Senate Democrats, Don't Fall For Trump's Lucy Act This Time By Susie Madrak

[justaprogressive]

Pay attention. Trump is trying to convince us that he's a reasonable man so he can soften the plans by Senate Dems to use the budget process to put new restraints on DHS. He's playing dumb: "I didn't know what the people I hired and talk to ten times a day were doing."

He doesn't care about Renee Good and Alex Pretti, other than the PR problem they present. He just wanted the victims to be Black, part of his plan to heighten chaos and give him a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act.

During his first term, Barbara Res, who was the VP of construction at the Trump Organization, said he was an obsessive micromanager, and to remember that when he blamed the people who worked for him. "No one does anything he doesn't want them to do," she said in an interview.

I remind myself of that, because he has a lot of people working to convince us otherwise.

He will not actually change what ICE is doing. He will only tell them to get better at covering it up.

The danger here is that the Senate Democrats, who hold real power in the budget negotiations over ICE, will fall for it. (Charlie Brown, Lucy, football.) This is the time to contact your senators and stiffen their spine.

https://crooksandliars.com/2026/01/dont-kid-yourself-trump-just-trying]

[bigtree]

1. these people like to pretend the party is a monolith

...and Jeffries and Schumer are some kind of overlords, instead of representative of the will of collective membership who voted for them as their leaders.

If this person writing this wants to 'stiffen some spines,' what's their problem with addressing the 7 in our party who provided the votes to extend the overall funding budget for two months over the holiday?

I say this because the only reason this is an issue for Democrats is because republicans are insisting on attaching the DHS funding bill to other spending priorities those 7 have already indicated are important to them.

In that political landscape, they are challenged to either get the DHS funding unlinked from the other funding priorities (dubious); leave it as it is and refuse to vote for anything; or they may well be amenable to negotiating changes in ICE policy.

Personally, I'd be good with them shutting it all down again, IF they can tell us what the end game is. Are we willing to leave Americans vulnerable to interruptions in the aid and assistance many rely on to survive, leave them at the mercy of people like the Project 2025 architect-turned OMB director who decides what to keep open and what to agencies or priorities of the government to continue funding or operating.

For those eager to keep ICE in check, we already know they'll keep operating in a shutdown, uninterrupted by budget concerns because they're pulling money from the BBB funding bill.

Movements or protests need legislative solutions at the head of their demands to make them about more than just noise and confrontation. In that vein, it makes sense to use this moment to demand those changes in DHS policy that we want to see, like cooperation with state investigations, unmasking, warrants, chemical gas ban, border patrol back to the border and the like; all worthwhile pursuits which would save lives and get a handle on agents' conduct.

I'm not sure it makes sense to just present the challenges as 'Democrats should do this' when there are clear challenges and opportunities that can't all be placed in one basket of expectations.

Like I said, the political reality is likely that some of the Dems will negotiate for change, and IF they get what they want, might consider extending their acquiescence to the republican budget they provided before the holidays.

Then again, maybe they're feeling the momentum and will just say no. It's not as if we know this administration can be trusted to do what they promise. But, maybe the political momentum is enough to roll them by just standing firm against it all.

At any rate, I expect some Democrats to try and get changes in the DHS policy and actions in the field. That's not exactly the worst thing they could do, notwithstanding our need to hold them to anything we negotiate, which would evaporate the minute we agree to fund them.

Maybe another short term extension as a test if they get the changes they want, along with an agreement on advancing the ACA tax credits they're stonewalling on, the last agreement the 7 Democrats made with the republican majority for a mere vote that the Senate refused to take up.

I say shut it all down, and I'd bet there may only be those 7 in the Senate who need convincing of anything.