian takeover is finished, yeah.
The filibuster is immaterial when the President just ignores the law anyway.
What "bigger fight" ? - eggheadism like fight over authoritarianism are not going to win elections.
Showing value and addressing popular concerns on pocketbook issues will. Winning elections are sine qua non for actual real action to restabilize.
K hon
Welcome "hon" you can rerun Biden-Harris 2024 for failure of course.
K hon
We didn't run Biden-Harris, unfortunately. We decided to waste the entire summer having a meltdown and then doing zero introspection about it instead.
No you ran.... ( Biden) Harris-Walz and slightly mitigated your self-generated disaster from Biden.
Had you run Biden-Harris Trump would have not simply defeated you but utterly crushed you.
My take is: I agree with you that theses two features are dumb and we should get rid of them both.
My take is also: if Republicans are too stupid to do spike the filibuster and debt ceiling, Democrats might as well use these two tools to their advantage, at least given the seriousness of the emergency our policy finds itself in. Any port in a storm...
If nothing else, having the fight is a higher variance play at a moment when Dems’ current strategies aren’t working.
How sure are you that "Dem's current strategies aren't working"? Lots of folks feel that way, but I'm not convinced that another strategy would be "working" better, and surely there's room for them to work less well. Trump and Republicans are very unpopular. They're losing the public's trust on issues that are traditionally their strength.
"Let the opponent continue to fail" is a viable strategy, and its easy to make a case that it's working right now. So what are the specific upsides of a high variance strategy here? Unclear.
To me, it comes down to this bit:
"If Democrats really pull it together and deliver a focused, coherent message, I think they can maybe navigate this situation."
When was the last time the Democrats delivered a focused, coherent message on anything in a way that got through to the public? Why would the current amorphous leadership be expected to do so now?
Trump is unpopular
Democrats are even more unpopular
The strategy that will work best is a large nationwide turn to the right on cultural issue
Combined with actual efficient government in blue states and cities
Sure, fine. The question of the day, though, is shutdown or no shutdown.
Oh, and find a really charismatic candidate for the presidency.
"... find a really charismatic candidate for the presidency."
Well, Marc -- a nation turns its lonely eyes to you!
A 71 year old liberal from Los Angeles. It's crazy . . . but maybe just crazy enough to work!
And I know just which treadmill to pick as my VP.
If nominated, I will not run; if elected I will not serve.
And in any case, I withdraw my endorsement:
At 71 years of age, you are far too young for a position of this importance.
"Democrats are even more unpopular"
The good things about this -
1. Democrats' approval numbers are low right now because people who vote for them "don't approve" of them. Why? Because they're unpopular. Do you see that maybe this is a tail we don't need to wear ourselves out chasing?
2. People don't vote for "Democrats," because we do not have a parliamentary system, they vote for a candidate.
"turn to the right on cultural issues" the election was about immigration and inflation. Americans are generally by default live and let live about how people choose to live their lives. Democrats should come out against abortion?
Abortion is the one cultural issue where Dems seem to have an advantage.
Immigration, crime, DEI, trans all seem to lean Republican
Dems need enthusiasm and fundraising to win broadly in 2026 and right now they’re way down in the polls (among their own voters) and fundraising is a disaster. These are huge blinking alarm bells.
FWIW, Lakshya Jain argues this is nothing new. For example, the democrats' favorability within the party is at 73% but for comparison, the 2009 republicans were at a dismal 63%.
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/democrats-look-screwed-for-2026-theyre
Following that, they won some seats in 2010 and then got wiped by Obama and the Dems. The result was increasing party dysfunction and then the party was internally couped by Trump. This is not a happy story you're telling.
How did they 'get wiped by Obama and the Dems'? The Republicans held the House from 2010 up until 2018- a very long stretch in a polarized country. And no don't tell me about gerrymandering- they won the popular vote for the House in 3 out of those 4 elections
The GOP lost about half the House gains they made in 2010 and also experienced a pretty substantial popular vote and EC loss across two sequential Presidential elections. It wasn’t a great showing. There’s a reason Trump was able to take over the party.
You made a claim about 2026. I gave Lakshya's counter-claim about 2026. Extrapolating further is hard not least because we're unlikely to have an Obama- or Trump-like figure in 2028.
I'm genuinely curious- what would "working" look like? They're the minority party. The republicans control Congress and the WH, with a sympathetic Supreme Court. I see people criticizing the Dems for not stopping republicans from doing things, but it always strikes me as akin to saying that an NBA team who has all 5 starters on injured reserve has a terrible strategy because they're losing to the Thunder. If your team is injured and the other team has all the cards to play then winning just isn't feasible no matter how brilliant your strategy is.
Having said that, I don't think the dems have been employing a brilliant strategy. They can absolutely improve their messaging. But that's about putting them in a better position to have electoral success in 2026. What I see a lot of people saying (and what I'm inferring you're arguing for here) is that the dems are failing at getting things done NOW, and I just don't understand what that would mean. What do you think a better strategy would accomplish in the moment?
