In whatever passes for journolist these days, the word has clearly gone out. Ending the shutdown was a bad move. That’s not because keeping it going was good for the country. It wasn’t. On top of problems funding SNAP, the country was increasingly having trouble keeping the airports going. But that doesn’t matter because the shutdown was good for Democrats, so why stop?
It is very, very hard for the opposition party to win a shutdown.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that Democrats were winning this one. Polls showed that most voters blamed Republicans, not Democrats, for the current shutdown — perhaps because President Trump was bulldozing the East Wing of the White House rather than negotiating to reopen the government.
He’s right that this completely nonsense story about demolition, for a project the White House had announced months earlier, did hurt Republicans. Like the shutdown itself, that wasn’t because Republicans were doing anything wrong but mostly because Democrats latched onto a big lie about Trump and Karoline Leavitt promising never to tear anything down. The media mostly knew this was nonsense but decided to play along and pretend to be shocked. Why? Because it was hurting Trump and that’s really all that matters when the game is resistance journalism.
So having profited from a lie, why didn’t they just keep profiting from the bigger lie that this was the GOP shutdown and the related lie that this was about preventing Obamacare rates from going up (something that was also 100% Democrats’ fault).
To understand why this shutdown will end with such a whimper, you need to understand the strange role the A.C.A. subsidies played in it. Democrats said the shutdown was about the subsidies, but for most of them, it wasn’t. It was about Trump’s authoritarianism. It was about showing their base — and themselves — that they could fight back. It was about treating an abnormal political moment abnormally.
The A.C.A. subsidies emerged as the shutdown demand because they could keep the caucus sufficiently united. They put Democrats on the right side of public opinion — even self-identified MAGA voters wanted the subsidies extended — and held the quivering Senate coalition together.
Ultimately, Democrats caved because they knew Trump never would. All the more reason, Klein argues, to keep the shutdown going.
This, in the end, is the calculation the defecting Senate Democrats are making: They don’t think a longer shutdown will cause Trump to cave. They just think it will cause more damage.
If I were in the Senate, I wouldn’t vote for this compromise. Shutdowns are an opportunity to make an argument, and the country was just starting to pay attention. If Trump wanted to cancel flights over Thanksgiving rather than keep health care costs down, I don’t see why Democrats should save him from making his priorities so exquisitely clear. And I worry that Democrats have just taught Trump that they will fold under pressure. That’s the kind of lesson he remembers.
I think Trump already learned that lesson from Democrats back in March when they caved before anything was shut down. It was clear at the time the shutdown would only empower Trump and probably accomplish nothing. Jump forward a few months and the current shutdown empowered Trump and accomplished nothing except that it polled well for Democrats. That was always the goal and the only thing they really cared about from day one. And if you look at it narrowly as a political content, Klein is probably right that Democrats are better off now than they were five weeks ago.
They held America hostage and people blamed Trump. That’s a win for Democrats who are mostly furious Senate Dems didn’t keep it going. Who cares what it costs the country. If the economy tanks, that helps Democrats too, so bring it on. Just listen to the seething rage in some of these comments.
As a liberal and generally mild-mannered person, I want to make it clear that my initial reaction to hearing that the democrats were caving was rage. I have been disappointed in the democratic party establishment for years, but it finally seemed like they were doing something right. The title of your piece says it well “Democrats were on a roll, why stop now?”
That comment has been upvoted about 2,500 times. Here’s the #2 comment.
From the beginning, this was always going to be an all or nothing fight. The Democrats chose nothing, again. This is exactly why young people are so disillusioned by this Party and why they came out in unprecedented numbers last Tuesday. They want Democrats to fight, not to “PLACATE”. They couldn’t have been any clearer. But, as has been the case for years, Democrats are incapable of reading the room, and decided to play dead, again. It’s getting old.
Number three:
One week of winning was just too much. The Democrats have scurried back to their safe zone – losing. Now the Republicans will blame them for the shutdown, and probably pin the blame for all the cuts on them as well.
To be clear, the shutdown was always the fault of the Democrats. They planned it in advance. They did this. That angry Democrats don’t know this only proves how delusional they are.
Count on Senate Democrats to always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This cave-in is why people voted for Donald Trump: He is strong, and the Democrats are weak. Sometimes you win the battle and lose the war. This time the Democrats will realize they have lost both.
But this guy, like Klein is hopeful that this helps Democrats with another big lie.
The Democrats brought the health care premium crisis to national attention for multiple weeks. What would have been a blip in the news cycle is now on a lot of minds. This, in and of itself, was a huge win for them. They were never going to get Republicans to agree on the subsidy issue. But, at least of now, Republicans own the health care premium debacle.
The subsidies were created by Democrats and set to expire this year by Democrats who knew the full cost of making them permanent was too great. The idea that this is now owned by Republicans is delusional but also possibly true thanks to the media which will continue to play along with whatever lie the Dems want to tell.
In any case, Democrats really wish their leaders had gone all out to wreck the country. Wouldn’t that have been fun?
I sort of figured that a completely derailed Thanksgiving might push enough Republicans over the edge, and I wish we’d been allowed to find out.
I kept scrolling and finally found one sane Democrat who realized maybe destroying everyone’s vacation plans might have backfired.
Like many Americans, including many coastal Democrats like me, I was selfishly worried my Thanksgiving travel was going to be ruined. And if so, I was going to lose lots of money and time with cherished family. I’d probably end up angry at the party for ruining my planned vacation. The Democrats did the right thing. The shutdown was going to backfire big time on Democrats next week.
Would people have stopped pretending Democrats weren’t to blame when it hurt them personally? Probably so. And that’s probably why this ended now. Still, the rage is flowing and most Democrats are confident doing more damage would have been better for them.
Editor’s Note: After more than 40 days of screwing Americans, a few Dems have finally caved. The Schumer Shutdown was never about principle—just inflicting pain for political points.
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