AOC: Among the material devastation to everyday people, Senate Dems have now blown a hole in their ability to work with

[highplainsdem]

the House.

We had an agreed upon plan, House took immense risk, then Senate turned around midway and destroyed it w/ a fear-based, inexplicable abdication.

They own what happens next.

Among the material devastation to everyday people, Senate Dems have now blown a hole in their ability to work with the House.

We had an agreed upon plan, House took immense risk, then Senate turned around midway and destroyed it w/ a fear-based, inexplicable abdication.

They own what happens next.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc.bsky.social) 2025-03-14T23:18:01.737Z

[Autumn]

1. Well dang. That sucks.

Fucking over their own co workers

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

I love AOC.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. She's right

[orangecrush]

4. Exactly

[newdeal2]

6. You can say the same thing about Schumer's "plan"

Whatever that was.

[Autumn]

43. Like the plan he had with the House, then pulled the rug out from under them?

That plan?

[angrychair]

9. What opposition bigtree?

There is nothing now. From here on out they don't need Democrats for anything and Democrats are completely powerless to stop anything.
Literally just today he has called for the arrest of his political enemies. That news channels like MSNBC should be illegal and their administration said they will ignore courts orders. Oh, and he wants to control admissions and curriculum at Columbia University.
He is now a dictator by any definition.

Yes, Republicans wrote that CR but it was the Democrats in the Senate that delivered it on a silver platter.

[defacto7]

12. This

[bigtree]

15. you want opposition, elect a majority

...it's that simple.

Don't expect a minority party to restrain the rabid party holding ALL branches of government. It's just dancing all around the obvious reality of the ineffectiveness of a minority party.

Whatever you expect them to do isn't going to withstand the reality of the majority. Why people fail to understand that is a constant mystery to me.

The ONLY thing that will move them, if anything, is pushback from their constituents. Expecting legislators to urge US to that is an amazing abdication of folks' own political power.

And continually bashing the ones we managed to elect for the reality of their insufficient numbers is the most dirt-dumb thing people interested in political success can do on a public forum.

But still people persist with this nonsense like it's some opposition to republicans. I mean, we get these admonitions that read like they came from mystical gurus about nebulous demands of 'courage' to do whatever we think represents strength to us, damn the consequences that we don't even bother to take into account.

Such ridiculous hurdles placed in the way of OUR OWN advocacy for the Democratic majority WE desperately need.

[angrychair]

21. Those rules don't exist

That is the point that people like Schumer and you miss. Stopping that CR was it. The game is over. All you have to do is listen to his speech at the DOJ to figure that out.
Congress has officially gave up it's power to stop the tariffs. They have willfully given up their Article 1 appropriations power.

It was within their power to stop it but they choose to be cowards. I mean TSF even thanked Schumer for his help. I'm sure Schumer will love his new position as TSF's footstool.

[uponit7771]

24. We need to elect the correct majority people and that doesn't include current dem Senate leadership at least

[Ninga]

45. I sincerely believe that because election rigging

by musk we will not have a fair 2026 election.
Damage is under way and it’s only March

[Scrivener7]

29. Ummmm ... that's not how "opposition" works.

[FHRRK]

64. LOL!!! Is that friggen classic!

Want to be a good opposition…. you need to win a majority.

Win a majority… you need to win a super majority.

The most difficult mid level managers I worked with in Corp America were the fence sitting goal posts movers.

And not all of them were righties, some were just completely unable to upset the status quo.

[MadLinguist]

32. Do you not recall what GOPers did when in the minority?

They fought and kicked and screamed every step of Obama's administration and Biden's. Why can the Dems not deliver similar opposition? What the ever living fuqq is Schumer gaining by this behavior? What does he stave off? I don't get it, and AOC, who understands a lot more about the ins and outs of procedures leading up to the vote, doesn't either. It's like he's holding his hands behind his back while promising fists. It's just infuriating.

[Cirsium]

33. Republicans can

Why doesn't the same apply to the Republicans? Being a minority party never stopped them from blocking whatever we were trying to do.

You complain about people "continually bashing" Democrats, yet here you are - again! - bashing Democrats with whom you don't agree, and insulting and attacking your fellow rank and file Democrats here.

[Hornedfrog2000]

60. Elect lol

We will never win another election

[TomSlick]

16. Exactly. Schumer empowered Trump today.

Democrats will certainly not stop Trump by appeasement.