The worst thing about this post is that prior to Matt's Bloomberg column, the state-of-play was that Chuck Schumer wanted to exchange Dem votes for temporary subsidy extensions. Many smart people argued that this was dumb, for a dozen reasons, but high among them the fact that [as Matt has suddenly noticed in this post] negotiating with a President who rejects Congress's control of the purse is stupid. So Matt's column was essentially a no-op supporting a bad status quo, and even Matt agrees that it's a flawed take.
Now we're here, days later in Matt's (presumably less-read) Substack and he's suddenly agreeing that the compromise is stupid. But instead of phrasing this as a proper mea culpa and offering better advice, we get a civics lecture on ending the filibuster. (And I agree! We should get rid of the filibuster.) But Matt has said this for years; it's an old take we all agree with. I'd like to see Matt offer some contemporary takes on today's politics that he can stand behind for more than three days.
Yes, seeing this as a way of ending the filibuster is answering the wrong question. The Democrats can't control that; only the Republicans can. Will the Republicans end the filibuster if the Democrats shut down the government? Maybe, but what gives us reason to think that would happen? Which party suffers more from a shutdown?
Someone else's idea I saw was state dems will now have an intention to change senate rules in the future to align with a simple majority (for budget/spending/tax matters) and won't vote for the bill but let the vote happen.
I can see some value in "should dems be prepared to (not) say the filibuster is useful again because of their particular circumstances" (future hypothetical).
I disagree - the administration's main political strategy is to dominate attention and fire up partisan feelings by provoking high-profile fights. Without a hot partisan controversy, its support withers away as there is spare attention available to notice its corrupt and incompetent governance. Providing a big partisan battle - from a very weak position! - is helpful to the administration and should be avoided.
Yes.
The Financial Times had a column more or less to this effect some days ago, generally that Trump is successfully baiting the Democrats into "resistance" on all fronts - i.e. to fight battles on his picked terrain.
This rather reminds me of war anology to emotional appeals that one Must Do X in battle against a hated enemy -which leads generally to failed offensives, wasted effort / lives and nothing gained, only your own forces weakened.
Being hot headed and charging at the red flags that Trump waives is playing into his hands, fighting on his preferred ground and terms.
If one is not Cosplaying then in real serious terms, "resistance" isn't blindly battling everything and bleeding away limited resources (and confirming weakness) but picking strategic attacks on terrain most favorable to you / least favorable to the enemy.
Shut down is nothing more than emotionalism, one "Must" do a Pickett's charge to show the enemy how angry we are! No matter that every prior shut-down action was the equivalent charging into prepared cannonfire and a failure. No one must show one's Fighting Spirit!!!!
Perish the thought of working in a real resistance terms with a full understanding of one's weakness - and so not charging into a prepared terrain, but sniping and sabotaing and setting up exchanges that weakend the enemy on ground favorable to you (EG Inflation - I mean look at the disaster for farmer's that Trump has set up: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/business/china-us-soybeans-farming.html - pivot on the cultural and talk markets, inflation
The thing is, "his picked terrain" is still extremely unpopular for him, and there's a good argument to be made that when your opponent shows you an opening on their strongest issue, you take advantage of it.
What terrain? Passing budgets?
There is no good argument to pick fights on losing terrain that has proven every single time to be losing terrain.
My point is just that he's not picking fights on topics where he's above water -- his immigration stuff is very unpopular and gets more so the more light you shine on it. Occupying cities is very unpopular.
Whether there's a winnable fight there is an open question, but none of these fights are really on "his turf".
His "immigration stuff" is Marginally unpopular.
In fact he's only slightly underwater this despite sheer obnoxiousness
It's "very unpopular" with the Pre Sold who are already in Dem camp.
Slightly unpopular with Rest of Country / Not Democrats.
(Silver Bulletin aggregated graphic https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/RFXsV/full.png)
Very unpopular is Inflation (-31% net), Trade (-17odd), Economy (-16odd).
Immigration. -4... And you want to fight on the part he's holding up best on. .... Democrats really are shit generals.
This is the very picture of getting sucked and suckered into fighting on the terrain the opposing general wants to fight on by getting the other side blinded by its' own excitement and blind eagerness to Do something & fight.
Occupying citeis is ... unpopular with people who already hate him and says FuckAll about wider USA popularity. *and for clarity none of this do I think is good and supportable, but I don't fool myself into thinking non-urban-non-Democrat America actually gives a real fuck about this.
There is no open question about "winnable fight" over shut-down where the entire history of shut-downs is the shutting party gets blamed every goddamn time and the Democrats are already more underwater than goddamn Trump for fuck's sake.
You people whole focus tells me you still have not learned the lesson of focusing on Not You to win over.
It depends what you think the stakes are. If you interpret the political situation as a standard Democrat vs Republican fight, then increase the variance. But if you think that Trump is a wannabe fascist and our democracy is at risk, then it would be better to lower the variance.
The logical bridge from "current strategies aren't working" to "pursue high variance play!" is... tenuous.
