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Where Are We Heading?
The events this summer make old warnings by the naturalist Lester Brown ring with meaning. The foreword of his 1996 State of the World report begins as follows:
"As we complete the 13th State of the World, it is a dark time for environmental policy in Washington, threatening the U.S. leadership role on environmental issues. Yet in many other countries, and among hundreds of corporations and nongovernmental organizations, environmental problems are being taken more seriously than ever."
Aug 30, 2011
The events this summer make old warnings by the naturalist Lester Brown ring with meaning. The foreword of his 1996 State of the World report begins as follows:
"As we complete the 13th State of the World, it is a dark time for environmental policy in Washington, threatening the U.S. leadership role on environmental issues. Yet in many other countries, and among hundreds of corporations and nongovernmental organizations, environmental problems are being taken more seriously than ever."
The first essay, "The Acceleration of History," starts this way:
"The pace of change in our world is speeding up, accelerating to the point where it threatens to overwhelm the management capacity of political leaders."
Fifteen years later the trends forecast by Brown unfold as predicted. Living in Formosa with family for the summer put the foreword in a new light. Staying in Kaohsiung County let me take a sabbatical from driving, a freedom made possible by bike lanes, good buses, a spanking new subway, and efficient railroads, paid for by a tax system that charges the wealthy. Returning to Florida feels as if one stepped into a time machine set for the past, hurtling the traveler from a future of wind farms and bullet trains back into the quaint old fossil era.
The U.S. leadership role on environmental issues is no more. With the American Disenlightenment--the oil wars, the climate denial, the deregulation--the US has renounced this role. The president promised change but delivered continuity. A whole party is controlled by anti-environmentalists. The Republican hatred of nature is all the weirder as much of the regulation now under attack had been a Republican creation. Hatred of nature joins hands with contempt for knowledge. In May of this year, Florida Governor Rick Scott announced, "I've not been convinced that there's any man-made climate change; nothing's convinced me that there is." In his book published last November, Texas Governor Rick Perry derided global warming as a "phony mess". Just before last year's elections, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez claimed "there is disagreement in the science community concerning the causes of global warming." And on it goes. With the laudable and solitary exception of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, virtually all Republican governors are in cognitive denial.
Here in Florida, in the past few months alone, the Department of Community Affairs was eliminated; the Florida Forever land acquisition program was unfunded; all the appointments to the Environmental Regulation Commission and to the Florida Energy and Climate Commission had been withdrawn; the state's planned cap-and-trade program was scrapped, and the regulations protecting the Everglades, a body of laws that had been decades in the making, were rolled back. Seed money from Washington for high speed rail was rejected by the Florida governor--as if the Florida construction industry were not in need of jobs. Meanwhile the ocean around the Keys heated up to an astounding 30 C (90 F); the water is teeming with jellyfish, and the reefs look blotched and blighted. How can we possibly afford this--even from a business standpoint? Is the Florida tourism industry not in need of tourists?
The gap between information and policy is a symptom of what I describe elsewhere as the square of flawed cognition. Despite its predictability, it boggles the mind. The governor and legislature of a region extremely vulnerable to climate change decided to make it ... more vulnerable.
Then again, the rightist conduct is also heart-wrenching to watch: a doomed bourgeois attempt to turn back the clock, back to a time when environmental issues were a weekend luxury, when there was no climate change, and when cars were cool. U.S. politics today confirms Lester Brown's prediction, that the speed of environmental change would eventually overwhelm the management capacities of political leaders.
Life in Formosa, by contrast, made me feel safe. Typhoon Morakot, which dumped a year's rainfall within 72 hours on the island in 2009, had wrecked much of the roadways in the mountains. I spent a month roaming the mountains on a bike, with repeated forays up on the nanheng gonglu, the east-west traverse connecting Tainan to Taidong across the southern shoulder of the Yu Shan massif, with a pass at nearly 3000 m. The typhoon had made mountain sides come down, obliterated aboriginal villages in mudslides, and toppled the viaducts west of the pass. First I heard that the road would be abandoned, but when climbing up to the current road's end I witnessed the giant climate-proofing construction project underway. Entire river valleys are being fortified now, so as to channel future floods more safely. The workers in the road crews along the nanheng must number in the thousands. At least somewhere on the planet citizens do act on the information, with politicians who are capable and who are not overwhelmed.
