December 20, 2024 - 6:30pm
The battle for the soul of MAGA 2.0 is in full swing on Capitol Hill. A government shutdown now appears unavoidable after the House of Representatives voted down a spending bill backed by President-elect Donald Trump. Whatever deal Republicans strike to fund the government, the swirl of uncertainty came about for one reason: Elon Musk threw his weight behind the predictable protests of hardcore fiscal conservatives who’ve used shutdowns as leverage since the Tea Party years.
Musk’s intervention this week forced Trump to work on the negotiations, though he previously seemed content to let House Speaker Mike Johnson cut an unsatisfactory deal for the sake of entering 2025 with a clean slate. When Musk, co-chair of the advisory Department of Government Efficiency, caught wind of complaints over Johnson’s funding bill from Freedom Caucus members such as Rep. Chip Roy and debt hawks including Thomas Massie, he saw an opening to get a better deal and rally the base. That, in turn, made silence untenable for Trump and JD Vance, which ultimately sank Johnson’s Plan A.
Roy, Massie, and their ilk are merely doing what they’ve done for years. They rightfully oppose the absurd end-of-year pork-filled shutdown theatre deployed by the leadership of both main parties. It’s a vicious cycle that creates no incentive for self-improvement. Nobody outside Washington D.C. â and even few people inside the Beltway â truly believes it’s a good way to run the country. Johnson made this argument himself before serving as House Speaker.
What’s different this time around is that Freedom Caucus types have powerful allies. They aren’t margarita-slugging misfits anymore. They aren’t just being patted on the head and thanked for their ideas, or swatted away like mosquitoes. Musk has put them behind the wheel, at least for the moment.
This is interesting for many reasons. First, in all likelihood, they’ll only be allowed to steer for an hour or two. (See: the dust-up this week between Roy and Trump.) Second, it’s a sign high-level Republicans are much less fearful of legacy media, and believe they’re powerful enough to circumvent consensus shutdown narratives.
Journalist Sharyl Attkisson today wrote an interesting reflection on her time at CBS News as Congress descended into chaos, remembering how in 2013 she was nudged to report a narrative which reflected dubiously on the consequences of a shutdown so as to hurt Republicans. This is less an intentionally partisan conspiracy and more a result of journalists socialising in Washington, D.C. where shutdowns are actually visible. But it always took the wind right out of the sails of budget hawks, even at the height of the Tea Party. GOP leadership knew that even when Democrats negotiated in bad faith, Republicans would bear the blame for a shutdown.
In the aftermath of the âpodcast electionâ, Musk appears to sense that’s no longer the case. How will this development shape conservative populism? Everyone wants a more efficient government, but can you sell austerity? Industrial policy? How about eliminating the debt ceiling? DOGE will make recommendations, but Trump and the incoming GOP Congress will have to implement them. What’s being hashed out on the Hill right now is the direction of economic populism in Trump’s second term.
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SubscribeThat’s a really interesting summary of the politics currently playing out around the spending bill. I hope the author does a more in-depth piece or discusses the issue on Undercurrents.
Well who’d have thought it – Trump and it’s chaos before he’s even been handed the keys. 38 Republicans voting against his plan ain’t just the odd rogue.
Predictable of course. The contradictions in almost every area of Policy where slogans served him and supporters well in a campaign now come home to roost. And for added spice he’s now only a Vice President to Elon! That’ll sting. Johnson made to look a berk too. Well you were warned fella.
Trump already looking a lame duck? Was always going to happen at some point as Republican’s click he isn’t their ticket to re-election next time. I reckoned he had a year before that started to really hit home, like most 2nd termers. Trump: ‘hey I got there early so more time for the Golf course and afternoon naps. And besides my bigliest mission, to stay out of prison, accomplished, so stuff the Little Guys and Left behinds. If they bought the B/S more fool them. Now I must sort that Elon out, he thinks he’s in charge’.
Your posts about Republicans are all tabloid style rants that look copy pasted from every other forum filled with TDS.
Every media outlet acknowledged it was a “change election.” What that means is the people that lost don’t get to keep doing the same thing. It’s also going to mean things like the Executive gets to decide who is in the Executive Branch.
I know it’s concerning that America is tightening the screws on the piggybank but don’t worry, your country will get there too.
I think you struggle with basic Maths TD. He won by the 3rd narrowest ever margin. And have a look at the numbers in the House. Republicans won by 5, and that’s about to drop to 2. One changes side and it’s likely gridlock. You’ve got a bit carried away. Wait to the mid terms too.
However back to the specifics – Trump wanted to extend the debt ceiling. He’s got to pay for his promises and that includes the money needed to press ahead with his immigrant removal plans. It won’t be cheap. He knows cutting basic programmes not what his core supporters voted for (and he’ll be aware of the brewing anger about health care) and whilst he’s given Elon & Vivek the task of releasing money from Washington he did that more to tie them up as he knows it’ll be much more difficult than the rhetoric. So basically he’s trapped by his own lies, and what’s more the emerging theme for the Michigan auto industry worker is he’s more interested in his Billionaire buddies and rolling back their taxes. Welcome to reality.
