Short Updates
Shutdown
So the shutdown happened. Now we need to see what happens.
There are two things to watch. Russell Vought at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and how long the Democrats can keep from coming to an agreement.
Mr. Vought has plans to tear through the federal bureaucracy and eliminate a lot of positions. Federal bureaucrats are, by all statistics, predominantly Democrats so the Republicans will not feel much pain. Quite the contrary. Republicans will be very happy with the budget savings. And the departments and programs on his list tend to be hated by the right and loved by the left.
However, there are some Republican constituencies that could be hurt by an extended shutdown. Active military personnel will have to report to duty throughout while civilian positions could be prevented from working. Checks will stop on Oct. 15 if the shutdown continues that long. Will it?
The real question is how long can the Democrats put up with all this. In past shutdowns the Republicans were to blame. This time, the continuing resolution would pass if only a few more (five at last count) Democratic Senators would vote with the Republicans. It’s hard to say the Republicans are keeping the government shut down this time. Democrats could get the majority of the blame. Moreover, I’ve already mentioned that the OMB is looking to cut a lot of positions and a lot of programs that the Democrats like. Every extra day the government is not sending out money is an extra day the OMB has an excuse and opportunity to close another program.
The one big thing keeping the Democrats from compromising is that any vote for a Republican bill will be seen as capitulation by their base, that is, their most ardent supporters, meaning those most opposed to President Trump. Can they really afford to upset these people when they will need them to turnout to vote next year for the entire House of Representatives? We’ll see.
Israel and Gaza
President Trump introduced a peace plan for Gaza. It has twenty points to it, but the most important two are (1) a release of all hostages held by Hamas before anything else happens, and (2) complete disarmament by Hamas.
Most Middle Eastern and Muslim countries have supported the plan. This will put very strong pressure on Hamas to accept it. Needless to say, disarming is the one thing Hamas really doesn’t want to do.
Related News? There was a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England this morning. A man named Jihad Al-Shamie drove his car into a group outside the synagogue then stabbed people. Two were killed before he was shot. Some reports say he also had a an explosive vest on.
I ask if it is related because almost immediately after news broke about the attack there was a massive protest against Israel and for the Palestinians in London. It is hard to imagine that the attack was not related to the possibility of peace.
The Prime Minister of England has already declared that he would support a Palestinian state, and did so before any peace plan was announced. This was widely seen as a reward for the horrors of Oct. 7. The large and vocal Muslim minority is a very important part of his political party and very little has been done to tamp down on antisemitism in Britain.
New York City
I haven’t written about this because most of us don’t have much to do with New York, but it could be very important and sort of connects all the items above.
There is an election for mayor in November of this year. The leading candidate is a Muslim from Uganda who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Zohran Mamdani encapsulates all the trends pushing the Democratic party in America. He is an ethnic minority, but not from the traditional minority groups of blacks and Hispanics. He represents a very dramatic turn against Israel and Jews in the Democratic Party. He is at the front of a much more openly socialist position within the party, even more than Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent who caucuses with (meaning he is organized with but is not a member of) the Democrats.
At a time when President Trump is sending the National Guard to help police in Washington DC and Memphis, Mamdani would like to replace police with social workers. As the OMB is slashing bureaucrats at the federal level, he would like to implement a system of government owned grocery stores. And while President Trump tells Hamas that if they don’t accept his peace plan he will support Israel doing whatever Prime Minister Netanyahu thinks he needs to do to destroy them, the leading candidate for mayor of NYC said he would arrest the Prime Minister of Israel if and when he visited New York.
If Mamdani wins the election, which he is currently on track to do, he will be the most stark contrast to the President in the country. Many Democrats are afraid of how that will play out in the midterm elections next year. Mayor Mamdani could energize Republicans far more than the shutdown will energize Democrats. That’s all part of what to watch.