Category: Coalitions and Strategy

Strategic thinking, with emphasis on reshaping the coalition that makes up the Democratic Party

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I Read Yet Another Headline About “Three Things Democrats Have to Do if They Actually Want to Win.” It Proposes an “Ideological Exorcism.”

I would, of course, have taken a pass on the op-ed, except that it was written by Thomas Edsall, who is nobody’s fool.

The first part of Mr. Edsall’s article, in today’s New York Times, reads as follows:

Even now, according to a new survey by the left-leaning group Data for Progress, the Democratic Party has a net negative rating of minus 29 percentage points among swing voters, worse than the minus 25 for the Republican Party. Democrats seeking to restore their party’s credibility with the electorate as a whole, but especially among those crucial swing voters, might consider adding three planks — on immigration, urban disorder and transgender issues — to the 2028 Democratic platform.

Why? Because it is these three issues that serve to reinforce the perception that Democrats are willing to sacrifice the interests of the working and middle classes in favor of special interest constituencies.

I am more than a little queasy making these suggestions, but I think the Democratic Party needs to perform a kind of brutal surgery on itself.

The hard-edge character and language of what I am proposing is specifically designed to function as a public renunciation of the Democratic Party’s liabilities, its ties to special interest groups and its readiness to succumb to progressive orthodoxy.

The proposals amount, then, to an ideological exorcism.

On immigration, I would suggest — with plenty of room for amendment — the following:

Democrats will firmly enforce laws on illegal immigration, including tough border enforcement and deportation of unauthorized immigrants who commit crimes.

Unauthorized immigrants with no criminal record who have been in this country for at least five years, along with Dreamers, should be offered green cards with a path toward citizenship. More recent arrivals should be deported.

On crime:

The Democratic Party supports aggressive prosecution of those accused of violent crime, those who engage in crowdsourced “teen takeovers” of stores, as well as all forms of child abuse.

The party backs restoration of bail requirements in the case of felonies, lifetime sentences for offenders convicted of multiple violent crimes, tough enforcement of child support laws and the death penalty if supported by the voters in a state and endorsed by a jury.

Transgender and gender dysphoria:

There are two sexes: men and women.

A man can claim an identify as a woman, and the same in reverse for a woman. They have every right to do so. Their claim should be respected and they should be protected from any form of discrimination for their choice.

Their claim does not, however, alter their biological sex.

Consequently, it is legitimate in areas such as sports where a transgender person would have a competitive advantage over non-trans people to bar such participation. Similarly, a claim to a sexual identity does not give a trans woman the right to incarceration in a woman’s prison.

Finally, the debate over gender affirming surgery and hormone treatments is fraught with contradictory assertions. For now, because there are credible scientific claims of irreversible harms, such treatments for those under 18 should be barred pending further study.

There are some other planks I would add, including a strong commitment to free speech and an adamant rejection of all forms of cancel culture; an endorsement of equality of opportunity based on merit; the repudiation of socialism in favor of a free and open market accompanied by government regulation to prevent exploitation, monopolization and unfair trade practices. …

In exploring these issues with Democratic strategists, I was surprised to find significant support — with differences over language — from a variety of sources, albeit accompanied by a harsh rejection from a communications specialist for a firm headed by a major Democratic campaign strategist. …

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The Plutocrats Have Discovered That Their Old Song and Dance Isn’t Working

In my opinion, this story from today’s Wall Street Journal is significant for three reasons:

  1. Because it’s from the Wall Street Journal—not, say, from The New Republic;
  2. Because of what it says: essentially, that recent election outcomes, especially in New York, show that the old plutocratic political playbook is not working anymore; and 
  3. Because of what it does not say, namely, that the plutocrats who think this is only a “messaging problem” are whistling past the graveyard. 

No, ladies and germs, you can’t message your way out of the fact that the top 1% hold 32% of all household wealth, while low and middle income families fall further and further behind. 

No,  messaging your way out of this will not cut the mustard.

Instead, you need to begin by remembering that pigs get fed while hogs get slaughtered. 

