Holding Things Together

It ain’t no easy thing to do, but we do have to give Democrats a surprising amount of credit here for not caving to the Republicans over the shutdown. It seems fairly clear to me that Republicans fully expected Democrats to cave. And why wouldn’t they expect that? It’s only the history of the two parties in the last 30 years. Sure, there’s Angus King doing Angus King things and John Fetterman being an asshole and Catherine Cortez-Masto playing her moderate card, but that’s not really a problem, not when they don’t get Republicans even close to 60 to reopen the government on Trump’s terms.

I really don’t know how this is going to end. Democrats and judges forcing SNAP payments, assuming Trump does pay them, avoided one potential pitfall. Since the airport delays are going to get worse as traffic controllers either refuse to work for nothing or need to find other work that actually pays, things are going to get pretty gnarly in the airports as we get toward Thanksgiving.

But what is clear is that there isn’t really any reason for Democrats to cave on any of this. The politics do seem to be swinging toward Democrats on this, especially as people realize what their ACA rates are going to be next year.

Anyway, it’s just worth a post on a slow Sunday afternoon to note some surprise that Democrats are actually doing what rank and file Dems have wanted them to do forever, actually recognize the politics and stand up to Republicans extremism.