Climate change forces our hand, and perhaps this is how civil evolution works. Cultures stuck in nostalgic denial and cognitive dissonance will weaken. Others, acting on the information, will rise, and prevail, and rule.
An Unconstitutional Rampage
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Martin Schonfeld
Martin Schonfeld teaches Philosophy at the University of South Florida. He writes on the American disenlightenment and edits the Climate Philosophy Newsletter. His most recent book is "Plan B: Global Climate Ethics--Planetary Crisis and Philosophical Alternatives" (2015).
The events this summer make old warnings by the naturalist Lester Brown ring with meaning. The foreword of his 1996 State of the World report begins as follows:
"As we complete the 13th State of the World, it is a dark time for environmental policy in Washington, threatening the U.S. leadership role on environmental issues. Yet in many other countries, and among hundreds of corporations and nongovernmental organizations, environmental problems are being taken more seriously than ever."
The first essay, "The Acceleration of History," starts this way:
"The pace of change in our world is speeding up, accelerating to the point where it threatens to overwhelm the management capacity of political leaders."
Fifteen years later the trends forecast by Brown unfold as predicted. Living in Formosa with family for the summer put the foreword in a new light. Staying in Kaohsiung County let me take a sabbatical from driving, a freedom made possible by bike lanes, good buses, a spanking new subway, and efficient railroads, paid for by a tax system that charges the wealthy. Returning to Florida feels as if one stepped into a time machine set for the past, hurtling the traveler from a future of wind farms and bullet trains back into the quaint old fossil era.
The U.S. leadership role on environmental issues is no more. With the American Disenlightenment--the oil wars, the climate denial, the deregulation--the US has renounced this role. The president promised change but delivered continuity. A whole party is controlled by anti-environmentalists. The Republican hatred of nature is all the weirder as much of the regulation now under attack had been a Republican creation. Hatred of nature joins hands with contempt for knowledge. In May of this year, Florida Governor Rick Scott announced, "I've not been convinced that there's any man-made climate change; nothing's convinced me that there is." In his book published last November, Texas Governor Rick Perry derided global warming as a "phony mess". Just before last year's elections, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez claimed "there is disagreement in the science community concerning the causes of global warming." And on it goes. With the laudable and solitary exception of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, virtually all Republican governors are in cognitive denial.
Here in Florida, in the past few months alone, the Department of Community Affairs was eliminated; the Florida Forever land acquisition program was unfunded; all the appointments to the Environmental Regulation Commission and to the Florida Energy and Climate Commission had been withdrawn; the state's planned cap-and-trade program was scrapped, and the regulations protecting the Everglades, a body of laws that had been decades in the making, were rolled back. Seed money from Washington for high speed rail was rejected by the Florida governor--as if the Florida construction industry were not in need of jobs. Meanwhile the ocean around the Keys heated up to an astounding 30 C (90 F); the water is teeming with jellyfish, and the reefs look blotched and blighted. How can we possibly afford this--even from a business standpoint? Is the Florida tourism industry not in need of tourists?
The gap between information and policy is a symptom of what I describe elsewhere as the square of flawed cognition. Despite its predictability, it boggles the mind. The governor and legislature of a region extremely vulnerable to climate change decided to make it ... more vulnerable.
Then again, the rightist conduct is also heart-wrenching to watch: a doomed bourgeois attempt to turn back the clock, back to a time when environmental issues were a weekend luxury, when there was no climate change, and when cars were cool. U.S. politics today confirms Lester Brown's prediction, that the speed of environmental change would eventually overwhelm the management capacities of political leaders.
