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"We're in a right-now hour-by-hour constitutional emergency and they have a duty to be at their posts."
Senate Democrats spent much of this past week warning of the authoritarian threat posed by President Donald Trump and his unelected billionaire wrecking ball, Elon Musk, and vowing to dispense with business as usual in the face of an escalating constitutional crisis.
But when Thursday night rolled around, not one Democratic senator objected to the GOP's request for unanimous consent (UC) to adjourn the chamber for a three-day weekend, infuriating advocates who are pushing the minority party to use every opportunity to obstruct Trump's nominees and far-right policy agenda.
"Letting an adjournment for the next four days go uncontested isn't just missing an opportunity to be annoying and waste time, though that's reason enough," Andy Craig, an election policy fellow at the Rainey Center, said Thursday. "It is granting the principle of the matter: We're in a right-now hour-by-hour constitutional emergency and they have a duty to be at their posts."
"The Senate adjourning for a long weekend right now isn't just some mundane procedural question," Craig added, "it is an act of cowardice and abdication, and it should be opposed as such in a way that clearly communicates that."
Under intensifying grassroots pressure to act like a real opposition party, Democratic senators did begin to slow-roll the chamber's procedures this week, including by using up all 30 hours of floor debate on the nomination of Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect confirmed with only GOP votes on Thursday to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), also objected to several unanimous consent requests Thursday evening, forcing the chamber to hold procedural votes to move forward with additional Trump nominees. Democrats also successfully delayed consideration of Kash Patel, Trump's nominee to lead the FBI.
Those are the kinds of tactics that progressives, including members of the party, are imploring Democrats to deploy at every turn as Trump and Musk continue their lawless rampage through the federal government with the approval of Republicans in Congress.
"No business as usual. No handshakes with extremists. Democrats must use every tool available to delay and defy the Trump-Musk coup. Anything less is complicity."
Democrats don't have the votes to tank Trump nominees in the Senate, but they do have myriad tools at their disposal to grind the chamber to a halt.
"That means doing more than engaging in performative acts of Resistance before heading home for a long weekend," Vanity Fair's Eric Lutz wrote Thursday. "Mitch McConnell didn't spend his time as minority leader conducting half-assed chants outside the halls of power; he was inside, scheming and maneuvering and using whatever power he had to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. That's how you turn we will win from a rally slogan to a reality. McConnell got a Supreme Court seat out of it. Have Schumer and the Democrats been doing anything nearly as politically productive to this point?"
Craig acknowledged Thursday that forcing a roll-call vote on a motion to adjourn for the weekend would not, in itself, have done "much more than annoy" the Republican majority.
But, he asked, "would forcing a roll-call vote on everything usually handled by UC grind the Senate to a standstill?"
"Yes, and that's not just something Schumer is refusing to do," Craig added. "Every single Democratic senator is refusing to do it."
As Senate Democrats relented without objection to the GOP's motion to adjourn for a three-day weekend, Republicans reportedly planned to work through the weekend on a sweeping reconciliation bill that's expected to propose massive tax cuts for the rich and devastating cuts to Medicaid and other critical programs.
"Speaker Mike Johnson said he'll be working Saturday and through Sunday's Super Bowl taking place in New Orleans—in his and Majority Leader Steve Scalise's home state of Louisiana," Roll Callreported Thursday. "Trump, who hosted House GOP leaders for several hours to discuss reconciliation earlier in the day, is slated to attend the game Sunday."
Musk and his cronies, meanwhile, have set their sights on the Social Security Administration amid mounting legal challenges to their infiltration of federal departments and access to critical data and payment systems.
Sarah Dohl, chief campaigns officer for the progressive advocacy group Indivisible, warned in the wake of Vought's confirmation vote Thursday that "Senate Republicans just handed the power to slash essential programs—like school lunches for hungry kids, Medicaid that keeps nursing homes open, and food assistance that helps families put dinner on the table—to a man whose entire mission is economic sabotage in service of billionaires like Elon Musk."
"But let's be clear: This fight doesn't end today," said Dohl. "The next wave of extremists—including Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, RFK Jr., and Linda McMahon—must be met with even stronger resistance. No business as usual. No handshakes with extremists. Democrats must use every tool available to delay and defy the Trump-Musk coup. Anything less is complicity."
"Now that Vought is officially running the show, he'll be able to unleash his radical agenda across the federal government. And if the courts stop him, he's got a billionaire friend with the government's keys and checkbook: Elon Musk."
In a party-line vote late Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed right-wing extremist and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead the White House budget office as the Trump administration works to unilaterally dismantle entire federal agencies and choke off funding already approved by Congress.
Vought's confirmation, backed only by Republican votes in the Senate, comes after the chamber's Democrats used up all 30 hours of debate on his nomination to warn of the damage he could inflict as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Lawmakers and progressive activists echoed those warnings in the wake of his confirmation. Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement that "Vought's fingerprints are all over last week's illegal funding freeze."
"Halting funding for Americans' healthcare, childcare, and food assistance wasn't a bug," said Jacquez. "It was by design, and Project 2025 is the blueprint. Now that Vought is officially running the show, he'll be able to unleash his radical agenda across the federal government. And if the courts stop him, he's got a billionaire friend with the government's keys and checkbook: Elon Musk."
