DOES A ONE-PARTY AMERICA START HERE?

The Washington Post reports that congressional Republicans are begging Co-Presidents Musk and Trump to restore funding to their states that Congress lawfully appropriated and the co-presidents are illegally withholding:

Even as many Republicans praise the ultimate goal of streamlining the federal government, some GOP senators spanning the ideological spectrum from Katie Boyd Britt (Alabama) to Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) have lobbied the Trump administration to reconsider its cuts or pauses to federal grants that support biomedical research and labs, or for programs supporting Native American tribes.

("The ultimate goal" of all this is not, of course, "streamlining the federal government." It's to create a series of daily Two Minutes' Hates directed at government "bureaucrats," many of whom are derided as "woke" or otherwise guilty of wrongthink, while persuading gullible Americans that the cost savings will be massive and the lost services will never be missed. Obviously, Elon Musk also wants to direct money into his own pocket, as does Donald Trump, and they want to make the rich richer, but they could have done all that without DOGE. The main point of this is Cultural Revolution-style public shaming.)

The aggressive move to cut spending unilaterally “negates Congress’ hard-won power over appropriations,” said Jessica Riedl, a budget expert with the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, who predicted lawmakers were “afraid” to more forcefully grab back their appropriations power given Trump’s popularity with the GOP base.

“Eventually Congress is going to have to take back its power of the purse rather than nicely asking the administration for favors,” she said.

“Eventually Congress is going to have to take back its power of the purse"? Nahhh. Republicans in Congress won't do that. They think their guy is winning. They fear him, but mostly they want to stay on the winning side.

I think Jessica Riedl is wrong and Tommy Tuberville is right:

But Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), a close Trump ally who supports the cuts, said last week that begging for funds may be the new normal, suggesting that lawmakers could lobby Musk to save spending they’ve allocated for their states as he slashes and cancels contracts at agencies.

“If we have to lobby for, ‘hey wait a minute what about the bridge in Birmingham?’ or ‘there’s a bridge in Mobile or whatever.’ I think that could be very possible,” Tuberville told reporters.

This is probably America's future.

Want NIH money for universities in your state? Kiss the ring and the money will restored. I think that will extend to everything. I am 99% certain that under the current regime, federal disaster relief will be dispersed only to red states and states Trump believes are gettable for Republicans. And we'll just get used to this, because what choice will we have? The courts might say that Trump can't do this, but he'll just ignore them.

And if we still have real elections, this will become a key issue: Do you vote for (presumably Democratic) candidates who say they'll "stand up to Trump"? Or do you vote Republican because it's the only way to keep the money flowing?

I see this as a real issue in this year's two gubernatorial elections. One is in the purple state of Virginia, where Democrats have two-seat majorities in both houses of the state legislature, but the governor is a Republican. I'm sure much of northern Virginia is furious at the federal workforce cuts, which have hit the area's residents very hard. But will voters believe that because they're being held hostage by Trump, their only recourse might be to give him the governor he wants? (Although I don't see the current term-limited governor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, pleading for restoration of the cuts.)

New Jersey, where the other gubernatorial election will take place, is generally seen as a solid blue state -- but Chris Christie won there twice not long ago, and the current governor won reelection by only 3 points in 2021. Kamala Harris won the state by only 6 points.

I think anger at Trump will lead to Democratic victories in those states this year. But in the future, if Trump really turns the money spigot off to Democratic states while ensuring that it's open for Republican and swing states, voters' calculus might change.

(I'm writing this on the assumption that there will still be real state and local elections even if, as I expect, elections for D.C. offices are suspended or tampered with.)

In solid blue states like Illinois and California, eventually there'll be real suffering. FEMA money will be cut off, the universities will be starved, funding for education and highways will be curtailed, and eventually Republican candidates will run on a platform of "making [name of state] great again" by working with President Trump (or President Vance, or maybe just Elon Musk, who might be the permanent government overlord for the next couple of decades, even as the nominal president changes). And these Republican candidates might win as a result.

This is a nightmare scenario, obviously. Maybe it won't come to pass. But I think it's worth trying to imagine a possible future in which only red states get federal money, and blue states are starved.

If this happens, I think there will eventually be a serious secession movement. There might be a Civil War II. I'm ready. If you put it to a vote, I'd vote to secede right now. I'm not sure America is redeemable.