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The Reason Schumer's Capitulation is a Catastrophe And Donald Trump Thanks Him. [1]

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Date: 2025-03-14

The Case Against Schumer’s Capitulation

After the many, many, many rage-filled posts last night from myself and others, a counterargument has begun to emerge in defense of Schumer. It goes like this:

A government shutdown could lead to court closures, and the courts are our best defense. A shutdown would allow Republicans to accelerate the dismantling of government agencies and the firing of federal workers by selectively determining what they consider "essential." Democrats would take the blame for the shutdown.

Let’s break these down one by one.

Argument 1: Court Closures

Yes, courts could close during a shutdown. However, the resolution Schumer just pushed through essentially makes the courts irrelevant going forward because it undermines our legal cases.

As the folks at Common Cause explain:

Each year, Congress determines how the government spends money through a process called appropriations. Lawmakers negotiate and pass detailed funding bills that specify how much money each department and program gets and how those funds must be used. But this continuing resolution bypasses that process entirely.

This means there are no guardrails on how or when money is spent—it’s all left to the discretion of the Trump administration. In other words, Schumer is effectively handing over Congress’s power of the purse to Trump.

In theory, this means the Department of Education could be forced to spend its budget on a fleet of Cybertrucks instead of funding school programs. Or, as AOC put it, this bill is essentially a slush fund for Trump and Musk.

So how does this hurt us in court? Right now, when Musk dismantles programs or agencies, he often ignores legally mandated budget allocations—where money must go and how it must be used, as determined in appropriations. That legal framework gives our lawyers a way to challenge him. But with this resolution in place, none of that is legally specified anymore. There’s no legal argument that funding must be used for staffing or that certain funds are designated for disabled kids. That leverage is gone.

Argument 2: Accelerating the Shutdown of Government

Because Schumer has essentially handed the power of the purse to Trump, Musk (and Trump’s allies) can now destroy the parts of government they don’t like with alarming speed.

They can do this by simply redirecting funds, starving agencies of resources, or using the threat of funding cuts to make agencies too scared to act. This will accelerate the dismantling of federal programs and services in a way that a shutdown alone wouldn’t have allowed.

Argument 3: Democrats Would Be Blamed for a Shutdown

Of course, Republicans would try to blame Democrats. But let’s be real—they’re already blaming us for everything, including Trump’s own economy. Does that argument make sense? No. But that doesn’t stop them.

Here’s the reality: Republicans control every single branch of government. Democrats could have argued that the GOP alone is responsible for making things run. If Republicans wanted Democratic votes, they should have been forced to negotiate—to protect certain programs, to ensure agencies remain functional, to put actual constraints on spending.

And let’s consider the optics. In a shutdown, both Democratic and Republican voters would be screaming to get their services back—while, presumably, the only thing still functioning would be Elon’s corporate welfare. That would have given Democrats leverage.

Even if the public blamed Democrats more in the short term, we would have had a powerful message:

“See what life with no government looks like? Sucks, doesn’t it?”

And for the half of the country that already opposes Trump, it would have sent a much-needed signal that Democratic leadership is actually willing to fight—even if they lose. And let’s be honest, even if they did lose, would they really suffer at the midterms? The GOP’s last round of shutdown antics didn’t exactly help them.

The Bottom Line

This wasn’t an act of principle by Schumer. It was capitulation. I don’t believe he was acting from the heart—I believe he was acting in the interests of his corporate donors. And I stand by my argument: this was cowardly.

Finally if you think I’m wrong consider what these guys say on the subject particular the guy with face flag:

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