That would be the U.S. Senate
There are many takes on the shutdown out there and I honestly don’t have much to add. Tom’s piece below hits most of the highlights.
I felt that the Democrats were winning the shutdown because Trump was obviously rattled and his numbers were cratering. It certainly seemed worth it to me to keep him on the ropes. He’s unstable and the GOP is starting to fracture. Press the (rare) advantage. But what do I know?
As Nate Silver( who cannot be considered any kind of liberal) wrote:
Late last month, Trump’s numbers began to plummet, with his net approval rating falling from −7.5 on Oct. 17 to −13 three weeks later. It wasn’t a huge shift in absolute terms. But Trump has had a high popularity floor and a low ceiling. It was something real enough to contribute to Democrats absolutely crushing Republicans in a series of elections last Tuesday in New Jersey, Virginia and other states. Meanwhile, Trump was starting to feud with Congressional Republicans, urging them to “nuke” the filibuster when leadership was reluctant to do so.
[…]
What happened in late October? There are a handful of plausible explanations, but I think the evidence is reasonably clear. On Oct. 18, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins warned voters that food stamps — more formally known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or SNAP — would run out of funding at the end of the month. This program is a huge deal, affecting roughly 42 million Americans. Although Rollins tried to blame Democrats, voters didn’t buy that at all — not when the Trump has been fighting court orders to continue to fund the program, and holding Great Gatsby-themed dinners at Mar-a-Lago.
Google searches tell the story here. Since the shutdown began, searches for terms related to the Affordable Care Act — Democrats’ ostensible rationale for withholding votes — has never been more than a blip on the radar. Conversely, searches related to SNAP benefits increased roughly tenfold over their baseline beginning in late October:
There have been other stories in the news, but none of them had the staying power of SNAP. The No Kings protests were a big deal — and the timing lines up interestingly with the drop in Trump’s numbers — but only for 48 hours. Some pundits have tried to pin the blame for Trump’s approval decline on the destruction of the East Wing for the construction of a new White House ballroom, but searches for the White House were also a short-lived story with a much lower peak than either SNAP or No Kings. Meanwhile, as the FAA has announced a reduction in flights, searches related to flight delays have increased considerably in relative terms. But they remain modest relative to other news stories and postdate Trump’s approval decline anyway.
The increase in food-stamp-related searches has been far more persistent, as you might expect for a program that affects so many families.
I suspect that had the Dems held fast for another week or two, the airline issues would have hit hard too. And people were blaming Trump and the Republicans. It may have gotten so bad that they relented on the ACA subsidies (which they are adamantly against because they think they have a chance to finally break Obamacare.) Instead, they will get a reprieve.
I know it’s difficult to go along with a plan that creates suffering for people. But really, what isn’t creating suffering right now? The culture under these sadists becomes more cruel every day, even brutal. It is to Republicans’ great advantage that they simply don’t care about that and their followers live in such an insulated media bubble that they have no understanding of the facts of the dynamics of their suffering. But people were starting to pay attention. Now we’ll be on to the next shiny object as usual.
Let’s just hope that the Democrats can at least take credit for getting the SNAP benefits extended through 2026. I haven’t seen much evidence today so far that they are doing that.
But this is not the end of the line. As Dan Pfeiffer writes:
We can’t go back and undo the capitulation, but we can make sure Republicans pay a price for jacking up the cost of health care. Yell at any Democrat you want this week — I get why people are furious. I’m furious.
Now we need every American to know that Donald Trump and the Republicans are the ones who raised their premiums.
If we do that, they may have won the shutdown battle, but they will have lost the war.
They are going to try to end Obamacare and replace it with nonsense. But they’ll have to end the filibuster to do it because I can’t imagine even the Sell-out 8 going along with the GOP’s daft plan to send the subsidy money directly to people so they can pay their premiums directly to the insurance companies. It makes no sense, of course. Their out-of-pocket will be the same. But they are obviously convinced that people will be so dazzled at the thought of receiving cash that they’ll love Trump and the Republicans even more and won’t notice.
But then they don’t even really understand how insurance works. Here’s a Senator who is also a doctor:
It seems odd that a medical doctor wouldn’t know what “insurance” means but then he’s a Republican so …
Anyway, this battle over Obamacare isn’t over. Mike Johnson made it very clear that he would not allow a vote to come to the floor and it’s hard to see him doing that now. But the pain of these rising subsidies is going to hit tens of millions of people very soon and these officials will all be hearing from their constituents — most people who are on the program are on red states. And don’t forget that they stripped Medicaid as well, which won’t fully go into effect until after the mid-terms but it’s already being anticipated in many state budgets.
The suffering will be massive and the economy will take yet another hit. You don’t essentially seize huge amounts of money from individuals, families and an entire economic sector like health care and expect that it won’t have huge economic consequences.
The ride just got a lot bumpier and they ain’t done yet.
Update: Josh Marshall has some thoughts that are worth contemplating.