I think the underlying assumption is that the Dem's current trajectory "isn't working."
The problem is that they're currently favored to win the House but lose the Senate in 2026, and have two Governor's Mansions within reach this year.
Is it worth jeopardizing House control for a slim shot at Senate control? I would actually think so because of the oversized importance of the Senate on changing the judiciary. But I could see an argument where gaining any levers of power is more important than going for the top one.
I've always said that the filibuster will end when one party has 50 or more but less than 60 votes to do something they really want to get passed. Is this that moment? I have no clue. Is it good for Democrats to force Republicans to end the filibuster at this moment? I also have no clue. But Matt is correct that all of this has always been dumb. And if Democrats do dare Republicans to either end the filibuster or shut down the government, they need to be able to fight any and all Murc's Law thinking: “the widespread assumption that only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics”. As Matt says, the GOP has all the power, if they want to pass a bad bill, or shut down the government, that's entirely in their power to do so.
The main reason that Republicans are viable as a party is because their worst policies have either been blocked by Democrats or because the electorate doesn't realize that Republicans are responsible for them (or even wrongly assign the blame to Democrats). Filibuster plays an important role here. We need clean accountability. Make it as easy as possible for a deeply ignorant and irresponsible electorate to connect the threads.
I don’t entirely agree with this. If there’s one thing they do get passed in congress, it’s unpopular tax and health care bills.
That’s a good counter argument. I’m not sure tax cuts are so unpopular and Dems are really bad at attacking Republicans on healthcare. It may also be too early to see the effects of the healthcare policies.
You underestimate how much of the country actually likes Republican policies.
Sans filibuster we'd actually find out the revealed preferences of the electorate. Plenty of policies sound good on paper, but is unpopular in practice (recent example, TikTok ban).
You could make the argument that the GOP exploits that gap because they have the messaging advantage: crime is bad, illegal immigration is bad, taxes are bad, etc. But the inflation, exploding debt, cuts to Medicaid and rapidly expanding police state created by enacting those policies is already broadly unpopular.
I don't think so. Most of Trump's policies have little support, some of them extremely low. On the issues where he has better ratings most people thinks he goes too far, according to the polls. The problem is that the Dems refuse to moderate (for real, not just paying lip service) on issues such as immigration, crime, gun rights and trans issues. Dems need to capture the center, including the center-right.
Democrats tried to pass an awfully moderate immigration bill and Trump spiked it!
After being completely unserious about border control for years and years. They deserved to be punished for it.
That's very different than "refusing to moderate on it", as you just claimed.
They did moderate on it! And you're saying the correct response was to reject that moderation? Make up your mind.
Most left leaning people do. It's why they continually ask why the GOP doesn't stand up to Trump. It's because *they like what he's doing*.
The ones that did stand up to Trump are mostly gone. This isn’t the GOP of 2010.
The ones that didn't like Trump are all here in Matt's Substack as commenters ;)
Mitt? Mitt? Is that you?
Even in 2010, most only objected to the style, not the substance. They pretty much all voted to repeal the ACA, after all. Voted for Gorsuch. Completely supported the agenda.
The GOP does not equal the entire country.
I am also not sure how this is relevant to my comment.
My comment was that Republican policies are unpopular in the general electorate and that the filibuster saves them from accountability and you answered my comment with a "Republican policies are popular among Republicans".
No, but it *does* equal the presidency, the Congress and the judiciary.
You don't hear a lot of Senate Republicans talking about abortion any more.
Ehh... It's tricky. If Republicans actually followed through with all the crazy shit Trump SAYS, the economy would blow up. But Trump never actually does that. The closest he got was Liberation Week, and he reneged as soon as he realized it was tanking the stock market. If he passes a dumb policy that's a slow burn (like the tariffs we still do have) he won't respond.
As for right now, the formula is
1. Say a bunch of crazy shit
2. Do some of it
3. Back off on the stuff that has an obvious negative response
4. Declare victory regardless
I'm in favor of ending the filibuster, but would it change the Senate's median passed legislation all that much? From Yglesias in this post:
"Democrats, too, spent all that time paralyzed over filibustering not really because of Senate procedure, but because members were relying on the filibuster to paper over disagreements on the merits."
This suggests if Manchin and Sinema got rid of the filibuster, median expected legislation would not have moved left from the status quo. On another note, it seems to me the main thing Republicans are aiming for is Senate Democrats to replace Schumer with someone who is perceived much more left-wing by voters.
Yglesias kind of sidesteps the Schumer question, but its elevation was a clear outcome of the dodged potential shutdown fight this Spring. Should Schumer have actually fought last Spring? If he's right about the filibuster being worth Dem ownership of a shutdown, why was that not the case last Spring too?
I think Matt is wrong here. The Dems have moved a lot of legislation in the past that died because of the filibuster. A favorite example of mine is the 2009 American Clean Energy and Security Act (enacting cap and trade for carbon pricing), which got through the House and died in an R filibuster despite a large Senate majority. You can make the argument that Dems were secretly happy about this, but I think it's more likely that they went to all the political trouble *because they really thought it could and should pass*. We talk about Manchin and Sinema so much only because the Dems majorities have been so small recently.
