Good morning, everyone. Thanks all for your feedback — whether positive or negative — on my piece yesterday after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. As you’ve likely heard, a suspect is now in custody. This has been a disturbing few days for everyone in the political sphere, and I hope all of you continue to take care of yourselves.
This morning, for this week’s paid subscriber column, I’ll offer my analysis of Democrats’ options ahead of the looming government shutdown deadline. I hope you all have a restful weekend and I’ll see you back in your inboxes on Monday.
Once upon a time, when the Senate would use backdoor procedure to alter its rules by a simple majority (rather than the two-thirds majority that’s theoretically required), we would call it invoking the “nuclear option.”
The idea was that the move was so damaging that it would blow up the Senate and potentially alter relations between the two parties forever.
By now, though, the nuclear option has been invoked repeatedly, by both parties. It’s not so explosive anymore. Yesterday, Senate Republicans invoked the nuclear option without attracting much notice, in order to be able to speed up confirmations of most executive branch nominees. Going forward, batches of presidential nominees — except for judges or Cabinet secretaries — will be able to confirmed as a group, rather than the Senate having to go through them one by one.
Normally many of the nominees in question are confirmed by unanimous consent, which is a lot faster than the full confirmation process but requires every senator to sign on, as the name implies. By the first August of his first term, 78 of Donald Trump’s nominees had been confirmed by unanimous consent. That number was 76 for Joe Biden. It’s zero for Trump’s second term, as Democrats have objected again and again to speeding through even routine nominations. Faced with that intransigence, Republicans changed the rules.
For a brief moment on Thursday, it seemed like a bipartisan compromise would prevail. Republicans offered a deal modeled off a Democratic proposal from the Biden era, when Democrats were similarly frustrated by the slow pace of confirmations: instead of being able to confirm an unlimited number of nominees at once, Republicans said they would agree to batches of 15 at a time. (The Democratic proposal in 2023 had been 10.)
Ultimately, Democrats turned down the deal. The party chose that even if it was in their short-term interest — presumably, Democrats would rather Republicans only be able to confirm 15 nominees at a time than 100 — they weren’t interesting in working with the GOP on anything (or couldn’t afford to be seen by their base as working with the GOP on anything). Republicans moved forward with the nuclear option instead.
On a broader level, Thursday’s machinations are really just a sign of creeping majoritarianism in the Senate: presumably, at some point, one party or the other will invoke the nuclear option and finish off the filibuster once and for all, steamrolling the chamber’s minority for good. For the moment, though, the episode also provided an interesting signal of things to come. In the next two weeks, Democrats will face a very similar choice. First question: Can they afford to cut a deal with Republicans, in this case to prevent a government shutdown, or will their base rebel at the very sight of compromise? Second question: Is such obstruction really in the party’s best interest, even if it’s what feels good?
Over the last few days, with the September 30 shutdown deadline approaching, a lot of pundits have thrown out their take on what Democrats should do.
Ezra Klein thinks Democrats should stage a shutdown over authoritarianism. Matthew Yglesias thinks they should push for a shutdown over health care. Rachel Bitecofer thinks there should be a shutdown over tariffs.
Here’s what I think.