Significantly more billionaires supported Democrats than Republicans in the election. There’s a reason for that.
My beef with your posts is that they don’t sound sincere. They’re just forms of trolling.
Some chaos. It is now just 6 hours after your comment and the government has been funded and will not shut down. Elon Musk had almost no involvement in any of it and everything is now tidied up. Donald Trump came out of this firmly in charge while Joe Biden (the sitting president) and Kamala Harris (the sitting vice president) did absolutely nothing. They aren’t just lame ducks — they could be dead ducks for all anyone cared.
Contrary to popular belief, presidents cannot do much to further legislative accomplishments and should not take credit for them. We in the US do not have a parliamentary system where a prime minister heads both the legislative and executive branches. What our presidents can do as a chief executive is talk up the economy and conduct foreign affairs. Donald Trump is already at work on both those things, and he won’t even be sworn in for another month.
Donald Trump was never in danger of going to prison. He ran to be president again, and he’s going to use the power of his office to the fullest until he has to leave in four years or until he’s carried out of the White House in a coffin. He won’t be a lame duck — he enjoys working too much. Barring some sort of disabling physical problem like Joe Biden’s dementia, Donald Trump will die in the saddle, with his boots on.
Funded until early March CD and so back again to resolve in Trump’s first 100 days with a majority of only 2 in the House. How’s he funding his immigration repat schemes in that deal? And what’s his plan for when the current tax provisions expire in 25? How much you thought this through?
It’s true US does have a greater separation of powers than UK, which means a POTUS got to be a skilled operative who either has big majorities in Congress or an ability to compromise and strike deals. Now ‘deals’ supposedly what he’s good at, so let’s see how he does. He didn’t get far did he last couple of days.
Foreign affairs I agree – 2nd termers always spend more time on this as they become lame ducks with Congress, which is another reason why the gravitational force is in a different direction to US withdrawal/isolationism.
As regards Prison – he wouldn’t have gone. Biden would have pardoned him. He’d have hated that almost as much.
Donald Trump would have turned down a pardon from Joe Biden. No question about that.
You can’t turn it down. It is what it is. You can say in advance you don’t want it and hope that’s listened to, but once it’s issued it doesn’t need agreement.
50/50 he get pardoned by the next President or does it himself before.
Check the law. You certainly can turn down a presidential pardon in the United States.
I wish MAGA/DOGE well and kind of hope theyâll push the Shutdown brinkmanship right over the edge this time….Milei-style. And itâs good too how it has at last started to dawn on conservative-minded voters that their elected politicians are increasingly an irrelevance because the actual business of government is largely in the hands of permanently Leftist unelected bureaucrats. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/take-me-to-your-experts But itâs difficult not to be a little pessimistic about the political practicalities of fundamentally changing this. Nobody really has any idea how to run an advanced urban society without the vast Kafkaesqueness of a Deep State? In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan set their political stall around reining it in – and they really did try but they failed anyway. Still hope springs eternal.
I think ultimately the answer has to be decentralization, pulling powers away from national governments and delegating more functions to states and localities. The US could probably stand to have a few of the bigger states, like Texas, California, NY, and maybe even Florida or Illinois, split into two or more pieces. Give state/local governments and people more control over immigration and residency, industrial policy, etc. This is actually one of the reasons the US hasn’t already keeled over under the colossal weight of elite incompetence. There’s 50 states and they compete against one another and they can’t all completely and equally suck at everything, so we get some examples of policies that are good, or at least not as bad, and everyone can copy off the least idiotic, not that they always do. This is relevant to the EU as well if they stay together.
I think this can happen and may be something to look for in the distant future, but it requires a couple prerequisites. First and foremost, it will require everyone or at least most people to recognize there is no way and no hope of ever eliminating ‘global’ problems like war, cultural divergence, racism, prejudice, and perhaps most importantly climate change. The globalists must be well and truly defeated in a more or less permanent way and though populism/nationalism is winning at the moment, the conflict is far from over. Second, it will require a social trend away from the digital, virtual, electronic stuff and a re-emphasis on local communities and local traditions. The ‘big sort’ is helpful here. People moving close to ideologically similar neighbors is the beginnings of forming like minded communities and stable cultures. When radically different people settle close to one another for economic reasons, it undermines culture and pushes people towards the digital stuff. The bottom line is people have to care on an emotional and intellectual level about their communities, their states, their cultures, their local values, etc. Such things fly directly in the face of many modern notions of ‘social progress’, despite the considerable historic and empirical evidence that homogeneous societies have lower levels of crime and higher levels of reported happiness. I’m fairly confident the first condition will eventually come to pass, but I’m skeptical about the second.
The comment on the role of legacy media is the most interesting thing. I donât think progressives are really prepared for a world where conservative politicians no longer care very much what university professors, the legacy media, NGOâs and various other paid shills have to say. The percentage of people who have tuned them out has been increasing dramatically every year and may now be a majority. This will be an interesting test of that.
