worth mentioning again that senate democrats’ plan for strategic confirmation votes in exchange for blocking the worst nominees was a complete failure - ThreadSky

golikehellmachine.com • 1 day ago

worth mentioning again that senate democrats’ plan for strategic confirmation votes in exchange for blocking the worst nominees was a complete failure

Reposted from Alissa Walker

Duffy addresses the protesters directly, saying they should be angry at Democrats, referencing the government spending “DOGE has already exposed”

Comments

burlydee.bsky.social•19 hours ago

The so-called strategy is a smoke screen to allow members to do what they think is best for their own personal interests. They didn't repel one corrupt nominee. Got nothing. And they knew it from the beginning.

bezier.bsky.social•1 day ago

The problem we often overlook is both R and D senators are getting near constant death threats. That’s on top of many Rs having blackmail of some variety held over them.

lejanaysola.bsky.social•1 day ago

These people are the country's leaders. If they can't defend their principles, can't defend the Constitution, they should just give up their office. No cowering or whining allowed.

bezier.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is true. But what will we end up with if normal people are afraid to run for office. A senate that is all ex-military, ex-CIA, football players, and a President Mountain Dew Camacho?

clemensd1.bsky.social•1 day ago

Ya know, it seems like we (Dems) have never been very good a playing this politics thing. There have been some notable exceptions (Clinton 1, Obama) but in large measure it seems the gop screws everything up, next time everyone votes against them, Dems come in and fix things, we infight,

clemensd1.bsky.social•1 day ago

Our message gets all fractured, the gop jumps on that by stirring up a culture issue that divides us more, and next thing you know they are back in power. Rinse and repeat

sniffit.bsky.social•1 day ago

Also probably worth mentioning: "mass gadflying" is a terrible and self-defeating political strategy.

spdlol.bsky.social•1 day ago

“Strategic” lol, lmao even

mandoqueer.itch.io•1 day ago

they didn't block a single one did they?
I think I was under the impression they did but come to think of it no they just got everything they wanted and a few democrats helped things along like idiots.

mandoqueer.itch.io•1 day ago

ah no wait. Gaetz is the one I was thinking of thanks to someone else in this thread for reminding me.
still concur, complete failure.

copernicus.bsky.social•1 day ago

I'll note that one of the components of the strategy would be media covering the specific worst Republican nominees as dangerous and unqualified.

I feel like they were did everything possible for that, but the media and Republicans have agency.

tubbles.bsky.social•1 day ago

One of the components should be acting on threats to withhold unanimous consent to stall and delay the "really bad" appointees. If they're not going to do that for the worst, why should Republicans take any of their threats seriously?

copernicus.bsky.social•1 day ago

They did exactly that for both RFK Jr. and Vought. It's why the Senate stayed open overnight and the votes took thirty hours to happen.

tubbles.bsky.social•1 day ago

30 hours is amateur hour when they have as many Democrats as they do. Strom Thurmond by himself held back a Civil Rights bill for 24 hours. We can't let the longest filibuster and obstruction be held by a racist shitbird like he was, Democrats need to get serious.

copernicus.bsky.social•1 day ago

That's impossible as the Senate's rules do not allow cabinet nominees to be filibustered.

kindraf.bsky.social•1 day ago

Except the filibuster was not a tool they could use in these proceedings. I've seen so many people commenting confidently this exact sentiment, not even recognizing it was not available to them

nsqe.bsky.social•1 day ago

my surprised face

it is around here somewhere

gregawd.bsky.social•1 day ago

I've been seething this week about Rubio selling out Ukraine knowing that every democrat voted for him. Total failure of the "support the not insane nominees" on all fronts so far

lejanaysola.bsky.social•1 day ago

Anyone who goes to work for a guy who tried to overthrow the elected government should be voted down on general principle. I´m shocked that the Democrats took ANY of the candidates at face value.

flowerrypott.bsky.social•1 day ago

gee, if only someone had warned them 🙄

darkvegetaman.bsky.social•1 day ago

Kick the football, Charlie Brown.

sregorn.bsky.social•1 day ago

wHy aRE YoU yeLLinG aT deMoCRatS?

dcdcdc.bsky.social•1 day ago

He'll be coming for the MD Purple Line next. We're like 75% done.

mlamb.bsky.social•1 day ago

This buffoon passing the buck and insulting protesters is a choice I suppose.