(And in any case, a policy the enables Dem cowardice is a bad policy. Make them face the voters and do stuff without political cover from the filibuster.)
I think this is a legitimate unknown because a great deal of legislation passes the House and goes to a vote in the Senate with the knowledge that the filibuster will kill it. How much would actually have made it passed without the filibuster is an interesting question.
If Manchin and Sinema got rid of the filibuster, we wouldn’t have been packaging everything into a single omnibus bill that needs 50 votes - instead, we could have divided it into a dozen separate bills, several of which would have gotten 50 votes.
This assumes congress is able to handle its floor business far better than I think it has demonstrated as of late.
Yeah, progressives hate Manchin for merely existing as a Democratic senator from WV. Do they believe that Patty Murray and Kirsten Gillibrand will vote to liquidate health insurance companies? Or that John Hickenlooper will vote to end all oil and gas drilling?
Indeed. Here's what Chris Pope noted in 2020 when the filibuster was in the news:
"The filibuster already has enough loopholes to let Democrats achieve their near-term policy objectives. Biden’s health-care plan, which mostly involves expanding Obamacare spending and establishing a public option, could be enacted under the budget reconciliation process. The most important barrier to the enactment of such ambitious policy goals is not the filibuster but fiscal constraints. Indeed, congressional Democrats may value the filibuster in part precisely because it absolves them of the painful task of explaining to their electoral base that their policy preferences are simply unaffordable."
https://www.city-journal.org/article/minority-rule-in-the-senate
I'm sure it's changed at this point, but the reason Trump won is that Democrats were underwater on every major issue but health care. Trump and the GoP are, therefore, viable mainly thanks to Dem weakness.
Why are we even talking about this, considering the premise is "if Trump is willing to negotiate in good faith"?
Republicans might be hiding behind the filibuster to paper over some of the nonsense from the House. The legislatures are probably going to be more risk adverse than the nihilists running the party.
The nonsense from the House seems like it's supported by the current party leadership, and the (relative) Senate R moderation won't be a long-term feature of the political environment.
It *has* always been dumb but to make this the centerpieces of Dem resistance at this point in time also seems *extremely* dumb and not a little tin eared to me.
Right now the Dems need to demonstrate to someone that they have the political strength to pick fights. This is critical for their approval rating, fundraising, and also to signal to outside parties (think Universities, law firms, media orgs) that there is a future that contains energized Democrats who can pick the fights necessary to undo some of what's happening. The current leadership has been consistently signaling that they cannot, and do not fight. Would you take political risks standing up to Donald Trump if you saw this leadership as the best-possible case for a Dem comeback?
I like the idea of Democrats picking fights.
I like the idea of Democrats *winning* fights a lot more.
Is this a fight the Democrats can win?
Sometimes you need to stand up and get some licks in, even if you know you're probably going to lose the fight. Otherwise your actions are entirely defined by the threat. There's no point in having leadership that views the choice as [enact republican policy goals] vs. [guaranteed win] because then you're just enacting GOP policy goals.
The GOP's biggest liability right now isn't political: it's the weakening economy. A government shutdown might not make things worse, but they know it isn't going to improve things for them. They'll crow about how great the shutdown is, and how it only makes them stronger, but vulnerable Rs aren't going to mean it.
This is a case where you need to game out the entire scenario. Starting a fight feels good; losing said fight might feel a lot worse.
There really aren't good options here, and won't be until the Democrats get some real power (like winning the House, if not the Senate).
So my unhappy compromise (offered elsewhere in comments today) is to make it look like Schumer is forcing an angry recalcitrant caucus to swallow a bill and then be the scapegoat and resign as Minority Leader, opening the way for new leadership. Focus all our anger on him, and not the party as a whole. A sure thing? No, but I don't see any sure things.
Love it. Except I promise you that "falling on our sword and resigning from leadership" is not the route that leadership is going to take, so what then?
I think the idea is that there are other possible best case scenarios than those two.
Tell me what they are?
New Dem leadership would be a start.
I’d like that too. And maybe it’ll be an outcome of Dems screwing this moment up.
I wish. The GOP doesn't have all the power under the filibuster rules because the Democrats have the deciding vote. They determine what gets passed or if there is an open-ended shutdown.
Can they make the Republicans feel so much pain from a shutdown that they either give in or end the filibuster? Republicans will be happy to sit back and watch the country burn. In the immortal words of Ramsey Snow/Bolten: "If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."
A++++ on your last two sentences.
Most Americans don't know what the filibuster is but do know that Trump is doing whatever he wants, regardless of Congress. My prediction: if the government shuts down, people will blame Trump. Dems have nothing to lose.
Totally agree. And we should make it 100% a Republican initiative to be the party of borrowing and spending.
The simplest message is “We had an agreement, Trump then didn’t honor it. We had bipartisan funding for these programs and Trump decided not to honor it.”
