"Put on your big boy pants": Democrats rediscover a will to fight with government shutdown battle
SalonEarly last week, Democrats seemed to be hitting new lows in the post-election slump. Everyone smart agreed that it was wise not to replicate the hair-on-fire-all-the-time tactics of The Resistance© for round number two of President Trump, but laying down and taking it Then Trump let billionaire Elon Musk bully him into shutting down a continued resolution to fund the government — a bill Trump obviously thought would be to his benefit — and all of a sudden, the fight came roaring back into Democrats. Friday night, hours before the government shutdown took effect, Democrats handed Musk —sorry, Trump — the first major loss of his presidency, a presidency which technically doesn't start for another month. Senate Democrats are already feeling emboldened enough to start making real moves, such as pressuring Republicans into actually reading an FBI background check into Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary. In fact, Trump's entire clown car of nominees offers many opportunities to stoke division among Republicans, by forcing them to argue over topics like "do vaccines work?"