In any event, the WSJ writes,

Wall Street Realizes It Needs More Than Money to Counter Mamdani: After big primary wins by the mayor’s progressive allies, New York’s business elites are rewriting their political strategy

New York City became Mamdani’s town on Tuesday night, after his preferred slate of far-left candidates for congressional House seats beat incumbents backed by the business community and political institutions. The Democratic Socialists of America picked up even more victories for local races, signaling that an anticapitalist and anti-Israel message was winning over voters in much of the city. 

“It’s actually a very, very scary outcome, and I think it serves as an awakening for people,” said Steven Fulop, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a business group that advocates for companies such as Pfizer and JPMorgan Chase. 

In an election where money was a central issue—namely, who has it and who is spending it—the wealthy business elites are now confronted with a city whose voters doubled down on the Democrats’ hard-left flank. 

In calls among donors and political strategists, the postmortem analysis was stark: Money alone can’t save candidates with a weak ground game and a muddled message. Where to go next, though, is unclear. 

One longtime strategist has floated a kind of political-giving organization that functions like the Robin Hood Foundation—the poverty-focused nonprofit whose board is stacked with finance luminaries—and gathers money to support moderate causes and candidates. Others described a desire to fund the otherwise unglamorous work of get-out-the-vote campaigns and candidate development. The name of at least one CEO was raised as a future challenger, as if just mentioning him could will a mayoral campaign into existence. 

Whether any of it will make a difference remains to be seen. 

The shift in power was palpable Thursday afternoon. The mayor gave a speech at a fundraiser in Midtown Manhattan for the Police Athletic League, which is chaired by John Catsimatidis, the billionaire businessman whose New York City radio station 77 WABC has become an outpost for antisocialist sentiment. 

After Mamdani’s talk, Catsimatidis took to the lectern to address the rankled crowd. 

“The mayor is an important component of New York City right now,” Catsimatidis said, “and he’s become a very popular person.” 

For over a decade until 2013, there was practically a mind meld between New York City government and the finance industry under the reign of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who even rearranged government offices to more closely resemble trading floors.

Now, those on Wall Street and in the business community worry they are seeing the twilight of their influence. 

It doesn’t help them that the mayor has been everywhere during a buoyant June. Mamdani attended a World Cup match in New Jersey and followed the New YorkKnicks as the team won its first National Basketball Association championship in 53 years, boosting his popularity among younger, more educated voters. 

But those voters have struggled to make ends meet. Support for Israel, which remains strong in the finance industry, has proved either toxic or irrelevant to voters outside rarefied circles.

Rep. Dan Goldman, who holds a House seat in a district that includes lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, was defeated by Mamdani ally Brad Lander, who criticized Goldman’s acceptance of donations through a website run by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

“The DSA’s message was pretty simple: Aipac is bad, Israel is committing genocide and we need to throw the bums out,” said Chris Coffey, CEO of Tusk Strategies, who has advised more-moderate Democrats. “The establishment’s message was harder to galvanize around.”

Establishment Democrats and their financial backers have, in effect, become the target. Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of Mamdani’s picks, drew criticism for speaking harshly of former Vice President Kamala Harris—whose presidential campaign maintained close ties to Wall Street and Big Law.

Donors and strategists say the party’s moderate wing is struggling to articulate a message that isn’t just “we’re not Trump.” They add that Democrats’ lack of a ground game allowed the DSA, with its promises to freeze the rent and expand city-run child care, to outflank traditional candidates. 

Optimists say it wasn’t a total loss. Micah Lasher, an establishment Democrat who most recently worked for Gov. Kathy Hochul, beat more liberal candidates, including a Kennedy scion, to represent the Upper East and Upper West Sides of Manhattan. 

Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries both occupy party leadership positions and still enjoy broad support from wealthy moderate Democrats. Operatives see several potential challengers to the mayor, including Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner; Julie Menin, the City Council speaker; and U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, who represents New York’s 15th Congressional District in the Bronx.