Or simply “Trump’s a dealbreaker not a dealmaker.”
Nice message.
How does the shutdown end?
Republicans kill the filibuster and trip forward.
Trump reinstates previously approved funding he reneged on previously and Democrats get a minor concession.
Why should they kill the filibuster?
Who is being hurt worse in this scenario, Republicans or Democrats?
There will be a negative PR cycle for whoever kills the filibuster. Both sides exploit the stupid rule and outsource legislation to the executive branch. On net I think Democrats benefit because it makes Republican governance and control of the current situation more clear.
How do Democrats kill the filibuster while the Republicans hold the Senate?
By making Republicans kill it to end the shutdown. That’s if Republicans opt to. Otherwise you get some concessions and avoid a shutdown. The issue is Trump has used impoundment to not honor previous concessions.
Who is that message intended for?
MattY’s substack subscribers. I just don’t think Democrats should be bailing Republicans out from messes of their own creation. Especially when Republicans are doing bad things and don’t abide any concessions they previously made for votes.
Generally though, Democrats need something short. “Republicans are offering Americans nothing as the economy worsens and they demand we give them a blank check for Trump’s crimes.”
The problem is that nobody cares about that message, unfortunately
This 'stack is dedicated to teaching the politics of responsibility instead of the politics of conviction: less expression for expression's sake, more message discipline; less performative stance-taking, more calculating the consequences.
But if you have given the consequences a thorough interrogation, and no clear answer emerges, then the politics of responsibility offers no guidance on this question.
If you have, in addition, considered the consequences of acting on pure convictions, and even after a proper Weber grilling there is still a tie, then it seems to me time to act on conviction.
Sometimes, gaming it out only goes so far. When it yields no answer, do what expresses your own side's deepest convictions. You risk going down in flames, but the risk is inscrutable in this case. Better to go down saying what you believe, then to go down being too clever by half.
Whether Trump gets to keep impounding Democrats’ priorities or he gets to designate them as nonessential, the outcome will be negative for them. Why not get caught trying? Are we worried we’re going to be unable to explain impoundment to the country?
We won’t be able to explain impoundment because no one will even know it’s happening. All they will see is Trump governing unopposed, and doing what he wants. Anyone who will see Trump stealing congressional appropriation is already convinced that Trump is a double-crossing liar and will wonder why you didn’t realize that too when you agreed on a deal with him.
I'm having trouble getting past the absurdity of the idea the GOP would vote on an enabling act and then let it fail because of the filibuster. Come on guys. The idea that Dems should vote to fund our descent into authoritarian rule without a fight is ridiculous.
The main problem with the filibuster is that it makes it unclear to the deeply ignorant electorate which party is actually in power and responsible for what. Which in turn makes it more difficult than it already is (considering how willfully ignorant and irresponsible they are) to evaluate and properly reward and punish the parties in the next election.
People are like toddlers when it comes to politics and need every help they can get to vote in a somewhat rational and coherent fashion.
I push elitism hard because it's one of the most ignored truths about the world currently (it's depressing and out of sync with egalitarian myths). Truth is important, both in its own right, and to form a strategy for winning elections.
1000 times this.
"On the other hand, I’m deeply sympathetic to any senator who looks me in the eye and says, “I don’t want to vote for a temporary budget that just keeps current spending levels in place that the president then violates at will.”
That should be the ballgame right there. Dems should be shouting from the rafters that a GOP budget, coupled with the OBBBA, will continue to kneecap our fiscal standing. Higher inflation, rising bond yields, faster compounding debt, putting the squeeze on millions of American via sunsetting of Medicaid subsidies. The list goes on. Trump was mainly elected on ending inflation and now we're headed back in the wrong direction on that front. I like the notion of negotiating in good faith to restore ACA subsidies but I also feel strongly that Dems should attack the GOP where they are vulnerable, and that is weakening our financial house through endless tax cuts.
"Shout from the rooftops" + "Packed to the rafters" = "Shout from the rafters"?
One difficulty is that a rafter is generally not visible on the outside, when you're on the roof. A second difficulty is that rafters are for sloping roofs so unless what needs to be shouted is very short one would have a hard time doing it from a pitched roof. Better to do it from flat rooftops.
There is absolutely zero reason to negotiate in good faith right now IMO
The problem is Dems aren't very interested in fiscal responsibility either.
Maybe they should be? Maybe in an effort to rebrand they can stop believing that there's two Santa Clauses.
I would love that.
But I think the problem is voters. The number of voters that wants cuts to entitlements AND higher taxes has to be under 10% And definitely not over 20%
Even though realistically that's the only way forward.
Despite generally being of the bleeding heart give people entitlements sort I've come to the conclusion that we can't keep on printing money forever. The sooner (and gentler!) we raise taxes and cut entitlements the less painful it will be.
Voters unfortunately are really, really dumb.
Senators can allow a bill to come to a vote and the vote no. that's a viable option too. The idea that one must filibuster everything they don't agree with needs to end too.