Life in Formosa, by contrast, made me feel safe. Typhoon Morakot, which dumped a year's rainfall within 72 hours on the island in 2009, had wrecked much of the roadways in the mountains. I spent a month roaming the mountains on a bike, with repeated forays up on the nanheng gonglu, the east-west traverse connecting Tainan to Taidong across the southern shoulder of the Yu Shan massif, with a pass at nearly 3000 m. The typhoon had made mountain sides come down, obliterated aboriginal villages in mudslides, and toppled the viaducts west of the pass. First I heard that the road would be abandoned, but when climbing up to the current road's end I witnessed the giant climate-proofing construction project underway. Entire river valleys are being fortified now, so as to channel future floods more safely. The workers in the road crews along the nanheng must number in the thousands. At least somewhere on the planet citizens do act on the information, with politicians who are capable and who are not overwhelmed.
Climate change forces our hand, and perhaps this is how civil evolution works. Cultures stuck in nostalgic denial and cognitive dissonance will weaken. Others, acting on the information, will rise, and prevail, and rule.
Martin Schonfeld
Martin Schonfeld teaches Philosophy at the University of South Florida. He writes on the American disenlightenment and edits the Climate Philosophy Newsletter. His most recent book is "Plan B: Global Climate Ethics--Planetary Crisis and Philosophical Alternatives" (2015).
The events this summer make old warnings by the naturalist Lester Brown ring with meaning. The foreword of his 1996 State of the World report begins as follows:
"As we complete the 13th State of the World, it is a dark time for environmental policy in Washington, threatening the U.S. leadership role on environmental issues. Yet in many other countries, and among hundreds of corporations and nongovernmental organizations, environmental problems are being taken more seriously than ever."
The first essay, "The Acceleration of History," starts this way:
"The pace of change in our world is speeding up, accelerating to the point where it threatens to overwhelm the management capacity of political leaders."
Fifteen years later the trends forecast by Brown unfold as predicted. Living in Formosa with family for the summer put the foreword in a new light. Staying in Kaohsiung County let me take a sabbatical from driving, a freedom made possible by bike lanes, good buses, a spanking new subway, and efficient railroads, paid for by a tax system that charges the wealthy. Returning to Florida feels as if one stepped into a time machine set for the past, hurtling the traveler from a future of wind farms and bullet trains back into the quaint old fossil era.
The U.S. leadership role on environmental issues is no more. With the American Disenlightenment--the oil wars, the climate denial, the deregulation--the US has renounced this role. The president promised change but delivered continuity. A whole party is controlled by anti-environmentalists. The Republican hatred of nature is all the weirder as much of the regulation now under attack had been a Republican creation. Hatred of nature joins hands with contempt for knowledge. In May of this year, Florida Governor Rick Scott announced, "I've not been convinced that there's any man-made climate change; nothing's convinced me that there is." In his book published last November, Texas Governor Rick Perry derided global warming as a "phony mess". Just before last year's elections, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez claimed "there is disagreement in the science community concerning the causes of global warming." And on it goes. With the laudable and solitary exception of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, virtually all Republican governors are in cognitive denial.
Here in Florida, in the past few months alone, the Department of Community Affairs was eliminated; the Florida Forever land acquisition program was unfunded; all the appointments to the Environmental Regulation Commission and to the Florida Energy and Climate Commission had been withdrawn; the state's planned cap-and-trade program was scrapped, and the regulations protecting the Everglades, a body of laws that had been decades in the making, were rolled back. Seed money from Washington for high speed rail was rejected by the Florida governor--as if the Florida construction industry were not in need of jobs. Meanwhile the ocean around the Keys heated up to an astounding 30 C (90 F); the water is teeming with jellyfish, and the reefs look blotched and blighted. How can we possibly afford this--even from a business standpoint? Is the Florida tourism industry not in need of tourists?
The gap between information and policy is a symptom of what I describe elsewhere as the square of flawed cognition. Despite its predictability, it boggles the mind. The governor and legislature of a region extremely vulnerable to climate change decided to make it ... more vulnerable.
Then again, the rightist conduct is also heart-wrenching to watch: a doomed bourgeois attempt to turn back the clock, back to a time when environmental issues were a weekend luxury, when there was no climate change, and when cars were cool. U.S. politics today confirms Lester Brown's prediction, that the speed of environmental change would eventually overwhelm the management capacities of political leaders.