[valleyrogue]

42. LOL. Sure, he did.

And if the government shut down, do you REALLY think Democrats wouldn't be blamed for it?

That is why the Democrats voted to keep it open. The know the reality more than you do.

[Hornedfrog2000]

62. Who cares?

Theyve known what was going to happen since at LEAST 2015, and you think 10 years later thing are magically going to get better? They wont.

[leftstreet]

19. +1

[onenote]

10. AOC during the 2018-2019 shutdown:

"It is not normal to hold 800,000 workers' paychecks hostage. It is not normal to shut down the government when we don't get what we want."

She seemed to be more concerned about the collateral damage occasioned by a prolonged government shutdown back then.

For those who might not remember: That shutdown lasted from December 22, 2018 until January 25, 2019 -- the longest in history. During that time, around 800,000 federal workers either were furloughed or required to work without any known payment dates. Many federal employees had to find other paid work. Businesses that rely on the federal workforce, also suffered. Members of the public were harmed by reductions in payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, delays in processing billions in tax refund, and TSA staff shortages resulted in some airports closing down for periods of time. I personally witnessed long lines of federal employees waiting in the winter cold for free meals being provided by World Central Kitchen.

[richdj25]

17. I don't post much up in here

but seems like you're panicking. AOC is simply being....AOC. she's speaking truth to power, in the face of pure cowardice.

Dems aren't winning anything by being the status quo. It's time to let that stuff go and move on to more modern ideas.

[BannonsLiver]

25. It's not panic, it's the compulsion to back the establishment no matter what.

Schumer could have put on a clown nose and done the Charleston on the senate floor while the vote was taking place and some folks would call it a stroke of brilliance. It’s the unimaginative, predictable, lame ass, fall in line or else we’ve seen time and time again.

[valleyrogue]

39. She is pandering, and she knows it.

She has been doing this since the first day she came on the job.

She has burned a lot of bridges. Not smart.

[Sympthsical]

28. There is gaslighting

And then there is the thermonuclear bonfire being managed here.

Jesus.

The entire Democratic House caucus and the vast majority of our Senate caucus opposed this. Schumer and the others have created a schism in the Democratic party at the worst possible moment.

And your claim is that everyone else is the real problem here.

You’re cheering on the schism while claiming everyone else needs to be careful lest they help Republicans.

This is truly gymnast quality. Team USA should come calling.

[Mr.WeRP]

31. It's time to flush the Dems that betrayed us

This story keeps repeating:
Lieberman
Zel Miller
Manchin
Gabbard
Gilibrand
Sinema
Fettermen
Now Schumer and 9 others

Fuck this shit.

[valleyrogue]

40. Exactly. Many don't understand how politics works.

It is a lot of naivete that I have seen over the years.

People do need to move on with this. Voting to keep the government open, no matter some of the shit in the CR, is infinitely better than being labeled as being responsible for the government shutting down entirely.

I have my views of AOC, but I will keep them to myself.

[Gimpyknee]

7. This opens the door for AOC

to primary Schumer. Apparently Chuck missed the lesson in leadership that taught if you’re going to be a leader you must lead. Schumer capitulated the day before the actual vote. The dems got nothing. A leader would have led them up to the final hour, the final minutes to win some concessions however little they might have been. He is now setting himself to vote for the next continuing resolution six months from now.

[valleyrogue]

38. LOL!!!!! I doubt she'd win anything statewide. n/t

[Magoo48]

49. Well, of course not, not when the old guys with the old ways, and the old rules, and old protocols

are doing such a bang up, fucking good job.

[ibegurpard]

61. Of course she would

The primary is the question

[JanMichael]

8. That is true, and they had an agreed plan, then what are we supposed to do now?

If the house members can't trust the senate members what's that lead to?

I guess the collegial, we in a special club, types are always going to stick together even if the other side's a bunch of fucking Nazis.

[Passages]

11. Not mincing words: destroyed it with a fear based, inexplicable abdication.

It didn't have to be this way.

[republianmushroom]

13. Nails it.

[Skittles]

18. CORRECT

Link to tweet

[Evolve Dammit]

20. Yep

[rickyhall]

22. I'm 69 years old.

And I say, Send the old people home. They no longer have the guts to do the job.

[valleyrogue]

37. I say stop with the ageism.

This has nothing to do with age.

[mzmolly]

27. Some Senate Democrats.

It would be good if we could stop labeling all Democrats as voting for this shit show when the vast majority did not.