badjohnbrown.bsky.social•1 day ago

California Senator Schiff voted for this nazi fool.

mutantmell.net•1 day ago

I still think it was worth a shot, it had some decent upside if it worked, and it made the gop senators reveal to what extent they were all-in for the administration.

tubbles.bsky.social•1 day ago

Here's the thing: We already learned they were all-in for Trump back in 2020 when they refused to convict him for the Impeachment twice. The Democrats touched the stove over and over and over again and then assumed this time the red-hot stove wouldn't burn them for what?

mutantmell.net•1 day ago

Because it had potential upside, and they can do fuck-all in the minority otherwise? I’m not convinced that they thought this would work, so much as they thought it was worth a try.

golikehellmachine.com•1 day ago

i think it might have been worth a shot if schumer could have actually gotten some assurances, but it’s abundantly clear now that he never had them, and after tillis fucked them on hegseth, there was no reason to play ball on duffy

mutantmell.net•1 day ago

The execution could have been better, no arguments there. I mostly fall into “it didn’t really matter” and “it was worth a shot” camps.

badjohnbrown.bsky.social•1 day ago

It was a complete and total failure with damaging consequences.

mutantmell.net•1 day ago

??? what ??? please explain what the damaging consequences that the democrats caused by doing this

badjohnbrown.bsky.social•1 day ago

Bipartisan cover for clearly unqualified nominees.

hotrollhottakes.bsky.social•1 day ago

I agree that there's no concrete consequences, but there's still something to be said to the idea that in the realm of public opinion, these sorts of mistakes anger the base and leave independents completely unmoved. It lines up with the polls of public sentiment over the last few days, at least

mutantmell.net•1 day ago

Sometimes you just have to put your cards down on the table, even if you think you’re getting played, because it’s the only way to know for sure you’re getting played.

badjohnbrown.bsky.social•1 day ago

You sound like someone with a lot of experience getting played.

killerbuni.bsky.social•1 day ago

I feel like after it failed with Hegseth they should have known it had a 0% chance of success and switched over to gum up the works as much as possible then.

clockworklady.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don't think it meaningfully changes either way beyond giving us something else to be annoyed about, it definitely didn't work but I don't know if the optics of another bad plan would lead to meaningfully different outcomes.

zzyzx.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don't know what if anything changes if all of the nominees are confirmed with party line votes. It would look better I guess...

killerbuni.bsky.social•1 day ago

they managed to block a whopping ZERO of the nominees, in a senate party composition that would previously have seen several nominees blocked for not being centrist enough.

jmgreene28.bsky.social•1 day ago

I’m sympathetic to the realities of the political situation, but absolutely agog at the party’s inability to execute anything resembling a coordinated protest plan.

devin-eleven.bsky.social•1 day ago

Democrats in Congress really need to stop with the 5d chess, they seem to lose every time. They lose so much they look like collaborators at this point.

golikehellmachine.com•1 day ago

if you assert that it was some kind of controlled opposition plan or that they’re all the same, i am going to block you outright, being able to understand that failure is not conspiracy is a critical skill and if you don’t have it, you don’t have anything i need

hikikomorphism.bsky.social•1 day ago

The distinction between "this is controlled opposition" and "for whatever reason, they are not acting meaningfully different than they would if they were a controlled opposition" is an important one

hikikomorphism.bsky.social•1 day ago

That said, the purpose of a system _is_ what it does

nora-hakase.bsky.social•1 day ago

Dude, they REALLY failed. Just shat the bed.

cxyn.bsky.social•1 day ago

Pattern recognition is also a critical skill.

jacobglowacki.bsky.social•1 day ago

One valuable compentency that following sports teaches you is that a team can be trying their absolute hardest to win and still utterly shit the bed.

golikehellmachine.com•1 day ago

you can decide for yourself how much that mattered - imo, not much at all - but it *was* a complete failure, and at least merkley and wyden aren’t sitting around watching a guy they confirmed insult their constituents.

gojira65.bsky.social•1 day ago

If Schumer actually believed that ANY Trump nominee was going to be "acceptable," and that Dems needed to hold their fire to use against "the REALLY bad ones," he's a failure as leader. Rubio was confirmed 99-0, and at this moment he is helping Russia dismember Ukraine.