It’s bigger than that. The last great revolution in political campaigning occurred in the 1930’s when FDR used the new medium of radio to reach out directly to the people, bypassing both the local political machinery and the print media which had already consolidated into a relatively few large companies controlled by a few people (such as William Randolph Hearst). FDR was able to bypass local political machines with their various local concerns and the big print media moguls to sell his New Deal, directly to the people. It didn’t last, though it did finish off the local party machines. Television replaced radio and was quickly consolidated into the big three networks. From that point up until the 1990’s the largest print media like the NYT, and the TV news networks basically had the power to steer public opinion and shape the narrative.
The internet basically broke all this open. There are now basically zero barriers to entry in terms of being a blogger/podcaster. Anyone can do research with search engines and state their views and call themselves a journalist. Streaming services are further eroding the remaining power of the big news outlets. People are getting their entertainment from Netflix and Amazon Prime and their news from Joe Rogan. Had Reagan and the Democratic party bosses known that the obscure research project then known as ARPANET would one day make it impossible for any ruling party or ruling class to sustain and control the public narrative, I suspect they would have shut the thing down and buried all the records.
Trenchant summation. It’s what I’ve come to expect from EJ.
Not being a Washington insider, I don’t try to speak with the authority that some watching from the sidelines think they have. But from what I saw from the nosebleed seats in the stadium, Elon Musk was not the player he’s being made out to be. His involvement seems to have been a tweetstorm. That’s it, and that’s nothing.
No one voted for Elon Musk. He has no office in government, no power of any kind. The DOGE that he co-heads is a joke more than anything, a bunch of unpaid advisors who will be out of a job in a year and a half. Donald Trump doesn’t owe him anything anyway. Elon Musk doesn’t have any strings on Donald Trump to pull.
Donald Trump doesn’t sweat the small stuff, but let’s it go as he goes after the big prizes. He’s already looking several moves ahead. Barring bad luck, his last term will be a productive four years, I’ll bet. After four years of Joe Biden, I’ll bet the country will enjoy having a president again. A strong president, one who gets things done. I know I will enjoy it, and he’s already off to a strong start.
Nobody voted for anybody in the US cabinet. As strange as it seems to those of us from countries with a Westminster system of government, all of the holders of US cabinet office are not members of Congress.
It’s true that no one votes for cabinet members, but they do have to be confirmed by the Senate and they do become government officials. Most of them have run for a government office at one time or another and gotten some votes. They have power of their own too — they aren’t just advisors to the president.
Elon Musk’s appointment is a joke. He will head up an organization that is basically a think tank. From what we know the people who work there will be unpaid volunteers. They will have power and will not be part of government. The whole thing goes away on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of America’s declaration of Independence from England.
The idea that Elon Musk is pulling the strings of his puppet Donald Trump is silly. People like Emily Jashinsky are blowing this all out of proportion.
I see the Democrats have started to refer to Elon as “President Musk”. That will annoy Donald.
When you can send messages on social media and apear to change the behavior of the highest elected official in the land, yeah, all hail President Musk. The U.s. can be governed by oligarchs nowâŠ
Yeah, but my point is that Trump may not like the idea that there is someone more powerful than him around….
Itâs an obvious cynical ploy by the Dems to divide Musk and Trump. Itâs not going to work as theyâre bound to see through the Demsâ transparent attempt at creating tension. Itâs a really pathetic strategy.
I actually think it will work, work well, and work quite quickly.
I suspect this analysis is already out of date, one day later…
The paradox.
Global technocratic elites gain legitimacy only by supplying constantly rising living standards.
Only a nationalist can get the people to accept austerity for the sake of the country.
I applaud the change. It’s been coming for more than a decade. And if the debt limit is not raised to allow the new leaders some breathing room, then change will be slowed. Perhaps without a debt limit, then needed ‘breathing room’ funds may be reallocated from parts of the Administrative State that needs pruning. Authors of the Federalist Papers made clear that National government was needed for defense, interstate trade, common currency, and a unified international representation. Let’s strip it to the bone, and see whether the bare Constitution can restart better with another 250 years of wisdom.
Further, during shutdown (maybe next time), only Essential/Critical Services will be maintained. This is a much smaller subset of the Government Services that need to be reviewed. Perhaps only the most influential nefarious actors may have wedged their interests into the “Essential/Critical Services” category. A good place to start, DOGE.
I disagree, it is not the future of MAGA, but of how we let our politicians govern. The Trillions, billions, and even millions are just funny money to the politicians. They certainly recognize 100K or 200K their when they can line their, or their donors pockets, and that is the problem. The Pandemic gave them license to spend crazy amounts for the good of the people but actually to get votes and virtue signal. Congress has abdicated their responsibility to make the hard choices to the bureaucrats through rulings and not having to balance anything. Time to call out the lack of integrity and reign that behaviour in.
Agreed with one caveat. Congress has been treating the budget and spending as funny money long before 2019.
If cutting government spending is accompanied by tax cuts and increased wages it won’t feel like ‘Austerity’.