Life in Formosa, by contrast, made me feel safe. Typhoon Morakot, which dumped a year's rainfall within 72 hours on the island in 2009, had wrecked much of the roadways in the mountains. I spent a month roaming the mountains on a bike, with repeated forays up on the nanheng gonglu, the east-west traverse connecting Tainan to Taidong across the southern shoulder of the Yu Shan massif, with a pass at nearly 3000 m. The typhoon had made mountain sides come down, obliterated aboriginal villages in mudslides, and toppled the viaducts west of the pass. First I heard that the road would be abandoned, but when climbing up to the current road's end I witnessed the giant climate-proofing construction project underway. Entire river valleys are being fortified now, so as to channel future floods more safely. The workers in the road crews along the nanheng must number in the thousands. At least somewhere on the planet citizens do act on the information, with politicians who are capable and who are not overwhelmed.
Climate change forces our hand, and perhaps this is how civil evolution works. Cultures stuck in nostalgic denial and cognitive dissonance will weaken. Others, acting on the information, will rise, and prevail, and rule.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
LATEST NEWS
Watchdogs Renew Warnings of 'Profoundly Unqualified' Dr. Oz After Senate Hearing
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," said one opponent.
Mar 14, 2025
Progressive watchdog organizations responded to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's Friday hearing for Dr. Mehmet Oz by again sounding the alarm about the heart surgeon and former television host nominated to lead a key federal healthcare agency.
Since President Donald Trump announced Oz as his nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last November, opponents have spotlighted the doctor's promotion of unproven products, investments in companies with interests in the federal agency, and support for expanding Medicare Advantage during an unsuccessful U.S. Senate run in 2022.
"Dr. Oz's career promoting dubious medical treatments and pseudoscience often for personal financial gain should immediately disqualify him from serving in any public health capacity, let alone in a top administration health post," Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk said in a Friday statement.
"Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections."
In December, Carrk's group found that based on disclosures from Oz's 2022 run against U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the Republican doctor reported "up to $56 million in investments in three companies" with direct CMS interests—including Sharecare, which became the "exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program" for 1.5 million Medicare Advantage enrollees.
A spokesperson said at the time that Oz has since divested from Sharecare. However, critics have still expressed concern about how the nominee's confirmation could boost Republican efforts to expand Medicare Advantage—health insurance plans for seniors administered by private companies rather than the government.
"As a self-interested advocate of privatizing Medicare at a higher cost and more denials of care for seniors, Dr. Oz is surely eager to enact the Trump-Republican budget plan to gut Medicare and Medicaid and jeopardize health coverage for millions of Americans—all to pay for more tax breaks for billionaires and price gouging corporations," said Carrk. "Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections—especially those with preexisting conditions."
As he faces Senate confirmation, remember that Dr. Oz: -Pushed Medicare privatization plans on his show -Owns ~$600k in stock in private insurers -Has ties to pyramid scheme companies that promote fake medical cures His main qualification to oversee CMS is loyalty to Trump.
— Robert Reich ( @rbreich.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, has been similarly critical of Oz, and remained so after senators questioned him on Friday, saying in a statement that "Mehmet Oz showed he is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS."
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," Weissman warned. "Privatized Medicare Advantage plans deliver inferior care and cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually in excess costs."
"It is time for President Trump to put down the remote, stop finding nominees on television, and instead nominate people with actual experience and a belief in the importance of protecting crucial health programs like Medicare and Medicaid," he argued, taking aim at not only the president but also his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the conspiracy theorist now running the Department of Health and Human Services.
Weissman declared that "Trump, Musk, and RFK Jr. fail to put the American people first as they seek to gut agencies and make dangerous cuts to health programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Oz indicated he would not oppose such cuts, bringing more destruction to lifesaving programs. Oz has no place in government and should be roundly rejected by every senator."
During a Friday exchange with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee's ranking member, Oz refused to decisively commit to opposing cuts to Medicaid. As the Alliance for Retired Americans highlighted, Oz kept that up when given opportunities to revise his answer by Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
Other moments from the hearing that garnered attention included Oz's exchange with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) about Affordable Care Act tax credits and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) calling out the doctor for his unwillingness "to take accountability for" his "promotion of unproven snake oil remedies" to millions of TV viewers.
