Well, Well, Well, Look Who’s Still Doing Absolutely Nothing
By: Kylie Cheung (Jezebel)
The progressive left has been reduced to rambling rants that drift from scapegoating to backbiting to searching for triggers. Manifestos from the hippy retirement home doesn't seem like a path forward.
The media made a small ado over Sen. Corey Booker bloviating the longest of any Senator in history. Does anyone know what Booker talked about in all that time? Photo op politics doesn't seem to be resonating out in the hinterland of the American voter. Voters can all join hands, scream at the sky, and then go on with their daily lives. Overplayed outrage seems rather cartoonish today.
And now there are calls to disrupt and stall Congress? To what end? The Trump administration is already busy dismantling government. Holding Congress hostage doesn't seem like a winning strategy in the current political climate. Threatening an administration that is kicking its own cronies to the curb would be an extraordinarily weak play.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Last week, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 ruling ordering the Trump administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident mistakenly sent to El Salvador’s notoriously brutal, maximum-security prison, CECOT. But because the Court said the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release—not “effectuate” it—they claim the Court ruled in their favor and they don’t have to lift a finger. This is the logic of a kindergartener—all in service of disappearing a legal U.S. resident and father of three young children, in alarming defiance of the most powerful Court in the country.
About a month ago, this—the constitutional crisis unfolding right now—was the red line that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Democrat, drew for the Trump administration. After passing a budget bill that empowered Trump and Elon Musk to continue their hatchet job on the federal government in March, Schumer told MSNBC he didn’t yet believe our democracy faced an existential threat, but claimed that would be the case if and when “Trump doesn’t obey the Supreme Court.” Should that happen, Schumer vowed “extraordinary action.” Now, here we are. And… nothing.
Every day of this second Trump era feels increasingly unknowable, volatile, impossible to predict—but one thing we can be certain of is that no savior is about to come bursting out of the feckless Democratic establishment.
Abrego Garcia’s case only reached the Supreme Court because the Trump administration defied a federal judge in Maryland who required them to bring Abrego Garcia home immediately. (The Maryland judge wrote that the administration has to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s release, while the Court wrote that the “effectuate” part of it was unclear.) Then, on Wednesday, a federal judge found “probable cause” to hold the administration in criminal contempt for willfully disregarding orders to stop transferring deportees to CECOT. According to the New York Times, of the 238 men the U.S. sent to CECOT, only 32 “faced serious criminal accusations or convictions.”
Initially, the administration admitted Abrego Garcia’s deportation was the result of a clerical error. But they’ve since done a 180. On Wednesday evening, Attorney General Pam Bondi declared that Abrego Garcia is “not coming back to our country,” releasing a document of equal parts recycled and debunked misinformation claiming he’s a gang member and domestic abuser. “Maryland is safer because he is gone. And that woman that he is married to and that child he had with her, they are safer tonight…,” Bondi said, not even naming Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, who’s publicly pleaded for his return.
To be clear, the gang affiliation claim is unsubstantiated and a federal court ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia can’t be deported to El Salvador, where his life would be at risk; and the administration’s claim that he’s an abuser appears to stem from a former protective order Sura once filed. “We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling,” Vasquez Sura said in a statement through her lawyer. “Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
Alas, every claim the administration has made about Abrego Garcia is neither here nor there: There isn’t a single allegation—especially if it’s just allegations—that would justify disappearing someone to a foreign gulag. Nevertheless, on Monday, the White House hosted El Salvador’s far-right president Nayib Bukele to baselessly smear him as a “terrorist.” Bukele, while sitting next to Trump, smugly asked, “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” It was an exercise in shamelessness: a vile power play akin to the behavior of an abuser, a smug challenge to see who would try and stop them.
