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Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) (C), speaks while flanked by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA),(L), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), during a news conference on Capitol Hill, January 5, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii won his race in November with nearly 74 percent of the vote. He had the biggest margin of victory of any senator on the ballot in 2016, in a state that gave Hillary Clinton her biggest margin. He is ensconced. By all rights he should be, if not a leader, at least a foot soldier in the Democratic resistance to President Trump.

It was perhaps with these things in mind that the Huffington Post interviewed him on Tuesday over his votes in favor of Donald Trumps nomineesfive in all thus far. The Democratic Party, Schatz explained, should work to approve reasonable Trump appointments. The door swings both ways in Washington, he said. At some point were going to want a Democratic president to stand up a Cabinet. So were trying to be reasonable when the nominees are reasonable.

Leave aside for a moment Schatzs evident willingness to support as reasonable the nomination of Mike Pompeo, a man who thinks the CIAs torturers are patriots, as the agencys director. As anyone who has been awake for the past eight years should be well aware, the notion that the Republican Party will reward Democrats in the future for their deference now is utterly laughable.

So just what the hell is going on in the Senate?

One can understand, perhaps, the ease with which Defense Secretary James Mattis won the support of Senate Democrats given the possibility that hell be a moderating influence on Trumps foreign policy. The same is true, for similar reasons, of Nikki Haleys confirmation as ambassador to the United Nations. Wilbur Ross and Elaine Chaos fairly uncontroversial nominations sailed through the Senate Commerce Committee on voice votesone can also understand, perhaps, Democrats having a hard time getting worked up over those two. But 37 Democrats in the Senate voting to confirm John Kelly as secretary of Homeland Security, even though he has pledged to go after sanctuary cities and declined to give a clear answer as to how he would deal with DREAMers? Fourteen Democrats voting to confirm Mike Pompeo, a man who said that Islamic leaders in America were generally complicit in terrorism, as CIA director? All 11 of the Senate Banking Committees Democrats voting unanimouslyunanimouslyto advance the nomination of Ben Grain Silo Carsona man who has stated that he could not, in good conscience, vote for a Muslim president and is, by his own reported admission, unqualified to run any federal agency? What gives? The answer, as always, is the Democratic Party.

Part of the acquiescence may be explained by the electoral calendar. During Carsons hearing, two of the Senates leading progressives, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, grilled Carson on the minimum wage, fair housing, and Trumps conflicts of interest. But both voted for Carson anyway. Jennifer Bendery and Sam Stein of the Huffington Post suggest that Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown did so in part because both face re-election next year. Warren has been criticized back home for being oppositional to Trump, and Brown, like nine other Democrats trying to hang on to their seats in two years, hails from a state that Trump carried in 2016, they wrote. For those members, there is some political upside to demonstrating willingness to work with Trump when the time and conditions allow it.

But that explanation only goes so far, as Schatz demonstrates. The broader truth is this:the Democrats, unlike the Republican Party, havent a clue how to build and wield power. As ThinkProgresss Ned Resinkoff noted recently on Twitter, the GOP realized early on in the Obama administration that obstruction could have a strategically important galvanizing effect:

Trump is unprecedentedly unpopular for an incoming president. The political risks of opposing him are minimal and certainly dwarfed by the risks to weak-willed Democrats of alienating a newly energized base. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has opposed almost all of Trumps nominees, is shrewd enough to see the writing on the wall. She will get a leg up as a leader of the #resistance should she run in 2020 despite her record of wobbly, Clintonesque centrism, simply for doing what should have been elementary for the rest of her colleagues.

Senate Democrats who cant shake the partys narcotizing addiction to civility and process can take comfort in the fact that opposition would not do anything materially to stop Trump from assembling a Cabinet. To oppose is simply to take a moral and strategically important stand against an administration already working around the clock to hurt some of the most vulnerable Americans and challenge the values the Democratic Party purports to stand for. All signs indicate that the party will find a spine when Jeff Sessions, Betsy DeVos, and Scott Pruitt's nominations as Attorney General, Education Secretary, and EPA chief respectively come to a vote. That's all well and good. But resistance to Trump, if it is to be effective, ought not to be a part-time effort.

Here, we have listed the Democrats* who have supported Trumps nominees in roll call votes.

Gen. James Mattis for secretary of defense (full Senate vote)

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto

Nikki Haley for U.N. ambassador (full Senate vote)

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto

John Kelly for Homeland Security secretary (full Senate vote)

U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo for C.I.A. director (full Senate vote)

Not Voting: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Sen. Chris Murphy

Ben Carson for Housing and Urban Development secretary (Senate Banking Committee vote)

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto

*Senators Bernie Sanders and Angus King are independents who caucus with Democrats.

Go here to see the original:
Here Are the Senate Democrats Who Have Voted for Trump's Nominees - Slate Magazine (blog)