Far-Right Group Sent List of Palestine Defenders to Trump Officials for Deportation
Betar—which the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League has blacklisted after comments like "not enough" babies were killed in Gaza—says it provided "thousands of names" for possible arrest and expulsion.
Mar 14, 2025
Betar, the international far-right pro-Israel group that took credit for the Department of Homeland Security's arrest of former Columbia University graduate student and permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil for protesting the annihilation of Gaza, claimed this week that it has sent "thousands of names" of Palestine defenders to Trump administration officials for possible deportation.
"Jihadis have no place in civilized nations," Betar said on social media Friday following the publication of a Guardian article on the extremist group's activities.
Earlier this week, Betar said: "We told you we have been working on deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month. You heard it here first. Those who support jihad and intifada and originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those lands."
Betar has been gloating about last week's arrest of Khalil, the lead negotiator for the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
On Thursday, immigration officers arrested another Columbia Gaza protester, Leqaa Kordia—a Palestinian from the illegally occupied West Bank—for allegedly overstaying her expired student visa. Kordia was also arrested last April during one of the Columbia campus protests against the Gaza onslaught.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia whose visa was revoked on March 5 for alleged involvement "in activities supporting" Hamas—the Palestinian resistance group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government—used the Customs and Border Protection's self-deportation app and, according to media reports, has left the country.
Khalil and Kordia's arrests come as the Trump administration targets Columbia and other schools over pro-Palestinian protests under the guise of combating antisemitism, despite the Ivy League university's violent crackdown on demonstrations and revocation of degrees from some pro-Palestine activists.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who in January signed an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's war on Gaza, called Khalil's detention "the first arrest of many to come."
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is investigating whether pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the school violated federal anti-terrorism laws. This followed Thursday's search of two Columbia dorm rooms by DHS agents and the cancellation earlier this month of $400 million worth of funding and contracts for Columbia because the Trump administration says university officials haven't done enough to tackle alleged antisemitism on campus.
On Friday, Betar named Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian studying philosophy at Columbia, as its next target.
Critics have voiced alarm about Betar's activities, pointing to the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League's recent designation of the organization as a hate group. Founded in 1923 by the early Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Betar has a long history of extremism. Its members—who included former Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin—took part in the Zionist terror campaign against Palestinian Arabs and British forces occupying Palestine in the 1940s.
Today, Betar supports Kahanism—a Jewish supremacist and apartheid movement named after Meir Kahane, an Orthodox rabbi convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990—and is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. The group has called for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza. During Israel's assault on the coastal enclave, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, its account on the social media site X responded to the publication of a list of thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces by saying: "Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!"
Ross Glick, who led the U.S. chapter of Betar until last month, told The Guardian that he has met with bipartisan members of Congress who support the group's efforts, naming lawmakers including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Glick also claimed to have the support of "collaborators" who use artificial intelligence and facial recognition to help identify pro-Palestine activists. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said it was launching an AI-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas.
Betar isn't alone in aggressively targeting Palestine defenders. The group Canary Mission—which said it is "delighted" about Khalil's "deserved consequences"—publishes an online database containing personal information about people it deems antisemitic, and this week released a video naming five other international students it says are "linked to campus extremism at Columbia."
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia who was temporarily banned from campus last year after harassing university employees, and Columbia student David Lederer, have waged what Khalil called "a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign" against him and other activists.
Meanwhile, opponents of the Trump administration's crackdown on constitutionally protected protest rights have rallied in defense of Khalil and the First Amendment. Nearly 100 Jewish-led demonstrators were arrested Thursday during a protest in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City demanding Khalil's release.
"We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent," said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace. "Come for one—face us all."
'Schumer Must Resign' as Senate Dem Leader After Helping Advance GOP Spending Bill
"Sen. Schumer has capitulated to Trump, Musk, and all the Republicans in Congress hell-bent on attacking our Constitution and dismantling the federal government," said one advocacy leader.
Mar 14, 2025
This is a developing news story... Please check back for possible updates.