Fulop said establishment Democrats should pivot to an optimistic message that emphasizes more jobs and better opportunities. 

Some institutions have already tried. Earlier this year, Citigroup pledged $60 billion in financing for more affordable housing over five years. 

“While a socialist agenda expanding its reach in the capital of capital may be a bit ironic, it’s another example of how front and center the issue of affordability is,” said Edward Skyler, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg, who is now an executive at Citigroup. “But there are opportunities for the public and private sectors to work together as banks do when they finance affordable housing in New York and throughout the country.”

Appropriately, this post ends with future Senator Murphy doing one of classic song and dance routines.

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Watch Platner and Decide for Yourself

Four points:

One. I think he sounds a lot better in person or on video than when I just read his words on paper.

Two. I don’t know all the things he’s accused of doing or saying. I don’t know which of those things he actually did or said. He has expressed remorse; I don’t know how much of his remorse is real or feigned. He has also claimed that at least some of his youthful bad behavior was caused by PTSD arising from military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I don’t know how much of that is true. 

I do know that when I was young I was a very great expert on which bad behavior could have been controlled and was therefore blameworthy, and which bad behavior grew out of an irresistible urge and was therefore excusable. I also know that, as I approach my 80th birthday, I have lost that expertise. 

Three. Republicans apparently plan to make it a big damn deal that he has allegedly acted badly toward women.

That is rich.

Four. This November, Maine voters will decide between two people who should be disqualified for the office of senator. One should be disqualified for letting Roe v. Wade get overturned, for supporting Trump, and for bringing immiseration to Maine voters. The other is Graham Platner, who has the wrong tattoo. 

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The Tariff Decision, Looking Forward: Does Team Trump Have a Workaround to the Supreme Court’s Ruling?

Bottom line, at the end of five minutes of trenchant analysis: “Tariffs as an instrument of arbitrary power have been dismantled.”

Feel free to visit Krugman’ substack—it’s behind a paywall—if you so choose. 

Meanwhile, in a world of great uncertainty, a couple of things are certain: Trump will continue to try to abuse whatever tariff power he may have, there will be lots and lots of litigation, and some of those cases will reach the Supreme Court in the coming months.

Among progressives, opinions differ—as do kneejerk reactions—about the likelihood of any degree of success by Team Trump. International trade law is not my field, and I have no crystal ball. But I do like this analysis by someone whose handle is EricAZ (not otherwise known by me from Adam’s housecat), who posted this yesterday on Daily Kos:

Trump’s Decision to Beat a Dead Horse on Tariffs Will Hasten His Fall

A smart person would take his lumps and move on. Trump is not a smart person. Let’s assume that the “best people” that Trump brought to his Cabinet and the White House picked the statute most favorable  to his tariff plans. One of the most conservative Supreme Courts since the Civil War beat him with a stick. 

Now, Trump is preparing to work his way through other statutes looking for support for his tariff plans. (Keep in mind that the U.S. Constitution says tariffs are under the control of Congress. And the Supreme Court just upheld that fact.)

Having been told, “Don’t let the screen door hit you,” Trump wants to try his luck again. Never mind that the public does not like tariffs, does not like paying higher taxes, does not like a loser and has dropped its esteem for Trump to a level somewhere between Nixon and a road-Kill skunk. 

But here the valiant Donald prepares to make his stand. 

Here is the list of statutes the president can use to regulate trade:

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962: Allows the president to impose tariffs if imports threaten national security. Pam Bondi can argue that avacados and plastic toys threaten national security. Even with Pete Hegseth guarding the coast, we probably can withstand avacado imports. 

Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974: Enables the president to impose tariffs if an import surge threatens a U.S. domestic industry. Pretty narrow in focus. Imaginary ballrooms are not an important domestic industry. 

Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974: Allows the president to impose tariffs to address international payments problems, with no cap on the level of duties or duration. Despite Trump’s best efforts, we still don’t have an international payments problem. 

