Don’t Count on the Senate Democrats

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) speaking with reporters after completing the longest Senate floor speech at the US Capitol on April 1, 2025. Francis Chung/Politico/AP

In the last issue, I noted that Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), after his 25-hour-plus Senate speech, was an inspiration of the week. His marathon and record-breaking performance highlighted the multiple crises Donald Trump has caused with his blitzkrieg against the civil service, the rule of law, democratic governance, foreign aid, scientific and biomedical research, US overseas alliances, economic rationality, universities and cultural institutions, environmental safeguards, government agencies that protect workers and consumers and that aid the needy, and decency. It was a moment that many Democratic voters and worried Americans had been waiting for. Someone in the party was acting commensurate with the danger at hand. Booker’s passionate address—which brought other Ds to the Senate floor to support him—seemed to signal a new level of opposition in the highest ranks of the Democratic Party. I was not alone in thinking it was a here-we-go moment.

Now I’m not so sure.

This past week, I encountered several Senate Dems of a liberal bent and asked them about the Booker speech and the prospects for additional dramatic countermeasures. They each quickly pointed out that while Booker’s time in the well was impressive, it had little impact on what was transpiring in the Senate. It halted no GOP measure nor denied Trump any legislative action. Republicans, they said, essentially stood aside and allowed Booker to speechify and then resumed their march of solidarity with Trump. Should all Democratic senators decide to follow his example (how many could go that long without food or an urgent bathroom break?), the Rs, using Senate rules, could prevent the Democrats from continuing in the same vein. And they noted that while placing holds on Trump appointees at some point could gum up the works in the Senate, that tactic won’t do so now because many nominees are already consuming the amount of committee and floor time a hold would force. Also, if the Ds do eventually go full obstructionist, Trump and Republicans could expand the use of recess appointments, which don’t require votes. The filibuster remains a weapon of the minority. But if Trump pressed Senate Republicans to change the rules to eviscerate this tactic, you know what would happen. “It’s very hard to outmaneuver the majority,” one senator said.

Rather than embrace bold options of opposition, the Democratic senators emphasized a conventional wait-and-see approach, noting that Trump’s tariffs and the consequent job losses and price increases, as well as the Republican assault on Medicaid (and possibly Social Security and Medicare), would sour voters and that Democrats will benefit from this in the midterm elections.

Rallying behind a Booker-ish stance did not seem on the table. One reason is that the Democratic caucus remains politically divided. There are Democrat senators who either consider themselves moderates or who believe they need moderate voters to win—think of Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Mark Warner of Virginia, and now, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania—and these legislators are not eager to rush to the progressive barricades. Sensitive to their concerns, other Democrats assume (reasonably) the party cannot recapture the majority without these members. (Call it the Manchin Principle.) Besides, there is not much of an infrastructure for the senators to craft a message that goes beyond the usual—they’re attacking Social Security!—that they all will adhere to.

In these conversations, I raised the idea that it was necessary for Democrats to fiercely press a counter-narrative to Trump’s disinformation and demagoguery and his bogus claim that he’s taking on a bloated, inefficient, and wasteful bureaucracy perverted by DEI and lefty nonsense, suggesting this was perhaps the most important aspect of Booker’s speech. They sort of agreed. But they also seemed to believe their caucus, with its divisions in views and approaches, could not be expected to devise and mount such a counterforce.

Yeah, there will be stabs at clever legislation—such as the recent move that has drawn some Republican support to end Trump’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs (a power formally reserved for Congress)—and sly messaging on Social Security and other dependable issues. Certainly, Senate Democrats will challenge the Trump-GOP budget (with its tax breaks for the wealthy, cuts in social services, and possible threats to health and retirement programs) and the voter suppression measure just passed by House Republicans. And individual Democratic senators will rabble-rouse—a band that includes Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont (who is not a Democrat). But a collective response to the Trump onslaught that breaks with conventional tactics? That seems unlikely.

