Just Shut It Down

House Republicans have literally left D.C. to avoid a vote on a bill Democrats are pushing regarding the latest Trump scandal "shiny object"--Executive branch records on a long-dead child sexual trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. What House and Senate Democrats should be focusing on remorselessly is the mortal threat that Trump and his putrid "movement" represent to the Republic. And there's a guaranteed way to stop lawless ICE raids, attacks on the legal profession and universities, and Trump's endless threats against the federal judiciary: shut down the federal government through the 2026 mid-term elections if necessary.

Publisher's note: This edition of the Sentinel is appearing early and takes the place of the one scheduled for July 28.

Trump's civil adjudication as E. Jean Carrol's sexual abuser was not enough to dissuade loyalist Trump voters from supporting him in the 2024 election, so I'll freely admit I find their obsession with deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to be utterly baffling.

They gave Trump a pass for sexually violating a grown woman, but his refusal to release all Epstein-related records has to mean--apparently in the minds of many Trump supporters--that he raped one or more of Epstein's trafficked under-age trafficked girls?

I'll concede that in light of his multiple past utterly outrageous and sexually-charged comments about his own daughter, I'd put nothing past Trump.

But even if video evidence from the Epstein archives recovered by the FBI actually included one or more videos of Trump having sex with an under-age Epstein-trafficked female--and thus far no evidence has surfaced that such video exists--what difference would it make?

Would Pam Bondi seek an indictment of her boss? (Yes, I'm laughing along with you.)

Would self-proclaimed Christian and House Speaker Mike Johnson introduce articles of impeachment against Trump? He's ready to shut down the House and flee town to avoid a vote just to demand the files be released.

We all know that even if a "Trump rape tape" was in the FBI's possession, given Trump's total control over his "Injustice" Department via Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, any such evidence will never see the light of day--or like a lot of FBI records end up "missing" or destroyed. I've got literally dozens of FBI FOIA responses in which records on prominent people just weren't where the FBI thought they'd be or were somehow destroyed long ago.

All of which brings me to what House and Senate Democrats should be focused on: shutting down the Trump regime's machinery of state-sponsored repression.

Senate Democrats in particular have one proven tool for doing it--refusing unanimous consent to move any appropriations bill to fund the government after it runs out of money at 12:01am on October 1, 2025.

Congressional Republicans are already feeling fear about the potential for such a government shutdown. This was Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to The Hill on Monday:

It’s going to take 60 [votes] to fund the government,” Thune said. “My expectation is, at least I hope, we plan to move [appropriations] bills that will have cooperation from the Democrats.

The obstacle to Senate Democrats shutting down the government is the ideological mindset of pretty much all of those same Senate Democrats.

It seems every one of them believes that letting government programs run out of money is worse than letting the money continue to flow to ICE so that due process free kidnappings and renditions happening on American soil can go on.

My proof?

So far as I can tell, not one Senate Democrat seems to be advocating defunding Trumpist tyranny even if it means mothballing government services Democrats champion.

The reality is that the oath of office that all House and Senate members take says nothing about funding government programs.

In fact, this is the precise requirement per Article VI of the Constitution of the United States:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;

The official Senate oath of office is even more explicit:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Not "support Medicaid" or "support the Defense Department budget"--but "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..." (emphasis added)

Through his continued unconstitutional and otherwise lawless conduct, Trump had demonstrated--yet again--that he is an enemy of the Constitution and thus an enemy of the Republic. And if you're a member of the United States Senate in 2025, you don't keep writing checks to the guy who's in the process of actively destroying a 250-year-old experiment in representative government.

Shutting down the federal government for as long as it takes to break Trump's hold on the instruments of violent, coercive state power is the only remaining peaceful way out of this political, social, and economic calamity.

All of those ICE and other federal agents carrying out Trump's political repression operations have to eat, pay their rent or mortgage, and meet other expenses that are part of daily living. That takes lots of federal dollars. Take away their salaries and within weeks, at most months, they'll be looking for other jobs instead of raiding universities, farms, restaurants, and hotels. The same for the "Injustice" Department lawyers that have elected to stay and serve Trump rather than abandon an illegitimate regime.

A failure to defund Trump's government repression regime will leave those living in this country with three alternatives: submit to the regime and its policies, try to flee to another country, or fight.

Submission would mean the certain end of the Republic as we've known it, giving way to a potentially permanent Trumpist-style authoritarianism, made all the worse by the power of AI-driven, panoptic surveillance of our communications, associations, and movements.

Fleeing the country as people like Rosie O'Donnell have done will not be an easy or affordable option for the tens of millions of Trump's domestic opponents who will remain if the Republic is extinguished. Endless political and physical harassment, loss of employment, and life on the run will be the fate of many who cannot escape or refuse to submit--a fate that will be shared by their children and perhaps countless generations to come.

The last alternative, a 21st century version of John Brown's prophetic "purged with blood" prediction of civil war, would be a far bloodier affair with no guarantee of coming out the other side of it with a new and better Republic than the one that failed. Yet even with the final outcome unpredictable, there will likely be hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who choose the path of armed resistance rather than endure a tyranny for the balance of their days. 

These are the stakes. Senate Democrats need to face them squarely and act to deny his repression machine the financial fuel it needs to survive.

Whatever short- to medium-term pain may result from a very long government shutdown, it will pale in comparison to the alternative horrors that await us if Senate Democrats fail in this, the Republic's greatest-ever moment of peril.

REMINDER: You can get 30% off my new book about past episodes of unconstitutional surveillance and political repression, the Triumph of Fear, by going directly to the Georgetown University Press website and using the code TGUF...and this code can be used by anybody, so spread the word and thanks for being a Sentinel subscriber!