If you do that, you're not actually fighting the thing you disagree with to the best of your ability. If you know you have the ability to stop the bad thing from happening, and you choose to refuse to do it, you really don't disagree with it.
there needs to be a category of things that we disagree with that doesn't rise to the level of requiring a filibuster. sure. you can literally filibuster everything. But this is a repeat game, and there are consequences to that. we are living in them. Once in this nash equilibrium, it's hard to get out, but another one exists in a repeat player scenario. And politicians need to be able to tell their interest groups 'no' sometimes--including when to filibuster and when not to.
I mean, what integrity is there in 'i disagree with this but i want it to succeed so i won't stop it'? Why elect an opposition politician who's not going to oppose?
"our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" (jurrasic park). I think there needs to be a set of things that we wouldn't vote for ourselves but don't rise to the level of invoking the filibuster and stopping the functioning of government. It's not an integrity issue. It's humility and maturity in my view that not every issue is worth a fight. For this reason, I disagree with filibustering and delaying most/all executive positions--the president should get to fill the branch with people he wants to execute his constitutional duties--unless there is a justifiably high standard/bar that gets met.
you elect the opposition politician because they vote for good things and don't vote for bad things. Again, they aren't voting for it, merely letting it the vote go through. If the idea is you aren't always doing 100% of the things you can do to stop something you don't like, it can take you too a really dark logical conclusion.
it's fine. we disagree. but i think the world i'm advocating for is better than the one we currently live in. The biggest issue is getting out of the equilbrium we're in now, but that's the job of boring holes into hard boards or whatever quote matt uses.
I do understand it, this viewpoint- that we should keep the power in place but only use it responsibly, but i think the purpose of rules in government is to enforce responsibility, rather than simply placing our faith in people to be responsible. Which is why i think you have to take away the filibuster entirely rather than just trust people not to be irresponsible with it. If a system only works if everyone involved is responsible, the system doesn't really work.
I'd almost agree with this idea of the filibuster if you could suddenly mind control the entirety of the senate and get some kind of really publically available idea of what's in and out of bounds, but humans are incredibly fallible.
You're absolutely right about the dark conclusion, but i don't really think the filibuster is out of bounds as a normal opposition tactic, given the rules.
I do appreciate the other perspective, though.
But you can't stop the bad thing from happening. Shut down the government and then what, the government doesn't actually shut down. Especially with Trump a shut down will first immediately result in an even greater power grab. Play it all the way out to the end and the Republicans end the filibuster, and you still haven't stopped the bad thing from happening. There is maybe some small bit that dems can squeeze here, but largely not.
Cowen advertising a book on his blog on how italy dedcended into fascism and how it came out of it. I've only read the first part and it is quite good so far... ''don't count on venerable institutions to save you, they will act to preserve influence" seems like a recurring theme that checks out so far. Also, cowen sometimes seems to go to amusing lengths to keep his criticism circumspect, such as citing a Yglessias article more than a year old to make an argument against tariffs. "Here is a book you should read", and "the sound of music was so good, watch it again if you can" are part of the same theme.
The reason Hitler came to power is that most of the other parties including liberal and moderate ones ended up backing the Enabling Act. Hitler got a large majority to support them creating an air of legitimacy. If Weimar parties had maintained a firewall it never would’ve happened. Even something passed narrowly by the Nazi Party only would’ve never had the level of legitimacy that let Hitler become a dictator. The lesson is that there should never be collaboration with the far-right: even a paralyzed Weimar is far superior to what came after.
Ultimately the only check on Hitler was that Germany was not powerful enough to fight all the world’s other major countries at the same time. But there isn’t even that check on US fascism. The whole world is in for a dark future if Democrats act like the German Center Party.
Don't forget that the Communists refused to form a popular front against Hitler and turned on the Social Democrats.
That’s true, and an Important lesson for people on the left today. But it’s also notable that by the time of the Enabling Acts they were already banned and underground—if the mainstream parties hadn’t assented to banning the communists, they probably would’ve voted with the social democrats against the Nazis in the end (not that they would’ve had enough votes even with SPD support).
This ties in with Grigori's nod to Tyler Cowen and how institutions act to protect their parochial interests. The Enabling Act got its two-third majority when the Catholic Centre Party gave it the deciding votes, in Wikipedia's words, by agreeing "to support the law in exchange for assurances of [the] party's continued existence, the protection of Catholic civil liberties and Catholic schools, and the retention of civil servants affiliated with the party."
The current Democratic party would absolutely back the enabling act. Ezra Klein would write a long NYT column explaining why it was the only way forward.
Thank you for your interest in national politics.
Can you point to anything like that that they have done?
The authorization for use of military force in Iraq.
That was decades ago, with different political parties than the ones we have today, and a (briefly) very popular president.
I assume what you intended here was that I would give you a laundry list of some recent and cowardly Dem legislative roll-overs. Then you'd chide me for comparing the stakes of those fights to something as weighty as the Enabling Act.