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974: Allows the president to investigate unfair trade practices and impose tariffs, with no limits on the size of the tariffs. Having tried to impose tariffs on the entire world, including uninhabited islands, it will be hard to make a case that the entire world is engaged in unfair trade practices. Especially when Trump claims to have made trade agreements with most of the world. 

International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA): Provides the president with broad authority to impose tariffs in response to economic emergencies. Been there, done that. The court said no. 

Many people expect Trump to use one or more of these statutes to repeat the long process he has gone through with his failed IEEPA effort. 

One thing the justices really hate, is doing work. Especially repeating work that they or some other judge has already done. 

Most likely, any new version of Trump tariffs would be thrown out at the District Court level very quickly. The court would likely leave an injunction against the new tariffs in place until the case works its way to the Supreme Court. At this level, there are no do-overs. The High Court would decline to hear the case and the injunction would stand. 

All this happens against a background of Trump’s declining numbers and people’s distaste for high prices and unnecessary tariff taxes at the grocery store. Political parties sometimes survive immense blunders and sometimes they don’t. 

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This is Democracy in Action

Here’s Rachel from last night:

I applaud her analysis and agree with much of it, though I think the optimism is premature. Let’s see what happens today. Let’s see what happens in the coming days on the streets of Minneapolis. Let’s see what happens in Congress with funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

A Signal Achievement

As Rachel emphasizes, Democratic pushback will be responsible for whatever good comes out of this disaster. That said, be it remembered that the Stephen Miller/Kristi Noem/Kash Patel/Greg Bongino team’s clusterfuck represents a signal achievement on their part—and a big reason why things are looking up today.

The progressives are riled up.

Lots of ordinary people are riled up.

Not only that: big business is riled up.

With big business riled up, the Republican empty suit politicians are beginning to speak up. 

Even the Second Amendment wingnuts are fit to be tied, because of the suggestion that folks lawfully carrying a firearm deserve to be mowed down with impunity.

Thank you, Miller, Noem, Patel, Bongino. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

“Trump Will Own This Now”

One of the early morning talking heads pointed out that, with Homan in Minneapolis allegedly reporting directly to Trump—thus, allegedly, bypassing and cutting the Miller/Noem gang—“Trump will personally own whatever happens next in Minneapolis.” 

That sounds right. And I would add this: to get out of this mess with some dignity, Trump would need to be a Washington or a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. 

Trump is not a Washington or a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. Instead, Trump is best compared to Jubilation T. Cornpone.

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Wise Words from Heather Cox Richardson

Dr. Richardson is a prominent historian and professor at Boston College.

I think the whole video is worth watching, even if you are generally aware of what’s going on in this country. Some of the relevant points:

First Minute: HCR puts some of Trump’s outrageousness in historical context, in light of a Republican intellectual triumphalism—“We’re right and, guess what, you’re wrong!” We saw a lot of that beginning with Reagan’s election. I remember it well. 

Third Minute: She doesn’t use the phrase, but others rightly call it “herrenvolk democracy”: any Democratic victory is inherently illegitimate.

Sixth Minute: A concerted effort to destroy rules-based order.

Eighth Minute: He thinks only people like himself should be in power. 

Ninth Minute: He’s no compos mentis. It appears they’re giving him psychiatric drugs. It’s a behind-the-scenes effort to control him.

Eleventh Minute: No, J.D. Vance would not be worse. 

Twelfth Minute: It’s extremely difficult to tell what’s happening in this Administration.

Fourteenth Minute: What appears to have just happened in Venezuela.

End of Seventeenth Minute: A work of genius by the Venezuelan regime and its allies.

As historians know, invasion of your country greatly helps to unify your people. 

Nineteenth Minute: Trump’s oil fantasy.

Twenty-first Minute: Shrinkage from a global power to a regional power. Jettisoning the benefits of the rules-based international order.

Twenty-third Minute: Greenland.

Twenty-fourth Minute: A fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of American power.

Twenty-sixth Minute: Russia gets Ukraine, we get Venezuela. Sort of like the eve of World War I, but this time with nuclear weapons.

