Trump claims a 'mandate' while setting up Democrats for shutdown. Call his bluff. | Opinion
Republicans want to have it both ways. They want you to believe that Trump has a mandate and that Democrats are to blame if there's a government shutdown.
Donald Trump leaned hard on a new, favorite word after winning the presidency again in November. And, no, it wasn't tariffs.
"Mandate" – that was Trump's rallying cry as he returned to the White House with very narrow Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. In Trump's telling – backed unquestioningly by Republicans in Congress – American voters gave him the authority to do whatever he wanted with the federal government, whenever he wanted.
No sweeping Trump statement comes without an inevitable element of self-serving deceit. What Trump and his Republican allies in Congress dodge here is that they often need votes from Democratic legislators to move forward with their plans.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate are in a political pinch Friday. They can support a continuing resolution to keep the government operating until Sept. 30, funding plans they oppose. Or they can filibuster and cause a government shutdown.
I wish this were not the case – but the Democrats should say no this time. Republicans will, of course, try to blame Democrats if we have a shutdown. But a shutdown could not happen if Trump really had a mandate.
The real blame here will belong to Trump and his allies in Congress because they stuck to the phony mandate rather than working with Democrats.
Republicans want to have a 'mandate' and blame Democrats. Pick one.
As I wrote earlier this week, shutdowns are a sign of our government failing us and not something to root for, no matter which party pushes them. But these are extraordinary times.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday evening said he will vote to advance the continuing resolution, giving Republicans what they want, because he sees that as less harmful than a shutdown.
That will likely cause two things to happen next. Some Democrats in the Senate will try to use Schumer's claim as political cover to do the same thing. And a significant element of the Democratic Party will decide that Schumer, a 74-year-old who has spent over a quarter-century in the Senate after serving two decades in the House, should wrap it up already.
No matter what you think of Schumer or Democrats who bend to the Republicans here, they've proved the point that Trump has no mandate unless some Democratic legislators give it to him. Democrats can complain all they want about Trump, but it means nothing to their base if they also empower him.
Trump and Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire bureaucrat who invested $288 million last year to help secure the presidency, are slashing government jobs and agencies with zero respect to the Constitution's separation of powers. They and their congressional allies are taunting Democrats with this.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune had a choice with this continuing resolution – they could work with Democrats on a bipartisan deal, or shut them out of the process. Johnson and Thune chose to leave Democrats on the outside.
Their game and goal: Threaten to blame Democrats if a shutdown comes, so Republicans can get everything they want. If they had a mandate, none of that would be necessary.
All eyes are on the Senate as Trump clamors for more tax breaks for the rich
There are no good options for Senate Democrats here.
They can participate in Schumer's impotent political theater of providing enough votes for the procedural hurdle of clearing a filibuster and then voting against the measure when it comes up in a simple majority vote, knowing it will pass.
Or they can stand firm and watch the shutdown happen.
Republicans, who pushed this crisis to the precipice, will howl with phony outrage about a shutdown while seeking to politically capitalize on it all. They designed this to lurch on for at least 10 days if a shutdown happens.
The House on Tuesday narrowly passed the continuing resolution and then left town the next day for an 11-day recess. The Senate ends session on Friday and then goes on a nine-day recess.
Legislators in both chambers won't be back in Washington, D.C., until March 24 – 10 days from Friday.
Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, complained about a possible shutdown delaying his plans to renew a set of tax breaks from his first term that mostly benefit rich people like Musk.
"If there's a shutdown, it's only because of the Democrats," he said in remarks that the White House quickly posted on social media.
Trump can't stop talking about this nonexistent mandate
Where's your mandate, Mr. President? Where's the sweeping power American voters gave you to do whatever you wanted? Did you misplace it? Did you lose the thread about that thing you so often brag about?
A refresher on what the reelected president has said:
In an Oval Office meeting Wednesday with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, he wedged the word into a discussion about America's role in international trade. "We had a great election of somebody that they want running the country and we ran – we won in a big mandate," Trump said.
During a March 4 address to a joint session of Congress, Trump described his plan for a $5 million "gold card" to sell American citizenship to the highest bidders, saying, "Americans have given us a mandate for bold and profound change."
And even during his notorious Feb. 28 Oval Office tantrum in the face of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump found a way to make that country's war with Russia focus back on his win in November. "This was headed in the wrong direction," he said. "If this election were lost, if we didn't win this election ‒ and by the way, we won it by a lot. That was a mandate."
Democrats can let Trump and Republicans keep searching for the mandate
Democrats in the House and Senate should make Trump own his claims of a mandate. Trump and his Republican allies will keep pushing blame onto Democrats if there is a shutdown.
Point to the obvious incongruity: If a mandate makes Trump all-powerful, how could the Democrats have any power to stop him?
It's not much. But it's all the Democrats have from now until the 2026 midterm elections. The party's own supporters are fed up with sound bites and social media posts that object to Trump's actions but do nothing to slow him down.
A shutdown will be painful in a most public way. Democrats have one option right now for bipartisanship – making sure Trump and his allies feel their pain.
Follow Paste BN columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan