#partisan-retaliation

#partisan-retaliation

Shortly after the first government shutdown since 2019 began earlier this month, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced that he was freezing $8 billion in infrastructure projects exclusively in states that voted for Kamala Harris. The projects that Vought consigned to funding purgatory included a multibillion-dollar renovation and expansion of the Hudson Tunnel from New Jersey to New York City and an extension of the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line.

There is still no true governing philosophy of the second Trump administration. It is, on any given day, radically libertarian or obsessively protectionist. The economy is sputtering, and Donald Trump doesn't seem to care. He's got scores to settle and vendettas to execute. And he's empowered enough sinister ideologues, from Stephen Miller to Russell Vought, to make this redux as painful as can be.

The ability to retaliate against Donald Trump's power grabs and other outrages is a rare pleasure for Democrats, which is why Gavin Newsom's counter-gerrymandering effort in California is so wildly popular among Democrats. If Democrats can't stop Trump's egregious policies in Congress (and they really can't) and the U.S. Supreme Court is either enabling him or slow-walking efforts to rein him in (which it clearly is), then they need different arenas in which to contest his authoritarian ways.

The question arises as the Trump administration threatens charges against three prominent Democrats who have angered the president: U.S. Senator Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. All stand accused of submitting an application for a home loan stating that the property would be their primary residence, then treating another property as their primary residence.