Senate Democrats stepped up to block war funding, demonstrating why we put pressure on the minority party

Democrats in Congress, with too few exceptions, have historically been complicit in bipartisan warmongering. Most Democrats backed the prolonged campaign in Afghanistan, the fraudulent invasion of Iraq, and other military actions besides.

This complicity has helped MAGA (and pre-MAGA) Republicans waste trillions of dollars of our money on unending, destructive, offensive wars abroad rather than serving the people at home. They’ve made good use of that blank check to line the pockets of war profiteers for decades. And that check has a name: The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA.

This year’s NDAA includes over $1.15 trillion, some of which goes toward Trump’s war on Iran. It also includes the MAGA Republicans’ pet voter-suppression bill, the SAVE Act. And it would the Israeli army—another country’s army!—unaccountable and permanent funding from our tax dollars.

So it was significant when the most recent NDAA vote failed in the Senate. Democratic Senators stood unified in blocking the bill, except for two: Senator Fetterman, who’s been tacking hard to the right since his election and didn’t vote, and our Senator Padilla, who didn’t show up.

The result is the Senate Democrats denied the total of 60 votes needed to pass the NDAA, with 46 votes to the Republicans’ 50.

Because the Senate Democrats and Independents stood as a bloc, we were able to overcome the Republicans when they happened to be short on votes due to missed votes from Jim Justice and Mitch McConnell, and the timely death of Lindsay Graham. It’s important to remember that even when outnumbered, our elected officials can still take the initiative and opportunity when Republicans fracture. This is why we need to pressure our electeds even over the excuse that they “just don’t have the votes”. Because we need to seize every chance when we do actually have the votes.

We want to commend our Senator Schiff for doing the right thing, and remind Senator Padilla that we need him participating, too.

Call your Members of Congress and tell them: stop increasing the defense budget, stop funding Israel’s military, and stop the SAVE Act!