Which was evident on Wednesday during a Senate confirmation hearing before the intelligence committee for Joe Kent, Trump’s pick to lead the National Counterterrorism Center. Kent’s appointment has not received much attention, yet this job is one of the most important in government. The head of the NCTC is responsible for assessing and addressing foreign and domestic threats to the United States. Even in an administration populated by supremely unqualified officials, Kent, who has lost two bids for Congress as a far-right MAGA candidate, stands out. He’s a former Green Beret and CIA paramilitary officer, but he has never run a large intelligence organization. More important, he is a conspiracy nutter.

A diehard 2020 election denier, this nominee has been a fervent promoter of the conspiracy theory that the FBI orchestrated the January 6 riot to discredit Trump. (He has referred to the violent marauders as “political prisoners.”) He called the Covid pandemic a “scam” and urged charging Dr. Anthony Fauci with murder. He pushed the notion that billionaire Bill Gates was seeking to “control the food supply” and “control housing” to force people to “live in the pod [and] eat the bugs.” He also has, as the Associated Press reported, a history of “ties to a deep-seated extremist fringe.” This included consulting with white nationalist Nick Fuentes on social media strategy during his 2022 congressional campaign. He had a member of the Proud Boys on his campaign staff, and he embraced as a supporter and ally Joey Gibson, the leader of Patriot Prayer, a Christian nationalist group. As I reported a few days ago, Kent aided the formation of a right-wing paramilitary group, and a photo a family member posted in 2018 showed that he had the word “PANZER” tattooed on his arm. Was this a reference to the tank used by Hitler’s army? I asked Kent, the NCTC, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for an explanation of the tattoo. No one responded.

Placing Kent in charge of a vital intelligence organization that is supposed to protect Americans from serious threats is—to use a technical term—bonkers. By the way, as chief of staff for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, he participated in the infamous Signalgate chat. 

Kent’s nomination provided Senate Democrats with another opportunity to show voters the dangerous extremism of the Trump administration. Trump is aiming to put a fellow who refuses to acknowledge the largest act of domestic terrorism since the Civil War in charge of a government agency that is supposed to monitor possible domestic terrorism. Yet only half of the Democratic members of the intelligence committee bothered to show up for the hearing. Those who did barely laid a glove on him.

Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, focused on Signalgate and scored few points. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) asked Kent about his belief in the right-wing J6 conspiracy theory but did not bring the hammer down on him for propagating this nonsense. (Kent said that he and others in the intelligence community are now looking into this supposed plot.) Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, seemed astounded when Kent refused to accept that Russia attacked the 2016 election, but he did not delve further into Kent’s crazy beliefs. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) declared that Kent’s “extremist views which are well known...thoroughly disqualify him from any leadership position, certainly one that addresses who is and isn’t a terrorist.” But he then turned to other nominees who were part of the hearing. He did not highlight the absurdity of the Kent appointment by posing tough questions.

The main point here is that too few Democrats are effectively telling the story of what Trump and his Republican handmaids are doing to the United States and what must be done to thwart Trump, Elon Musk, MAGA, and their minions. Even if Booker changed nothing within the Senate, he mirrored and legitimized the concerns of millions of Americans, provided a dose of hope, and affirmed a fight is at hand. There’s great value in that. Politics is more performance than policy. No one knows that better than Trump.

In the closing moments of his speech, Booker, citing the legendary civil rights icon, the deceased Georgia Rep. John Lewis, said it was time to “cause some good trouble.” Alas, that does not seem to be the consensus among his peers in the upper chamber.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

We’re getting closer. Don’t forget that the next Our Land Zoom shindig is on April 15 at 8 p.m. ET. These gatherings—where subscribers and I discuss whatever’s been keeping us awake—are open only to premium subscribers, those marvelous people who send us a few bucks a month to keep this newsletter going. (These folks receive a version of the newsletter with a host of additional features, including Dumbass Comment of the Week; the interactive Mailbag; reviews of movies, television shows, music, podcasts, and films; MoxieCam™; and much more.) Our Zoom sessions provide opportunities to vent and to find emotional support during these difficult days. If you’re not yet a premium Our Lander, there’s plenty of time to sign up—you can do so here—and then please join us on April 15.

Here's the routine: On the day of the get-together, premium subscribers receive an email with a Zoom link. Click on it at the appointed hour, and our highly trained bouncers (who used to be roller derby referees) will let you into the room. See you there. BYOB.