During his confirmation process, Vought expressed agreement with Trump's view that the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (ICA)—a law passed in response to former President Richard Nixon's refusal to spend congressionally approved funds on programs he opposed—is unconstitutional, a view that Musk has also expressed.
Politicoreported Thursday that Vought "is expected to soon press his theory on impoundments, the idea that the president can ignore congressional spending edicts." Analysts have argued that even without the ICA, unilateral impoundments of the kind the Trump White House is expected to pursue in the coming months and years would still be unconstitutional.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Thursday that "in confirming Vought, Republicans have put their stamp of approval on ending American democracy—built on three co-equal branches of government—and on creating a government of billionaires, by billionaires."
"Our nation is facing an extraordinary crisis," said DeLauro. "Donald Trump is attempting to claim absolute power for the presidency. The chaos, confusion, and flagrantly unconstitutional actions of the early days of this administration are largely of Vought's design and doing. With Vought's encouragement, the administration has taken the groundless position—and demonstrated—that they believe the White House has the absolute power to determine spending, and that they can choose to simply not fund programs and services that Congress has promised to the American people. This could not be further from the truth."
"The Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, with the power of the purse," DeLauro continued. "The president is not a king who can pick and choose which laws to follow and which laws to ignore. But the president is relying on the guidance and counsel of Russ Vought to do just that."
In one of his appearances before the Senate last month, Vought told lawmakers that he views the Clinton-era welfare reform law that doubled extreme poverty as a crowning achievement and declared that "we need to go after the mandatory programs," which include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
"Vought is an extremist who has made clear he'll ignore our nation's laws, cut funding that helps people across the country, and give Trump unprecedented and unconstitutional power," warned Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, following Vought's confirmation. "There will be consequences."
While the ultra-rich and large corporations have long used their political influence to secure power and advance their own interests, never before has one billionaire so thoroughly infiltrated the federal government and bent it to their will for personal gain.
Befitting a presidency inaugurated by a parade of tech billionaires, U.S. President Donald Trump has taken Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous “move fast and break things” approach to the opening weeks of his second term—and break things he has.
Trump quickly handed over the federal government’s keys and wallet to unelected billionaire Elon Musk, who has treated Congress, federal law, and regulators with the same brazen disregard he displays in his business ventures.
Under the guise of the Orwellian Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), Musk—the richest man in the world—has bought de facto control of the U.S. government for a cool $288 million in political donations. That’s a bargain compared to the nearly $7 trillion in taxpayer dollars currently at his fingertips.
With Musk serving as judge, jury, and executioner for what constitutes “wasteful” government spending, there’s nothing to stop him from, say, killing investigations into Tesla’s workplace harassment in his California plant.
After sparking confusion, outrage, and temporary restraining orders with their hasty attempt to halt federal spending—imperiling vital programs like Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and Medicaid—Trump and Musk continue to rampage through government.
In a few short weeks, they’ve shuttered federal agencies, fired civil servants, and handed over access to Americans’ sensitive personal and classified information to a group of 20-somethings—all illegally.
According to reporting, Musk’s minions have seized control of the Treasury Department’s payments system. That’s the plumbing that ensures that tax refunds, Social Security payments, and other democratically authorized spending reaches its destination, leaving experts and long-time employees fearful of what comes next.
With Musk serving as judge, jury, and executioner for what constitutes “wasteful” government spending, there’s nothing to stop him from, say, killing investigations into Tesla’s workplace harassment in his California plant or self-driving systems after a fatal pedestrian crash in Arizona.
There’s nothing to stop him from cutting off rivals and securing even more in federal funding and contracts for his company SpaceX, which has taken in more than $15 billion in taxpayer dollars to date.
More concerning, there’s nothing to stop him from using the vast reams of sensitive and personal information he’s now stolen from millions of Americans to train his artificial intelligence systems, hone his X (formerly Twitter) algorithms, or even go after specific individuals and nonprofits that criticize him on social media.
This isn’t a government efficiency program—it’s a hostile corporate takeover of American democracy.
While the ultra-rich and large corporations have long used their political influence to secure power and advance their own interests, never before has one billionaire so thoroughly infiltrated the federal government and bent it to their will for personal gain.
In a way, this is the logical endgame for a political system that’s long rewarded those with pockets deep enough to pay for access and drowned out the needs of working people. Musk has gone directly to the source, raiding the public coffers for his own benefit and interests. This way, he can keep the spigots flowing to himself and his companies, while he champions cuts to vital programs that serve workers and families but not billionaires.
Musk rails against the career federal workers who serve under both Democratic and Republican administrations as “unelected bureaucrats,” but you know them as your mail carrier, your social worker, and your Veterans Administration nurse.
New polling for our organization, Groundwork Collaborative, shows that nearly 60% of voters already believe this unelected tech billionaire has too much influence over Trump and the federal government.
The more they learn, the less they like. Musk’s audacious $2 trillion target for spending reductions is infeasible without deep, painful cuts to veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicare, and food assistance, all of which voters find unacceptable by stunning 50-point margins.
Already, scores of lawsuits have been launched against Musk and DOGE’s blitzkrieg through the federal government. Whether they will stop his reckless behavior is one question. Whether he and Trump will listen if they do is another.
Congress must step in and thoroughly investigate DOGE and check Elon’s unbridled power, before he breaks our government and our democracy beyond repair.