[Cirsium]

34. No one is

No one is doing that.

[mzmolly]

46. "Democrats" voted for ...

is doing just that.

[Cirsium]

48. Wow

Are we going to police people's language to that extreme degree?

[mzmolly]

50. Are you policing mine?

Again the majority of Democrats voted against the spending bill. A small group voted in favor, and with sound reason.

[Cirsium]

58. Interesting

So those who voted against cloture were just casting performative votes, which meas that the headline is 100% accurate. Democrats in the Senate, as a group, failed to block the CR from going to the floor where it is certain to pass. Leadership knew (always knows) what the vote count will be ahead of time, and who ca be allowed to cast a performative vote. The CR is so unpopular with the rank and file - you can see that right here - that most of the Democratic Senators wanted to stop it or to look as though they wanted to stop it.

Because of the way this all came down, we can't know how many of those "no" votes were performative. Is there a serious defection from the leadership happening? Did most of the Democrats support cloture, but wanted to look good for their constituents and were allowed to vote "no" for the sake of appearance, knowing full well that leadership had rallied enough votes to move the Republican bill forward? When Schumer said that members were going to vote their own way, that was a tip of that he had the votes he needed and that at least some of those "no" votes would be performative.

The Senate Democrats - all of them - are responsible for what the leadership does and they should not hide behind performative votes. If most of the Senate Democrats are in fact at odds with the leader on such an important issue at such a critical time, then they must replace the leadership. If they do not, then we are forced to assume that their votes were mostly performative. Otherwise, what does leadership mean?

[sop]

30. Chuck thinks the DOGE shutdowns without any transparency are better than a real shutdown.

[valleyrogue]

36. The LAST thing we need is a real shutdown. THAT would damage Democrats.

That is why the GOP pulled this stunt. Now Democrats need to make sure they own it.

[valleyrogue]

35. She is wrong.

This of course is all calculated. We get a few on the left that will trash the party leaders, but they know they don't have the votes or the clout.

This is all playing to the various bases.

The Democrats don't "own" this. This is entirely on the GOP.

[Autumn]

41. She is 100% correct. Schumer made a deal with the house then hung them out to dry.

Schumer and his crew own this. They got played by the pukes.

[Progressive dog]

44. Where can I find the agreed upon plan?

Schumer made no mention during his floor speech of wanting an amendment vote on the short-term stopgap, but senators emerging from their Wednesday afternoon lunch meeting said that is the crux of their strategy. That could also give them a potential offramp to vote on the final House-passed proposal if Republicans agree to a vote on a short-term stopgap — even if that stopgap, as expected, fails.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/03/12/congress/senate-dems-form-plan-to-avoid-a-shutdown-00227195

[PeterIsMyBrother]

47. A lot of

people in this thread scared of AOC

[CrispyQ]

51. When Pelosi scolds you & Trump congratulates you, you fucked up.

I don't blame house dems for being pissed one bit!

[Bluetus]

52. Do you remember what Manchin and all the other GOP-lite people said about the filibuster rule?

They said we must preserve the filibuster because that makes the Senate better by forcing Senators to work across party lines.

Well, maybe it would, but not if the Republicans think we don't have the guts to use it.

The one time, the moment of truth for our democracy, and we refused to use it. Just imagine how much progress we could have made if we had done away with the rule 20 years ago.

We have front-row seats to the dismantling of our government and all the fundamentals of our society.. And this one is on us. We can't blame the Republicans for our having such spineless leadership.

[GP6971]

54. This is your 3rd post hawking Temu...are you paid to do this?

[malthaussen]

55. Seems like betrayal is the American Way now...

... as our once-and-future Allies might have told us.

-- Mal

[Dawson Leery]

56. She's right.

[NNadir]

57. I would like her to repeat what she did for her House seat with the Senate seat.

Recall that she primaried a long time Democratic Congress person and pulled off an upset.

[DFW]

59. She won't be able to

She primaried an incumbent who had been there for a long time, and so was not expecting danger from friendly fire. That primary race was decided with 5% of the people in her district voting.

If she challenges Schumer in a statewide primary, with a lot more Jews and a lot less of her brand of progressive throughout the state, she will be challenging a wily old political pro who will have seen her coming a mile away. If she’s as smart as she seems to be, she’ll make a few noises to keep some of her more vocal supporters happy, but she'll keep her powder dry for battles she knows she can win. I’m betting she’s one of Schumer’s top choices to replace him when he steps down, and she’s too smart not to know that she has a free ride with Schumer at her back, and an uphill battle if she tries by getting in his face instead.

