Given how Project 2025 laid out plans for dismantling the federal government and we’ve seen them take coordinated and planned out steps to implement this already, why is this so unbelievable to you?
Specifically because I’ve been paying attention, and noticed that they do not care one single iota about doing anything lawfully. They haven’t followed the law so far to do all of their layoffs, why would they start now?
Why do you think they wouldn’t try to do both illegal and quasi-legal methods?
Because the illegal methods work, there are no consequences, they’re faster, and they have the added bonus of “triggering the libs.” Plus, layoffs are unpopular, so the legislative branch doesn’t want its stink on them.
pretend that the trump administration is as dumb as trump and not backed by fuckers like the heritage foundation […] at your own peril.
To be clear: the Trump administration is dumb. But not because of Trump.
Remember, MAGA has inherited a very fragile coalition of two groups from the GOP: the Heritage Foundation crowd (corporate technocrat oligarchs, etc) and the “Moral” Majority crowd. It’s hard to tell the difference because they’ve locked in the unified messaging and pressured all of their members to say and vote for all of the same stuff, but they’re still just two angry cats in the same bag; they want vastly different things, they just both think that they can betray the other to get it. This administration is dumb because it’s an unholy alliance of two diametrically-opposed groups, and the guy currently on top isn’t smart enough to keep them in line.
The technocrats control the Executive and SCOTUS, but the “Moral” Majority crowd control the Legislature, albeit tenuously. And they need two things: to get reelected (I know, “there won’t be another election,” I know, but just go with me here) and to have enough governmental levers to pull in order to advance their White “Christian” Nationalist policies. Cutting more of the governmental apparatus reduces their ability to do both.
So I don’t think Johnson wants to cut much more of the government. He’s probably getting at least some pressure from Trump to not seat Grijalva for as long as possible, and he knows he’s never going to get the votes to break the logjam on the budget, so he probably figures he can just rip off the band-aid now, get started on shifting the blame to the Democrats, and avoid the embarrassment of losing multiple votes in a row before the shutdown inevitably happens anyway.
Specifically because I’ve been paying attention, and noticed that they do not care one single iota about doing anything lawfully. They haven’t followed the law so far to do all of their layoffs, why would they start now?
Because the illegal methods work, there are no consequences, they’re faster, and they have the added bonus of “triggering the libs.” Plus, layoffs are unpopular, so the legislative branch doesn’t want its stink on them.
To be clear: the Trump administration is dumb. But not because of Trump.
Remember, MAGA has inherited a very fragile coalition of two groups from the GOP: the Heritage Foundation crowd (corporate technocrat oligarchs, etc) and the “Moral” Majority crowd. It’s hard to tell the difference because they’ve locked in the unified messaging and pressured all of their members to say and vote for all of the same stuff, but they’re still just two angry cats in the same bag; they want vastly different things, they just both think that they can betray the other to get it. This administration is dumb because it’s an unholy alliance of two diametrically-opposed groups, and the guy currently on top isn’t smart enough to keep them in line.
The technocrats control the Executive and SCOTUS, but the “Moral” Majority crowd control the Legislature, albeit tenuously. And they need two things: to get reelected (I know, “there won’t be another election,” I know, but just go with me here) and to have enough governmental levers to pull in order to advance their White “Christian” Nationalist policies. Cutting more of the governmental apparatus reduces their ability to do both.
So I don’t think Johnson wants to cut much more of the government. He’s probably getting at least some pressure from Trump to not seat Grijalva for as long as possible, and he knows he’s never going to get the votes to break the logjam on the budget, so he probably figures he can just rip off the band-aid now, get started on shifting the blame to the Democrats, and avoid the embarrassment of losing multiple votes in a row before the shutdown inevitably happens anyway.