Of course, despite Democrats’ chosen strategy of rolling over and playing dead, they very much could challenge Trump and Bukele. As the New Republic notes, Democrats aren’t powerless despite their tiresome, cowardly strategy of inaction. Meanwhile, in an Axios report, several self-identified “centrist” Congressional Democrats chastised other Democrats for caring about this and arguing that Trump is “setting a trap for the Democrats, and like usual, we’re falling for it.” Another said, “Rather than talking about the tariff policy and the economy … the thing where his numbers are tanking, we’re going to go take the bait for one hairdresser,” seemingly referring to Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay immigrant man who appears to have been sent to CECOT for being brown and having “Mom” and “Dad” tattoos. The callousness of these comments is astounding. This—mistakenly sending a human to serve a life sentence in a maximum security foreign prison without due process—is nothing but a “distraction.”
Despite his once-upon-a-time promise to take “extraordinary action,” on Monday, Schumer only issued a comically boilerplate statement condemning Trump’s defiance: “Due process and the rule of law are cornerstones of American society for citizens and noncitizens alike and not to follow that is dangerous and outrageous. A threat to one is a threat to all,” he wrote. But his words were followed by… nothing.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) stepped up and went to El Salvador on Wednesday to speak with Abrego Garcia at CECOT. Initially, he was denied entry—despite right-wing influencers and Congressmen getting to tour the prison and pose for photoshoots. But on Thursday night, Van Hollen shared photos of himself meeting with Abrego Garcia at a hotel in San Salvador. Bukele manically tweeted that he’d “miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen.” But the NYT reported that a Bukele aide had purposely placed the two drinks in front of them. Earlier in the day, Van Hollen also said El Salvador’s Vice President told him that the Trump administration is literally paying them to keep Abrego Garcia in prison. He’s one of Van Hollen’s constituents, yes, but I’m shocked he traveled there alone—this is a constitutional and human rights crisis that affects all of us.
And if Democrats can’t step up now, then we’re surely fucked when Trump starts sending U.S. citizens to CECOT, too: “Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough,” Trump told Bukele in the Oval Office. The Wall Street Journal then reported that, per Trump’s orders, El Salvador is now preparing to expand its CECOT to hold up to 80,000 and expects “the U.S. to send enough to fill it.”
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The progressive left has run out of folk singers from the 60s. And the current administration doesn't share the same political values as past Democratic and Republican administrations.
How do you play the game when there ain't no rules?
The answer might lie with public opinion.
IMO the politics of public opinion won't work this time. Trump has put everything on the line. That either works or it doesn't. Public opinion is not going to gloss over the failures and won't enhance the successes. The outcome will stand or fall on it's own merits.
The progressive left has avoided accountability for the failings of its advocacy by using public opinion as a political weapon. But now the contrasts are too sharp, the distinctions are too clear. The progressive left has been forced into a position of either proving they would be better at executing Trump's agenda or that the progressive left has a better alternative to addressing the flaws of their own past agenda.
The status quo of the last 45 years has become indefensible. The United States has returned to its proper role of being the last line of defense instead of the first line of defense. The United States is returning to its proper role of being a watch guard rather than a gatekeeper. Trump as already pushed things too far to revive the status quo with public opinion.
You have to keep in mind that the minority democrats cannot do anything if the majority republicans stand strong against do anything, justified or not.
My question would be why the majority repuiblicans who like to tout their support of justice and the Constitution, are not doing anything about Trump's blatant violations of the Constitution.
Trump is not violating the Constitution and the law like Biden did, but he is definitely testing the limits of his authority as president. And he most certainly enjoys playing the Dems for the fools they are.
Seems like anything that obstructs or curtails the functioning of government serves the political interests of Donald Trump. Trump may not see shutting down government as a bad thing.
Congressional Republicans have been forced into the position of playing referee between Trump's executive authority and judicial authority. Why is that important? Congress now has been forced to enact legislation on all the 'culture war' issues that have become part of the political status quo. The looming battles in Congress are less about governing and more about Church Lady squabbles driven by outrage from the progressive left. Unfortunately, younger voters are trying to become the new blue collar middle class that won't be impressed by the whining outrage of college educated exploiters.
IMO we're on the verge of class warfare coming back with a vengeance. And Donald Trump has been a traitor to the 1%.
Would that be outrage over a liberal or conservative interpretation of the Constitution? Outrage over liberal judicial over reach supersedes anything Trump is doing that may harm the Constitution. There is much that must be fixed before applying the brakes to what Trump is doing.