on just about any bill he wants to pass (which is why he has passed practically no legislation.
With Dems, there are the "moderates" who don't want to rock the boat or risk offending a Republican. And there are about 100 Progressives in the House who try to push Jeffries toward more progressive positions. With a line-up like that, you may be able to split the difference, giving each side part of what they want.
Johnson has a bigger problem. There is a group, maybe about 60, who are willing to add their votes to the Dems as long as the legislation is mostly regressive, containing virtually nothing representing progress. They are the "reasonable" ones. There is another group that are more MAGA, and they are more interested in performance art. I doubt that any of them could speak intelligently about what any particular bill actually says. So there really isn't a "split the difference" option with them. And then you have people like Chip Roy who are only in favor of burning the whole thing to the ground. And again, there is no splitting the difference with people like that.
I would suggest there will be very few cases in the upcoming 2 years when it will be to our advantage for ANY legislation to pass, so the best posture is to push the GOP in the center of the ring and shine the spotlight on them. "You won the election. You govern. We'll just be over here taking pictures." The debt ceiling may be one of those cases. While the Republicans are busy crapping in their pants, Jeffries can look ahead to legislative traps that can be set for Trump, a) to thwart some of the things Trump wanted to do, and b) expose the GOP as inept.
The debt ceiling twist in the case is all about the extension of the original Trump tax cuts. Much of that law expired Dec 31 2025. That tax cut added trillions to the national debt. They can't extend those tax cuts for billionaires without raising the debt ceiling. The last thing the Dems want to do is to raise that ceiling for the Republicans while Biden is still President. Make Trump do that himself. That was a good chess move by Jeffries, and the Dems are wise to do absolutely nothing at this stage.
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