PROJECT SYNDICATE: American Idiots
We got a preview of life in the chaos-monkey cage that will be the Second Trump Administration last week: we saw Elon Musk & Donald Trump’s blow-up a government-funding continuing-resolution bill…
In the end, we saw the situation resolved with Speaker Mike Johnson summarily rejecting Trump’s principal demand—for a debt-ceiling increase—and with Musk sounding bewildered as Democrats made up the majority of the coalition that actually passed the final bill through the House…
The threat of a Christmastime government shutdown sparked by America’s chief Scrooges, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and J.D. Vance, has been narrowly averted. Nonetheless, it is worth reviewing what happened, because the episode perfectly foreshadows the dysfunctional governance that awaits the United States (and the world) when Trump takes office in January….
Musk’s many falsehoods… were plain as day, and yet Musk succeeded in intimidating Republicans…. Instead of pointing out that Musk does not know what he is talking about, Republicans fell into line…. As of the morning of December 18, Trump himself had no problem with the bill. Yet by that afternoon, he and Vance… [were] calling congressional Republicans “foolish and inept” for “allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025.” Now, they must pass a “temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country”….
In the end, Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries cobbled together a last-minute deal… a policy defeat for Trump, Musk, and Vance. But they won’t care, because policy does not concern them. Trump and the incoming Republican congressional majorities know they have the fervent support of predominantly low-information – or downright misinformed – voters. And those voters won’t care (or even know) that more Democrats than Republicans voted for Johnson’s House bill (prompting Musk to ask, “So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?”)….
American politics and governance today…. channels the performative style of professional wrestling. The basic democratic decision loop – in which voters elect officeholders who devise policies with effects that inform the outcome of subsequent elections – is now totally broken…
Read MOAR at Project Syndicate: <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-musk-vance-government-shutdown-by-j-bradford-delong-2024-12>