“What — Me Angry?”
by Tom Sullivan
Senate Democrats voted with Republicans yesterday to end the government shutdown and fund the federal government for three more weeks. They seemed to have secured nothing on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) reform besides a promise to look into it. Senate Democrats were already feeling pressure to cave, the Washington Post reports, and if the standoff was a test of nerves, they lost theirs:
With the shutdown heading into its third day, they were feeling the heat and finding it hard to control the messaging war. Voters in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were getting Republican robo-calls saying Democrats had “prioritized illegal immigrants over American citizens.”
So the Democrats decided to take a deal they had turned down only the night before — a less-than-airtight assurance by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that “it would be my intention” to consider legislation that would address those immigrants in the coming weeks, but only if the government were reopened.
A McConnell promise is one you can take to the political graveyard. Jim Newell observes at Slate that McConnell has yet to make good on assurances he made to Republicans Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake for their votes on tax reform. Why would Senate Democrats expect any better? Not to mention how pissed off the Democrats’ base is already, a factor that still seems to elude the Democratic leadership:
“Today’s cave by Senate Democrats—led by weak-kneed, right-of-center Democrats—is why people don’t believe the Democratic Party stands for anything,” Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Stephanie Taylor said in a statement. “These weak Democrats hurt the party brand for everyone and make it harder to elect Democrats everywhere in 2018.”
“A lot of Democrats are channeling their inner Marco Rubio today,” tweeted MoveOn Washington Director Ben Wikler, referring to the oft-caving Florida senator. Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, called it a “betrayal.” CREDO labeled Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “the worst negotiator in Washington—even worse than Trump.”
On All In last night, MSNBC host Chris Hayes challenged Michigan Democrat Sen. Gary Peters for voting to reopen the government on McConnell’s assurances that there would be a DACA fix. “It’s never going get a vote in the House unless the president puts pressure on Paul Ryan. So [Donald Trump] is just going roll you again in three weeks,” Hayes said.
Even more striking was the appearance last night by Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour and New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister. Both were on fire, Sarsour told Hayes:
We were standing up for Dreamers. We were standing up for our undocumented families … We are outraged that millions of people went out into the streets in support of Dreamers and Senate Democrats chose to vote against Dreamers in this [continuing resolution] bill … They will not ignore us at the ballot box.
Traister concurred that women and the growing activism of the Democratic base is not being taken seriously by Democrats in leadership:
And they don’t connect these marches — just these cute marches with the hats — with the fact that it’s women who have been clogging Congressional phone lines, who have been doing the town halls, who have been organizing on the grassroots, activist level around state and local office races around the country, who have been winning in New Jersey, in Virginia, and who are running in unprecedented numbers for the House, the Senate, and they are primarying Democrats from the left.
Somebody is “woke,” but it’s not elected Democrats.
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