In anti-Trump circles, there was grumbling about how the New York Times covered the widespread Hands Off protests held across the land a week ago. There often is a lot of grumbling about how the Times covers this or that. Sometimes I participate in such grousing, while recognizing the important and impressive investigative reporting the paper often accomplishes. But this time, I do believe the critics had a point. The newspaper did not grant front-page importance to its report on the marches, including a massive one in New York City, which I covered. Perhaps more egregious, the Times placed the link for the online version of this story halfway down its homepage and did not bother to pair it with a photo. This came across as downplaying.

That’s not just what I think. I have learned from sources at the Times that during the Washington, DC, bureau’s Monday meeting following the demonstrations, a veteran reporter raised the issue of why the paper had not devoted more prominent coverage to the event. This journalist was told that folks at the Times had not realized the protests would be so large, and blame was cast upon the Sunday crew for not fully appreciating the significance of the marches. That is, there was a damn big blind spot. But the demonstrations had been in the works—and promoted across social media—for weeks. This was quite the miss. By the way, in 2017, the paper eliminated its ombudsman position, which it called the “public editor.” Thus, its readers are unlikely to hear from anyone within the Times about this error.

That’s not the case with the Dallas Morning News. After a subscriber complained that the paper afforded the Hands Off protest in Dallas only a short report on page 8, the managing editor, Amy Hollyfield, issued a public mea culpa, noting, “We didn’t realize the protest was going on.” She added, “I regret this is the answer because that’s a big miss for us to be unaware of such a large event. We’ve talked about how to ensure this doesn’t happen again.” Maybe go online? Well, at least give her a few points for honesty.

By the way, here are pics I snapped while covering the march in Manhattan.

Idiotic policy begets idiotic remarks. The flood of BS from Trump defenders about his tariffs subsumed our judges, who wondered why so many in the media kept reporting that Trump had “paused” these huge taxes on imported goods when he only temporarily halted some of the most excessive tariffs but still maintained an across-the-board 10 percent and the much higher rate (145 percent!) on China. It seems that when a maniac acts less maniacal, many consider that positive news. But two comments on the tariff crisis—which is far from over—drew the judges’ notice.

Let’s start with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He had this exchange with NBC News’ Kristen Welker on Meet the Press:

Welker: The markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan?

Bessent: What I’ve been very impressed with is the market infrastructure. We had record volume on Friday, and everything is working very smoothly. So the American people can take great comfort in that.

Bessent was so happy that the cataclysmic market sell-off triggered by Trump’s insane policy that clobbered 401(k)s from California to Maine did not cause the financial trading system to collapse. Hooray. That’s quite the consolation for Americans living off retirement accounts who now may have to cut back on food and medicine.

Defending the Trump tariffs before Trump suspended many of them, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "I do just want to point out one thing….Everybody in Washington, whether they want to admit it or not, knows that this president is right when it comes to tariffs and when it comes to trade."

There is no penalty for spewing blatant lies. Washington is full of people—including most Republicans—who believe Trump is a crackpot regarding trade and tariffs. And he himself jettisoned many of his “beautiful” tariffs after the bond markets teetered toward implosion. What would be wrong with saying, “There’s been a lot of debate in Washington about tariffs, but Trump is clear on where he stands”? These people lie when they don’t have to. What does that tell you? (As if you don’t already know.)

Over at CNN, Harry Enten, a politics analyst, went ga-ga over Trump, practically popping open champagne to celebrate Trump’s issuance of 111 executive orders, the “most in at least a hundred years.” He exclaimed:

[Trump] ain’t no lame duck. If anything, he’s a soaring eagle...Whether you like Trump or you don’t like Trump, you can’t say that he’s come in and not tried to deliver on what he at least believes was his promises on the campaign trail. And he’s doing so in historic fashion.

Harry, WTF. Trump vowed to lower prices on the first day of his presidential rerun and to end the war in Ukraine even before he moved into the White House. Those are mighty big promises on which he has not delivered. In fact, when it comes to consumer prices, he has taken action to make them worse.