tomscud.bsky.social•1 day ago

yeah, like some guys are going to take heat in primaries for these votes but that's going to be about the difference between a bunch of 53-47 votes and what happened

mrbtx.bsky.social•1 day ago

Donde está Schiff etc

mrbtx.bsky.social•1 day ago

Like Padilla doesn't seem to be that flashy but

josephusbrown.bsky.social•1 day ago

the mistake was ever making it look like this wasn’t going to be a fucking shitshow. There was no point ever where anybody had any reason to pretend anything going on here was normal, and it did the nation a great disservice that they did.

timpranillo.bsky.social•1 day ago

They still could have withheld unanimous consent and made it more difficult.

ie68.bsky.social•1 day ago

yeah, end result almost assuredly the same even if they were "maximally obstructionist" tactically, but most of these light blue or purple dems should know better than to put their names as voting for these sorts of unqualified freakshows

golikehellmachine.com•1 day ago

right, at best, it might have slowed things down *a little*, but it seems pretty clear that schumer could never actually got iron clad assurances on any of these nominations from republicans, which is a poor negotiation strategy

pacquah.bsky.social•1 day ago

Even if he did, they'd have zero fear of reneging.

clutch3-16.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think the value would've been more in simply being seen fighting against these chuds from the start. It didn't take a real devious mind to understand that the Republicans were never going to reward cooperation and now there's a bunch of idiots with affirmative votes for some fuckin ghouls

sameoldstory.co•1 day ago

I don’t think it made a big difference in the end but I also hope I don’t have to see any more posts defending the strategy as a great idea anymore

golikehellmachine.com•1 day ago

that’s more or less my position as well. it failed as a strategy. there weren’t other options that would have led to different outcomes, but it *did* fail.

terrifiedstill2024.bsky.social•1 day ago

Fuck you duffy

danielwbrody.bsky.social•1 day ago

I hope every Trump admin official is subject to something like this protest everywhere they go

annabellelecter.bsky.social•1 day ago

What an absolute weasel

chriroch.bsky.social•1 day ago

Have you seen any contingency planning at all on these nominations? Like I feel its a pretty reasonable thing to do - "What happens if the strategic confirmation approach here fails? What actions can we take? What are the impacts we might for see?"

grungehamster.bsky.social•1 day ago

The only defense of it I have is we avoid having to deal with the counterfactual world where critics can say "Democratic maximal obstruction negatively polarized Trump skeptical colleagues to embrace anti-anti-Trumpism."

grungehamster.bsky.social•1 day ago

Plus 70% Democratic support of pursuing bipartisanship a month ago (has dropped to 57% but that's still a majority.)

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/51651-donald-trump-government-plans-priorities-elon-musk-doge-russia-ukraine-war-february-16-18-2025-economist-yougov-poll

lejanaysola.bsky.social•1 day ago

Madness.

grungehamster.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's what happens when your party gets the lion's share of believers in pluralism. A country where both parties go maximum opposition and compromise is verbolten is in a race to the bottom and there HAS to be an off-ramp. Problem is that one of the parties isn't on-board for that; hawk-dove game.

grungehamster.bsky.social•1 day ago

Basically non-partisan/not highly engaged Democrats think surely there is some incentive to convince Trump to adhere to the process and missed it isn't just posturing: the people with the reins want to win/see you lose above all other policy objectives.

parisdog.bsky.social•1 day ago

it's like none of them are aware of Charlie Brown and Lucy

fattom23.bsky.social•1 day ago

In their defense, the only way to know it would fail would be to observe Republican behavior over the 17-20 years or so.

themightyspitz.bsky.social•1 day ago

This has been the crux of my criticisms about Dems (esp. Senate Dems) this term: they’re approaching the situation and the nominees in good faith and business as usual expecting the same in return. This is not that time. You can keep believing that and be Charlie Brown, or you can get creative.

doomforpresident.bsky.social•1 day ago

And don’t let anybody tell you that “strategy” kept Gaetz out. Gaetz is loathed by senate Republicans, they nuked him themselves without giving the slightest thought to what Democrats would do.

smullins3000.bsky.social•1 day ago

Utter and complete.

bglazebrook26.bsky.social•1 day ago

Not your point, but I think this video demonstrates what we need more of - any time a Trump person tries to speak, let them know how unpopular they are.

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