The 2002 AUMF was certainly no Enabling Act, but it did actually have some very real stakes. The question now is: are you arguing that the Congressional Dems of 2025 possess political bravery substantially in excess of the Congressional Dems of 2002? Because I'd dispute that (and let's be honest, you don't believe it either.) Or are we just pointing out that they haven't yet encountered a similarly high-stakes vote? (I suspect they may in the future, and the way to prepare for it is to develop and exercise a set of political instincts they currently do not have.)
That was decades ago, with different political parties than the ones we have today, and a (briefly) very popular president.
"Don't forget that the Communists refused to form a popular front against Hitler and turned on the Social Democrats"
And were ultimately rewarded with East Germany, where they became an example of True Socialist best practices to the venal West.
One time I bought a copy of a really great book that was missing the middle several chapters and that kind of reminds me of this comment.
There's a reason Zentrum had to change its name and re-form as the CDU under the only major Zentrum figure that opposed the 1929-30 rule by decree 'coup'. The SPD came out of the situation clean.
The German SPD was right about Hitler and right about the Communists and right about containment and detente. They had a good track record in the 20th century compared to the other parties.
Schroeder was wrong about Putin, though.
True, it was a good track record, but not a great one. Schröder in particular is a big disappointment in that regard.
Technically, that happened in the 21st century, so your comment still holds.
''don't count on venerable institutions to save you, they will act to preserve influence"
This is encapsulates my view of the current Supreme Court.
Yes, that is the analogy i had in mind, as well.
Similar theme in Professor Sunstein's brief review of an old book by Sebastian Haffner.
https://open.substack.com/pub/casssunstein/p/the-collapse-of-law-under-tyranny
Brief but adequately chilling.
I took a course in undergrad about regime change with focus on how regimes change into authoritarian. This was in 2015, so pre-the-current-moment. I actually wrote my final paper about Italy and the conclusion I came to after reading that literature was that Italy did not really have very venerable institutions -- unified Italy was like 70 years old, the monarchy was weak and the idea of democracy was even weaker at the time Mussolini took over. The institutions were young and weak, and not unexpectedly so, as Italy had only really been a liberal democracy with decent suffrage for ~20 years (or less? I forget -- I should read this book!). In that regard, there is a notable difference with the US. Hopefully our institutions will not prove so weak.
All evidence is that our institutions are that weak... Corporate America, Big Law, the Universities, Congress, etc have been mostly treating him as a dictator since day one. They in effect have created his dictatorship; there's no law that makes it so.
Pre-January I was significantly more optimistic though not to the degree someone like Hannania was.
I was thinking of the catholic church.
“I’m concerned that we would be plunging the country even deeper into a weird “state of exception” with no endgame.”
Who’s “we,” kemosabe?
If “we” means Slow Borers and the politicians most of us here vote for, then “we” aren’t plunging the country into anything. There’s one side that is willing to set everything on fire. AND that has power, and it ain’t us. Let’s at least keep that straight in our own minds as a precondition of convincing others.
I agree with the column overall.
I'm old enough to remember when the big problem with the filibuster was that the GOP was filibustering everything in an effort to hamstring the Democratic majority. Now we have a filibuster with so many exceptions that it's only functional purpose is messaging. "We blocked the bad things the other people want to do"; or "We couldn't do the thing you wanted because the bad people on the other side blocked it."
Without the filibusterer:
All the mundane stuff no one cares about still passes
All the bills that passed with >60 votes would still have passed (IRA, Chips & Science Act, First Step Act, Safer Communities Act, etc.)
Everything that can't be filibustered would still have happened: Judicial nominees, "budget reconciliation"
These would have passed: Supplemental Zika Virus Funding, Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 2200), Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123), Feinstein / Murhpy / Cornyn / Grassley gun control amendments
Fretting over the loss of the filibuster is just an exercise in FOD. Ending it is just putting down Old Yeller and seeing how much Young Yeller is like is dad.
I've been saying for a while that Ezra Klein really has disappointed me that he hasn't continued his anti-filibuster message. Around 2020-2021, that was a central message of his work, which focused on bolstering democratic processes. It would have been so much stronger of a message if he revisited this recently when Republicans are in power. If he had, he would have shown some ideological consistency. Instead, it comes across as just scheming for partisan advantage. EK's shift to focusing on abundance, AI, and Israel-Palestine is fine, but it's a real lost opportunity to abandon his focus on democratic process when its less politically convenient to do so.
So, I really appreciate MY coming out against the filibuster at a time when there's no partisan advantage for him to advocate for such a position. Highlighting that filibustering is distorting and that these shutdown fights are stupid and structurally set up for failure is the right call.
Ezra was also really into automatic stabilizers in 2020 during the covid recession, but has not talked about them once when inflation picked up.
Another great example. It’s a shame because the idea is a good one.
I was against getting rid of the filibuster when Dems are in power, and I'm against it now.
I don't want either party having free rein. I would much rather have nothing get passed then bad policy get passed.
It’s not “free rein”. The US has more barriers to legislating than most countries: two legislative houses, presidential veto, judicial review.
