WASHINGTON—The final big laugh in the extended farce that was required to make the ridiculous Betsy DeVos Secretary of Education came about an hour before the final vote when Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, reminded everybody that the nominee still owes the state of Ohio about five-and-a-half million bucks.

"She can't seem to come up with the five million dollars that she owes the taxpayers of Ohio for violating state election laws. What's that all about? Well, she came into Ohio with a political-action committee that she mostly funded, that she was involved with in a number of ways. The Ohio Election Commission, in a nonpartisan way, found her guilty of campaign finance law violation and this committee was assessed a $5 million fine. But, guess what? She stopped putting money in this committee because she didn't want it to be subject to the fine. So our attorney general has not gone after her. He wants to be governor. But she's depriving our state of $5 million that she owes through this committee. Legally, she's found a way with very expensive lawyers to wiggle her way out of it, but the fact is that, by any standard of decency, she owes my state $5 million. That could be 60, or 70, or 80 teachers. Five million won't break her. And she's going to be in charge of a department that oversees student loan debt?"

Yes, when Vice President Mike Pence exercised the only real constitutional function his office has on Tuesday, and cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm DeVos, he was voting to confirm a deadbeat with good lawyers—which, after all, is pretty much the business plan for this whole administration right from the top. There's DeVos, and then there's EPA nominee Scott Pruitt, who currently has eight lawsuits pending against the department he has been selected to lead. And, of course, there's the president*, who never met two influences he couldn't put in conflict with each other, and one of whose companies got socked with a $7 million damage award last week. That's not even to mention that DeVos and/or the political machine she built with the Amway fortune contributed heavily to every single Republican member of the committee that recommended her nomination to the full Senate.

Did any of them abstain?

Did any of them recuse themselves?

Please. Again, I ask, how many foxes does it take to make a henhouse a foxhouse?

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Yes, the Democrats talked all night and still the Republicans got their nominee. But, it took Pence's unprecedented rescue to do it. And Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III had to remain a senator long enough to vote for her. (His vote comes up on Wednesday, probably.) Sometimes, no matter how many phone calls you make, and how much noise you make in the streets, they don't listen to you long enough to vote your way. It was always going to be a hard push up a dirt road. They needed one more Republican vote and they couldn't find it. Hell, Pat Toomey doesn't have to run again until 2022 and he's already got a head-start on blaming "outsiders" for the deluge of phone calls he got, urging him to vote against the nomination. On the other hand, Dean Heller of increasingly purplish-to-blue Nevada is up in 2018, and he could have this vote hung around his neck for the next 18 months. It all depends on whether or not Democratic constituencies respond to this defeat by sulking in their tents or by maintaining the pressure on their own lawmakers and on the congresscritters from the other side.

It was always going to be a hard push up a dirt road.

"We're seeing the checks and balances that our system allows," said Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. "Donald Trump is going after Democratic members of Congress that he doesn't like? Hey, the Senate's there for a reason. If he's going after the courts, that's Article III of the Constitution. Going after the press, that's [Article] I of the Constitution. Going after people who peaceably assemble, that's [Article] I of the Constitution. He's going after all the checks and balances, but the checks and balances are there for a reason. And this is a time when those checks and balances and our system are being tested. You're going to see the system being vindicated.

"I think it shows the best aspects of our system. Some people have authoritarian tendencies, like, unfortunately, our president. They don't like criticism. They don't like peaceful protest. But what we're showing is, whether it's in the Congress, or in peaceful protests, or in the courts, or online, we're not just going to go away quietly when someone is hurting our values and hurting our country. We're having an impact. We're having an impact on the Affordable Care Act. Instead of 'repeal and nothing," which is where it was January 3, we're really in a different place. We encourage people to stay active."

It seems unlikely now that any of the nominees will be defeated from the floor. (Andrew Puzder, the egregious nominee for Labor Secretary, is a decent longshot to drop out before he comes to a vote, in no small part because he keeps wandering into ethical problems almost by the day.) If three Republicans wouldn't break ranks on DeVos, a ludicrous nominee to head an agency that most of them want to eliminate anyway, then it's hard to see three of them going over the side on Tom Price at HHS or Stephen Mnuchin for Treasury, despite the fact that both of these guys dealt in barefaced non-facts during their sworn testimony before their respective congressional committees. Who would flip against Mnuchin, a man who probably could arrange personally to have your re-election campaigns funded into the next decade?

The most vital question is how will the Democratic and progressive base activists react to the kind of defeat they had on Tuesday. There are four options and, in the past, the Democratic party regularly has tried three of them: intra-party cannibalism, stunned acquiescence, and chronic me-too'ism that drives most people crazy. There is a fourth, of course, and that is to continue to throw sand in the gears by any legal means necessary, and if it takes marches to stiffen the backbones of the people in Congress, and to teach them that a fight is a good fight even if you lose it, then that's what the Democratic party should learn how to do again. There is a moment here, and it will not wait forever.

Update (7:15 PM): In which we learn that Young Marco Rubio remains a man of high principle whose allegiance can be rentedse allegiance can be rented, but not bought.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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