Twenty-seventh Minute: Oil is the technology of the past. The future lies in semi-conductors. We’re giving Xi permission to take over Taiwan—which makes 60% of the world’s semi-conductors. And Trump doesn’t understand this.

Twenty-eighth Minute: Destruction of the rules-based international order. A demented president, no longer operating in reality. Magical thinking is a hallmark of this moment.

Twenty-ninth Minute: Don’t follow grandpa down this road. Time to speak up. 

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The Shutdown Deal

Ezra Klein (N.Y. Times), What Were Democrats Thinking?

As far as I can tell, the headline is intended to be read in a straightforward way—“WHAT were Democrats thinking?”—not in a sarcastic tone of voice—“What were Democrats THINKING?” 

In any event, as per usual, Ezra Klein has a dozen or so really interesting things to say—some of which might not have occurred to you and me—and it’s best to let him speak for himself. 

But as a preamble, two brief comments from me. First, some of the eight senators who joined the Republicans are political heavyweights, and people not known for an inclination to wimp out. So, before your knee jerks and you hurl criticism at them for wimping out, please think twice.

Second, among the really interesting things one might say about this putrid mess, the most interesting, IMHO, is that Republicans are now set up to cast spectacularly unpopular votes to screw a large portion of the public on the health insurance costs. 

Ezra Klein writes, 

Back in September, when I was reporting an article on whether Democrats should shut down the government, I kept hearing the same warning from veterans of past shutdown fights: The president controls the bully pulpit. He controls, to some degree, which parts of the government stay open and which parts close. It is very, very hard for the opposition party to win a shutdown.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Democrats were winning this one. Polls showed that most voters blamed Republicans, not Democrats, for the current shutdown — perhaps because President Trump was bulldozing the East Wing of the White House rather than negotiating to reopen the government. Trump’s approval rating has been falling — in CNN’s tracking poll, it dipped into the 30s for the first time since he took office again. And last week, Democrats wrecked Republicans in the elections and Trump blamed his party’s losses in part on the shutdown. Democrats were riding higher than they have been in months.

Then, over the weekend, a group of Senate Democrats broke ranks and negotiated a deal to end the shutdown in return for — if we’re being honest — very little.

The guts of the deal are this: Food assistance — both SNAP and WIC, I was told — will get a bit more funding, and there are a few other modest concessions on spending levels elsewhere in the government. Laid-off federal workers will be rehired and furloughed federal workers given back pay. Most of the government is funded only until the end of January. (So get ready: We could be doing this again in a few months.) Most gallingly, the deal does nothing to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits over which Democrats ostensibly shut down the government in the first place. All it offers is a promise from Republicans to hold a vote on the tax credits in the future. Of the dozen or so House and Senate Democrats I spoke to over the past 24 hours, every one expected that vote to fail.

To understand why the shutdown ended with such a whimper, you need to understand the strange role the A.C.A. subsidies played in it. Democrats said the shutdown was about the subsidies, but for most of them, it wasn’t. It was about Trump’s authoritarianism. It was about showing their base — and themselves — that they could fight back. It was about treating an abnormal political moment abnormally.

T he A.C.A. subsidies emerged as the shutdown demand because they could keep the caucus sufficiently united. They put Democrats on the right side of public opinion — even self-identified MAGA voters wanted the subsidies extended — and held the quivering Senate coalition together. You shut the government down with the Democratic caucus you have, not with the Democratic caucus you want.

The shutdown was built on a cracked foundation. There were Senate Democrats who didn’t want a shutdown at all. There were Senate Democrats who did want a shutdown but thought it strange to make their demand so narrow: Was winning on health care premiums really winning the right fight? Should Democrats really vote to fund a government turning toward authoritarianism so long as health insurance subsidies were preserved?

And what if winning on the health care fight was actually a political gift to Donald Trump? Absent a fix, the average health insurance premium for 20 million Americans will more than double. The premium shock will hit red states particularly hard. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s longtime pollster, had released a survey of competitive House districts showing that letting the tax credits expire might be lethal to Republican efforts to hold the House. Why were Democrats fighting so hard to neutralize their best issue in 2026?

