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GELFAND’S WORLD - One headline read, “8 Democrats strike deal with Republicans to end shutdown, angering many in their caucus.” May I suggest that this is an unlikely scenario, and that the Democratic Party as a whole was broadly in agreement with the deal, even though they all know that they aren’t getting much. But they are saving themselves from what might be a lot worse. I realize that this is a minority view and that senatorial leaders on the left (Elizabeth Warren et al.) have spoken negatively about the deal.
As told by Politico among others, the federal government shutdown is about to end. The report, which you can read here, is full of sources who were described in the usual fluffy way as “allowed to remain anonymous” so that they can speak candidly, and all that stuff. The deal that the Senate voted is this:
Democrats agree to fully fund a small number of agencies (like Veterans Affairs and FDA) while getting back SNAP for the fiscal year, while funding the rest of the government through January 30, 2026. Note that last date carefully. In exchange for this, the Democratic Party call for funding the Affordable Care Act (also known colloquially as “Obamacare”) resulted in a promise of – Nothing.
Oh, there’s a promise that the Senate will allow a vote on ACA subsidies sometime in December, but this commits the Republicans to exactly nothing, because the House and the president are not committed.
So the left-of-center commenters are going crazy in their anger over what they refer to as “the cave” on the Democrats’ part. Multiple writers at Lawyers Guns & Money offer their views here, here, and here. Markos Moulitsas (the Kos of DailyKos) has similar views which you can read here.
And they do have a point. Any excuse that the Democrats offer that begins with “well, Trump and the Republicans were never going to give in on funding the Affordable Care Act, so we might as well get the best deal we can get,” are making an argument that is unconvincing. There had to be some point where Republicans (and even Trump) would agree to a deal. For those in congress, it’s the danger of things getting so bad that they will lose in the next election. For Trump, it’s something that costs him money or public acclaim. So for the Democrats, it would have meant holding onto the shutdown for however long it took to get some action on the Republican side of the Senate.
So why did the Democrats cave on the shutdown?
I think there are a couple or three reasons, of which one is understood.
The understood reason is that the Republicans in the Senate would, at some point, abolish the filibuster rule, not because they really want to, but because of political pressure from their own voters. As I mentioned in a previous column, the Senate Republicans have been acting like they don’t particularly care to give up all of their power and authority to Donald Trump. They have been maintaining their little bit of independence by letting the Democrats be the bad cops while they get to play good cop. Specifically – I’m conjecturing here -- there are at least some Republicans in the congress who don’t really want to take away the Affordable Care Act subsidies from their own voters. That’s because it would be one way to convert your voters to opposition voters.
The same argument holds for lots of other benefits conferred on middle class and poor people by the existence of a federal government. Even something as technical as having a well trained (and well rested) group of air traffic controllers is something that Republicans can understand. From its first days, this second Trump term has been painted with the brush of less safe airspace. It may or may not be fair, but given a couple more major crashes in an era where we’ve come to take airplane safety for granted, there would be another topic for Democrats to complain about.
On the other side, the Democrats have been gaining the political benefits of the shutdown. The recent elections, so disastrous to the Republicans, were one clue. But the benefits to Democrats were starting to reach the point of diminishing returns. How do I know that? Let me summarize:
What television news giveth, television news taketh away.
Every single television news show I have seen in the past couple of days includes views of long lines of air travelers at some airport. Typically, the story goes on to include an interview with some traveler whose flight has been cancelled or delayed. Most such stories include some newscaster’s speculative remark about the chance that the delays will continue through the Thanksgiving holiday season.
And that was it for the Democrats in the Senate. Eventually the voters were going to put 2 and 2 together and figure out that the airplanes could fly again if only the Dem’s would cave just a little. We would begin to hear comments from Joe Public to the effect that “they’re all the same,” and that it is up to both parties to fix the problem. And that would kill a lot of the political advantage that Democrats had been gaining during the first part of the shutdown.
So here we are. The Democrats can try to take credit for going the extra mile, they can enjoy watching ACA recipients go nova over skyrocketing premiums, and they can publicize whatever Senate vote they are allowed to hold with respect to ACA subsidies. And then as of February 1, 2026, we can start over – with a government that includes a functioning VA and the Department of Agriculture, but the threat of another shutdown. The alternative is that the Republicans come up with some compromise that allows the ACA to survive (barely) in exchange for continuing government function through the next election.
Oh, and one more thing. As the media have reported, those 8 Democratic senators who voted Yes on the compromise motion have one thing in common: None is running for reelection in 2026. Two of them are retiring, and the rest don’t face the voters until some later year. If you stand back and look at what happened, the Democrats got 8 sacrificial lambs to vote on the Republican side, but they were the group who are least likely to suffer politically. The leaders (such as Chuck Schumer) got to take a pass, and they had the option of pretending to be outraged by the result. Everything that has happened over the past couple of days, and everything that was reported in Politico is consistent with an agreement between the Senate, the House, and the president’s advisers.
Trump tries to evoke his inner Reagan
Donald Trump seems to concentrate his most outrageous comments for those overnight texts he puts up on what he unashamedly refers to as “Truth Social.” Now, he is attacking air traffic controllers who took a few days off when the government stopped paying them. Unlike Ronald Reagan, Trump is not going to fire all the controllers, but he is implying that they have some special duty to continue without pay. The threats seem to me to be an unwise choice.
And Trump continues to have a difficult week. At one meeting in the Oval Office, he appeared to have fallen asleep. And when a pharmaceutical industry representative fainted dead away right behind him, he stood up and faced the camera, directly away from the fallen man. If we want to be a bit cynical, we might conjecture that Trump was so concerned about showing his bad side (essentially any angle which shows how fat he has become) that he was afraid to stand sideways to the cameras.
And then there was his trip to an NFL football game. The major media reported that Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth were boo’d for a full two minutes. Interestingly, the usually excellent Channel 5 morning news did a story on Trump’s visit to the game and even included a part where Trump joined the broadcasting crew and did a bit of play calling. But Channel 5 did not show the audience’s boos. Did the station’s ownership put its thumb on the scale?
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
