I agree that Schumer’s political approach and public rationale is awful, but not voting for the budget would’ve given the Trump admin free reign to do worse on top of blaming the Democrats for it and convincing their supporters. A government shutdown would’ve given the executive branch more power to manipulate funding, including to things they can’t touch without legal challenges otherwise. I’d rather people be able to go after them in the courts, even if they’re doing awful stuff that takes longer to reverse.
This is why those senators broke with the party, because a no vote would’ve been performative and made the situation worse. The yes votes are mostly in states where deprogrammable independents are a meaningful part of the electorate for 2026.
Not quite. The office of the President already had legal immunity for official acts, the only thing that SC ruling did was reiterate that and also stymie efforts to pursue a legal case against him by buying more time for him to get re-elected. That last part came from having to refer a case to the SC if there was a question over whether or not something was “official”. If we had a functional SC that wasn’t assisting the Executive, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.
Unless the American people vote out the majority of politicians who want to protect Trump to further their own agendas, there will continue to be an evisceration of decorum. He has no true legal protection, just political ones.