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Six days ago, Democrats swept to victories in every corner of the United States — fueled by a base that relished the chance to stick a finger in the eye of President Donald Trump and his party.
On Sunday night, bafflingly, eight Senate Democrats crossed party lines to support a Republican-led measure to begin the process of re-opening the government after a 40-day shutdown.
The deal these these Democrats took offers no guarantees on an extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act — the demand that was at the center of the party’s decision to shut down the government in the first place.
The line you will hear from these eight Democrats is that they decided to put country over party — that the delay in SNAP benefit payments, the rapidly-accumulating cancellations and delays at the nation’s busiest airports and the stories of hardship from federal employees who haven’t been paid for a month simply became too much for them. And that Something Had To Be Done.
I call bullshit. on all of that.
Here’s why: On October 16, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he would guarantee a vote on the Obamacare subsidies if Democrats would first vote to re-open the government.
“If you need a vote, we can guarantee you get a vote by a date certain,” Thune said at the time.
Democrats rejected the offer out of hand — insisting they didn’t trust Thune to make good on a promise like that.
“It’s got to be more than a promise that we might get around to it later,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin.
Except that Durbin was one of the eight Democrats to vote for the outline of a deal on Sunday night that is — at least when it comes to Obamacare subsidies — the EXACT same thing Thune offered 25 days ago.
Like, WHAT?
So, no, I don’t buy the good-of-the country argument. At all.
Politically speaking, it’s also a terrible deal for Democrats. The base of the party, which turned out in droves last Tuesday, made one thing very clear: They want their elected officials to fight like hell against Trump on all fronts and at all times.
Less than a week later, eight Democrats give in to Trump and his party with, quite literally, nothing to show for it? Huh?
This is a classic case of Democrats snatching political defeat from the jaws of victory. This deal — assuming it winds up happening (and I think it will) — lays bare the deep divide between the Democratic base and the party’s establishment (as represented by at least some of its elected officials).
The story is no longer about how fired up Democrats are to throw Republicans out of power in the midterms. It is now about how deeply divided Democrats are — and how the party’s elected officials don’t seem to understand what’s going on in the party base.
It reminds me a little bit of the state of the GOP in 2015 — when Trump came down the golden escalator and promised to kick the party establishment out and give the base what it wanted.
Which means there is an opening for a Trump-like, anti-establishment outsider to emerge for Democrats out of this. Which I suppose is the silver lining for the party in what is, on all other fronts, a totally bizarre capitulation.
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