Mathew used rein correctly, then you quoted him but with the wrong version of rein.
“Reign” works here too. It’s probably better actually because they are ruling over us.
no "free rein" is the expression, giving them slack. "Free reign" is not an expression and doesn't work here.
I edited to reflect the proper usage.
Voters should get the government they vote for. If they want bipartisanship, they should vote for a divided government. If they instead elect a Republican trifecta, they should get Republican policy. If they didn't want Republicans to have free rein, why did they vote for it?
I think a lot of voters voted for Republicans just to stop the Democrats. They didn't want Republicans to have free rein.
And if Republicans are turned out in a couple of years, they definitely don't want Dems to have free rein.
They just want a normie government that is reasonably fiscally responsible, and doesn't make too many big changes. Especially culturally.
If voters want normal moderate politicians, they should vote for them. If they vote for radical partisans instead, they should get a radically partisan government.
The problem with this argument is that voters are frequently voting on how the economy is doing, the price of gas, vibes, etc. They're not carefully parsing policy positions. A government in power can get so much more done than a voter can reasonably keep track of, even an informed one. TLDR, vote for one party because you're mad about the price of gas, get unexpected radically partisan government instead.
That's not even getting into, a party can simply lie about what their positions are going to be. Or, circumstances can radically change (Dubya ran against 'nation building' in 2000, etc.)
I think the Founding Fathers did sort of have the right idea with- professional politicians should check each other. Not, that we should expect the public to pay that much attention and line item veto out the stuff that they don't like about a party
The House is supposedly the most powerful body in politics and they're all reelected every 2 years.
only 15-20% of voters vote in primaries, then they bitch about the lack of choices during the general election.
Yep it's a problem
What's better, the imperial presidency or no filibuster? I don't think we can have a constrained presidency and a filibuster at the same time.
I do generally agree that staying the course is better than significant change, but apparently I'm in the minority in this country.
" I don't think we can have a constrained presidency and a filibuster at the same time."
I don't see why they are mutually exclusive. But I do agree that I don't see major changes coming. SCOTUS has pushed back a bit but not as much as I would like so far.
Hopefully they will strike down the tariffs, that would be a good first step
I actually sort of agree with you, but:
1. 60 votes to clear the filibuster is too much. 55 would be a more reasonable barrier
2. I don't understand why we need a filibuster when we have divided government, which happens I think over 60% of the time now. It's like you're double counting- you already don't have free reign when the two houses are run by opposite parties, so why do you need a filibuster on top of that?
I'd like to maintain a 55 seat filibuster for unified government only
It’s not “free rein”. The US has more barriers to legislating than most countries: two legislative houses, presidential veto, judicial review.
Republicans control all three branches right now. Getting rid of the filibuster gives them free rein
I was against getting rid of the filibuster when Dems are in power, and I'm against it now.
I don't want either party having free rein. I would much rather have nothing get passed then bad policy get passed.
I'm certain the Democratic base would disagree with that.
With what?
The idea that ending the filibuster was a worthy goal at this point in time.
I was pretty sympathetic to calls to get rid of the filibuster, but after seeing Yuval Levin’s arguments about the dysfunction of Congress, I am more hesitant. He argues that for most of our history, we had a strong congress that fought a lot with the executive branch for control. Then, Newt Gingrich in the 1990s centralized most control in the speakership to keep his party unified against Clinton, but this fundamentally disempowered committees where most bipartisan deal-making actually happened. This trend just continued with each successive Speaker since and now in the 21st century. This results in a process where neither party is really trying to build a 60%+ coalition, they’re fine with being just 51% because then they get the speakership and either passes stuff or plays opposition party role.
I think he would argue that stronger committees and supermajority rules are actually processes that help push the parties to expand. Matt Yglesias has constantly written about how depressed he is that Democrats just don’t even seem interested in finding a coalition that could support 60 senate seats, and I think Yuval Levin would say that is because we have degraded the Legislative institutions that are supposed to form elected officials into dealmakers. With a centralized congressional leadership and 51% rule, official’s only incentive or role is to be a pundit on cable news or social media. With decentralizing congressional power to committees allow different electeds experiment with different coalitions in various committees which sets the ground work for either GOP or Dem 60 seat majority in 10-15 years. It also finally gives electeds actual jobs instead of just being commentators.
Didn't they also have massive earmark (ed) reform so there's very little quid pro quo possible for playing ball?
Earmarks have been around for almost 10 years now and haven't changed anything. The no-earmark era was quite brief.
Yes it turns out earmarks are actually necessary for congress to function correctly.
Certainly not the result I want, but the world often doesn't work the way we want it to...
I think of this more as a client than as an armchair strategist. I don't know what Schumer can possibly get with the filibuster card. I doubt Yglesias or any of the activated partisans do, either. That's supposed to be Schumer's job: to get what he can with the cards he's dealt. I suspect it's more than nothing. As a Democratic voter, if he comes back with nothing like last time I'm going to continue writing $0 checks to the DNC, DSCC, etc., write that he should be replaced, etc.