Calls for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to resign from his leadership post escalated on Friday after the New Yorker led nine other members of the Democratic caucus in helping Republicans advance a GOP stopgap funding bill to a final vote.
Those who stood with Schumer and Republicans for the 62-38 procedural vote—which required at least yes 60 votes—are Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine as well as Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), John Fetterman (Pa.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.).
The Democrats agreed to invoke cloture on the continuing resolution (CR) in exchange for considering four amendments to it. Republican senators then swiftly rejected Sen. Jeff Merkley's (D-Ore.) amendment to restore Internal Revenue Service funding, Sen. Tammy Duckworth's (D-Ill.) amendment to rehire fired military veteran federal employees, and Sen. Chris Van Hollen's (D-Md.) amendment to eliminate DOGE.
A bipartisan majority also defeated Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) amendment to codify DOGE cuts to United States Agency for International Development and foreign aid into law. Senators then passed the stopgap bill, H.R. 1968; the 54-46 vote was mostly along party lines, with Shaheen and King voting yes, and Paul voting no. President Donald Trump is expected to sign it.
Rollover and play dead wins. I'm honestly really sorry everyone. This is a bad, depressing outcome. We tried our best, and we didn't succeed. We're circling up with Indivisible group leaders over the next day to plan for what accountability will look like. Stay tuned.
[image or embed]
— Ezra Levin ( @ezralevin.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 5:43 PM
While Schumer has tried to argue that averting a midnight government shutdown with the bill was the best available option, critics across the country—including other elected Democrats—have warned that the stopgap measure will further embolden Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, head of the president's Department of Government Efficiency, as they take a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy.
"In handing over the votes necessary for this terrible budget bill to become law, Sen. Schumer has capitulated to Trump, Musk, and all the Republicans in Congress hell-bent on attacking our Constitution and dismantling the federal government," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a Friday statement. "Schumer has lost the confidence of a critical mass of well-meaning people around the country. He must step down from his leadership role in the Senate now, so a sufficiently determined resistance to the disastrous Trump-Musk agenda can be allowed to rise up and act before it's too late."
Hauter wasn't alone in declaring that "Schumer must resign" after caving to Trump and congressional Republicans on the CR, which funds the government through the end of September. Human rights lawyer and former Democratic congressional candidate Qasim Rashid published a Friday blog post titled, "Chuck Schumer Must Resign & Democrats Must Change or Risk Abandonment."
"Let's be clear: MAGAs control the House, the Senate, and the White House. The Democratic Party is not in its strongest position, and every single day Trump and Musk are working to gut democracy, attack working families, and consolidate power," Rashid wrote. "And yet, when given the opportunity to use the one piece [of] leverage Democrats have—forcing Republicans to own the government shutdown—Schumer is folding like a cardboard box in a rainstorm."
"This isn't just betrayal. It's utter incompetence," he added. "We don't need more politicians holding tiny signs and coordinating outfits while Trump consolidates power and enables fascism. We need leadership with the courage to fight injustice and hold the line when it matters."
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led, climate-focused Sunrise Movement, declared that "today was a spectacular display of cowardice from Sen. Schumer. This morning, Chuck Schumer arrested 11 young people at his office rather than look them in the eye. This afternoon, he gave Elon Musk the keys to the government."
"Donald Trump and Elon Musk are hurtling our country toward disaster. They are gutting our education system, enabling oil billionaires to burn the planet, and destroying vital government programs that millions rely on," Shiney-Ajay continued. "Young people are fighting back. We're showing up to Republican congressional town halls. We're protesting at federal buildings and state capitals. Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer sits on the sidelines."
"The budget is one of the only pieces of leverage Democrats have, and Schumer just gave it away. That's incredibly reckless. It's the opposite of what we need from Democratic leaders right now," she added. "Chuck Schumer needs to step aside. Our democracy and our climate and our families can't afford even another month of this bullshit."
Along with calling for Schumer to step down from leadership immediately, some critics now also want him out of the Senate. In the lead-up to Friday's procedural vote, even some centrist House Democrats were reportedly
urging progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to launch a primary challenge against Schumer for the 2028 cycle.
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