At a competing cable network, Jeanine Pirro proved once again that you cannot be too dumb for Fox. On a recent episode of The Five, she revealed what she believed was a shocking fact, exclaiming, “We found out that there are people who are between the ages of one and four [who] are getting Social Security.”

So there’s a flood of fraudster tykes ripping off the system? Nah. As liberal commentator Jessica Tarlov explained, “That's the benefit for kids whose parents are dead.” Did Pirro then correct herself? Nope. She continued to blather.

It was not the biggest news of the week, but when Jared Isaacman, Trump’s nominee to head NASA, appeared on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing, he delivered a performance worthy of going viral. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) asked him if Elon Musk was present during the meeting at Mar-a-Lago when Trump offered Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, commercial astronaut, and close associate of Musk, the job. Isaacman declined to give a straight answer, saying, “I was interviewed by the president of the United States.” Markey pressed Isaacman five times on this simple point, and Musk’s buddy refused to reply directly, trying to cover up the obvious conflict of interest. Musk’s SpaceX has racked up over $13 billion in contracts with NASA during the past decade. This was a humiliating performance on Isaacman’s part.

Notice that during this exchange, Isaacman insisted, “I’m trying to be as transparent as I can.” Uh, no. That appeared to be code for, I’d rather cut off a toe than answer this question. For absurdly attempting to brand crass subterfuge as transparency, Isaacman becomes the first private-sector astronaut to win this prize.

In response to the recent issue examining Trump’s war on history, readers shared some deep thoughts.

Karen Greenberg wrote:

Between the erasure of history and the resistance to keeping records in this moment, it's a scarily transformative time for those of us who value and take for granted the records—and lessons—of the past. Who is going to preserve these stories now? 

I fear that in the chaos of the moment, the preservation of records and accurate history is not a priority. In fact, Trumpers and DOGErs are, no doubt, purposefully undermining such efforts. (See Signalgate.) And I have heard that some agencies that have been DOGE’d are severely curtailing their Freedom of Information offices, meaning many records and documents that do exist will not reach the press and the public.

Patrick O’Brien emailed:

Your latest newsletter got me thinking that for what little I know about Trump, it is hard to believe that he alone is the source of all this BS. He’s just too uninformed and too lazy to produce the volume of misery that we’ve seen in the last month or so. Even more worrisome is the thought that there’s a substantial group of people who are proactively working behind the flimsy screen pulling more and more strings attached to the Punch and Judy show behind the Resolute Desk.

Yes and no. We saw that there was an entire network of right-wingers who drew up plans for Trump’s war on government and everything else with Project 2025. Yet Trump is no puppet. He makes instinctual decisions, often looking to generate chaos and disruption and to constantly keep himself as the center of the story. Look at the recent tariff episode. That was all him. Unfortunately, he has the US economy, and maybe the global economy, by the short hairs.

Esther Buddenhagen sent in this criticism:

Your description of history was way too bland. 

Not sure what she meant. I did mention slavery, repression, and genocide.

Jonathan Ostrowsky shared this:

I appreciated your analysis. What terrifies me is that, beyond the erasure of history, there's now the ability to rewrite history in real time with AI. It's not hard to imagine waking up one morning to vast swaths of the internet (and later textbooks) having been replaced with altered content.

We are increasingly becoming a society that cannot trust the information we confront. Like many, I’m pondering the consequences of that.

Victoria Cross responded to my mini-travelogue about Yosemite National Park:

Gorgeous pictures of Yosemite, I camped there with my church high school youth group many, many, many moons ago. Still as beautiful as I remember it, I can breathe in the fresh air just looking at the pics.

Sue in Florida also took a trip down memory lane:

I lived in California for over 30 years, miss it tremendously. Needed those photos. Here is my way to revitalize.

Fine looking animals there. Speaking of which…

“Where do dog toys come from?”
“Most are made in China, Moxie.”
“Oh…..”
“Yeah, could be a big problem. But your favorite ball is made in Texas.”
“USA! USA!”
“Yes, Mox, if the economy crashes, we will still be able to play fetch.”
“You know, dogs can smell snark.”