[NNadir]

66. I think we're living in a world where predictions of either failure or success are overrated.

I personally am living in a world I would never have predicted in my worst nightmare politically.

As odd as it may seem, I have no use for political soothsaying, negative or positive.

I said what I would like to see happen. I am an old man who's tired of other old men living in a world that no longer exists describing what is and is not possible in a world that neither they or I are equipped to understand.

If I must predict anything, it is that soon we will live in a kind of hell that old men, wily as they may have been in another time, one clearly passed, are ill eqipped to handle.

[DFW]

68. I grew up within ten miles of Capitol Hill, where my dad worked for fifty years

He was one of Washington’s longest serving print journalists, and he knew almost everybody. My first visit to the White House to meet a sitting president was in 1965, when I was 13, and my last was years after he had passed. He used to take me up to the Senate Press Gallery and hang with guys named Dirksen, Humphrey, etc. It was a different era, of course, but one where idealism and speculation were mostly on the record, and outside the building on the Capitol steps, where realism and the possible were off the record, and inside the Capitol walls. Successful members of Congress, both heroes and horrors, learn to navigate both, and recognize the difference. Now, I’m an old guy, too, but that hasn’t changed.

[NNadir]

69. The people you mention lived in a world where respect for law and...

...the Constituion were respected. They're dead, those people you met. So apparently is the Constitution. The cordial disagreements have devolved into lies and threats. The consequences will be dire.

It's clear to me it's not Chuckie Schumer's world anymore. To fight we need people with courage.

[pat_k]

63. I find the language of "Dems now own Trump's crimes" incredibly counterproductive.

Despite claims that somehow the CR nullifies the Article II "Take Care" clause and nullifies the Congressional Budget and Impound Control Act, it DOES NOT. No way, no how.

Senate Democrats have NOT, in ANY WAY whatsoever, handed over a blank check that renders the unconstitutional, unlawful recessions and impoundments of the funds appropriated by Congress to be legal. To claim that the CR has done so is to declare what Trump is doing to now be legal. And that is utter, unequivocal, CRAP that we MUST NOT push as a message. Un f-ing believably counterproductive.

Should they have blocked the CR? Maybe. But maybe not.

FWIW, I believe there was no unequivocal right answer. Should Senate Democrats have used their leverage more effectively? Of course. However, I for one don't know that, had they done so, it might not have ended up shifting the public's growing anger from the chaos of Trump's unilateral, lawless shutdown of the parts of our government he doesn't like to the chaos of the "democratic shutdown" of everything. More on thoughts on the Senate's CR Sophie's choice in ( this post).

Yes, keep lobbying them to do what you believe is right, but I beg you all, when the people who are on our side in this fight do something you believe is a wrong step, please, please, try to extend a little grace. Pointing the guns of our rage at our allies, however misguided we may think their actions are, is not how we defeat the REAL enemies of our constitutional democracy. We defeat Trumpublicanism by keeping our rage firmly directed where it belongs.

In our constitution, We the People gave ourselves a far more effective remedy for a lawless, out-of-control executive lead by a lawless, out-of-control President and Vice President than cutting off the money: Impeachment. And right now, the most effective thing members of the House committed to protecting our form of government against their unprecedented attack is to draft Articles of Impeachment.

Being in the minority in the House is not a barrier to drafting articles. It doesn't matter how many times Johnson blocks introduction. They can (and I believe, MUST) put articles of impeachment out there and call on every American who is committed to defending our constitution to lobby their representatives to co-sign or be voted out in favor of someone who will.

To lobby them to stand strong and condemn the actions of Trump and Vance and as crimes against our founding principles WITHOUT lobbying for them to declare those acts to be High Crimes in Articles of Impeachment is tantamount to lobbying them to spit in the wind. More on why I believe this is absolutely necessary in this post,

[red dog 1]

65. K&R

I agree with AOC.

[SunSeeker]

67. How did House Dems "take immense risk"? The CR had enough House GOP votes to pass with zero House Dem votes.

In other words, the House Dems' No vote carried no risk of being blamed for the shutdown.

That was not the case with the Senate Dems. Their vote really did determine whether there would be a shutdown or not.