Shorouk Express
Democrats Monday rallied in front of the office of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s new director of the Office of Budget and Management (OMB), told them to cease activity.
Last week, Senate Democrats worked into the wee hours of the morning tagging in warnings about the dangers of Vought becoming OMB director.
Democrats seemed to awaken from their collective slumber after months of feeling bad for themselves after Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump, holding protests in front of federal agencies that Trump and Elon Musk aim to slash and opposing Trump’s attempts to freeze federal spending.
Democrats now seem to be mounting at least a messaging offensive. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent a letter to his Democratic colleagues announcing the establishment of a “Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group.”
“We are engaged in a multifaceted struggle to protect and defend everyday Americans from the harm being inflicted by this administration,” he wrote in the letter. “As outlined last week, it’s an all hands on deck effort simultaneously underway in Congress, the Courts and the Community.”
As The Independent reported last week, this comes after plenty of Democratic voters and activists have expressed frustration at the apparently lackadaisical approach Democrats have taken. Mostly, Democratic activists want to know: what are Democrats going to do about what’s happening? Especially after they had spent the last year and a half calling Trump either a fascist at worst or a threat to democracy at best.
But as much as Democrats might want to resist Trump, they have precious few tools available to push back against them.
For one, they control neither the House nor the Senate. Although Republicans have only three more seats than Democrats in the House, in the majoritarian body, that’s enough to steamroll Democrats. Republicans’ biggest worry there is getting everyone on the same page.
As far as the Senate, Democrats are no longer able to filibuster cabinet nominees like Vought ever since former Senate majority leader Harry Reid invoked the “nuclear option” for cabinet and judicial nominees after Republicans repeatedly filibustered Barack Obama’s nominees.
Then-majority leader Mitch McConnell extended that to Supreme Court nominees when Democrats filibustered Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court after he blocked Merrick Garland from even having a hearing.
That leaves Democrats with fewer options than they have had in the past to battle Trump.
Also, there are fewer Republicans willing to oppose Trump’s nominees, something Democrats saw when only McConnell as well as Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against confirming Pete Hegseth to be secretary of Defense.
Now Democrats will mostly have to rely on the courts. Just today, a federal judge blocked Trump from sending Venezuelan migrants to Guantanamo Bay. Another judge said on Monday that Trump had not fully followed his order to unfreeze federal spending.
But Democrats have two other weapons they still might be able to wield against Republicans to stop Trump: the debt limit and the federal budget showdown.
Historically, Republicans have used the debt limit to extract spending cuts from Democratic presidents when they control the House or Senate. In the same vein, when the federal government runs out of money next month, Democrats could filibuster the federal budget if they choose to.
This go-around, Democrats might be able to use the fact that plenty of Republicans will always oppose raising the debt limit and oppose any kind of spending agreement to their advantage to get Mike Johnson to agree to at least some concessions lest a government shutdown happens under Trump’s watch.
It might not be the kind of grand gestures that Democratic voters want. But these are likely the best tools that Democrats have if they’re prepared to put up a fight against Trump.