The political logic of the shutdown fight was inverted: If Democrats got the tax credits extended — if they “won” — they would be solving a huge electoral problem for Republicans. If Republicans successfully allowed the tax credits to expire — if they “won” — they would be handing Democrats a cudgel with which to beat them in the elections.

This is why Senator Chuck Schumer’s compromise, which offered to reopen the government if Republicans extended the tax credits for a year, struck many Democrats as misguided. Morally, it might be worth sacrificing an electoral edge to lower health insurance premiums. But a one-year extension solved the Republicans’ electoral problem without solving the policy problem. Why on earth would they do that?

In any case, Republicans were not interested in Schumer’s offer. Trump himself has shown no interest in a deal. Rather than negotiating over health care spending, Trump has been ratcheting up the pain the shutdown is causing. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or fired. The administration has been withholding food assistance from Americans who desperately need it. Airports are tipping into chaos as air traffic controllers go without pay.

More than anything else, this is what led some Senate Democrats to cut a deal: Trump’s willingness to hurt people exceeds their willingness to see people get hurt. I want to give them their due on this: They are hearing from their constituents and seeing the mounting problems and they are trying to do what they see as the responsible, moral thing. They do not believe that holding out will lead to Trump restoring the subsidies. They fear that their Republican colleagues would, under mounting pressure, do as Trump had demanded and abolish the filibuster. (Whether that would be a good or a bad thing is a subject for another column.) This, in the end, is the calculation the defecting Senate Democrats are making: They don’t think a longer shutdown will cause Trump to cave. They just think it will cause more damage.

If I were in the Senate, I wouldn’t vote for this compromise. Shutdowns are an opportunity to make an argument, and the country was just starting to pay attention. If Trump wanted to cancel flights over Thanksgiving rather than keep health care costs down, I don’t see why Democrats should save him from making his priorities so exquisitely clear. And I worry that Democrats have just taught Trump that they will fold under pressure. That’s the kind of lesson he remembers.

But it’s worth keeping this is perspective: The shutdown was a skirmish, not the real battle. Both sides were fighting for position, and Democrats, if you look at the polls, are ending up in a better one than they were when they started. They elevated their best issue — health care — and set the stage for voters to connect higher premiums with Republican rule. It’s not a win, but given how badly shutdowns often go for the opposition party, it’s better than a loss.

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Go Ahead, Clown, Make Our Day

John Marshall of Talking Points Memo makes a persuasive case for letting Trump bully the Republican senators into deep-sixing the filibuster. Marshall writes,

As you’ve probably already heard, Donald Trump went on Truth Social …  and announced that the time had come for his senators to pass a clean “continuing resolution” to reopen the government with a simply majority vote by abolishing the filibuster. The only proper response to this is “bring it on.” It’s never good to cower, of course. “Give it your best shot” is always the proper posture. But if Trump is able to accomplish this (I’m skeptical — more on that in a moment), that’s great news.

This is such an important point that is worth itemizing the reasons why this is so. 

First, the senate filibuster is a core reason for the decline of trust in government over the last quarter century. The evolution of its use helped severe the tethers connecting election results and governmental action. A party wins an election and its promised actions never happen. The filibuster is both the cause of and excuse for gridlock.

Second, the filibuster provides an overwhelming structural advantage for Republicans, a big reason to be skeptical it will happen. (More on that in a moment.) Republicans want tax cuts and judicial nominations, neither of which the filibuster affects. To the extent Republicans want non-budget/tax legislation, it’s generally stuff like a national abortion ban that Republican leaders are happy for an excuse not to touch. They’re no more likely to pass something like that post-filibuster. The Democrats’ agenda is always legislation focused — actual laws that institute reforms, create services, safety nets, anything. It’s in the nature of being the party of government. The senate filibuster is a permanent bar for any Democratic legislation Republicans oppose, regardless of which party is in the majority. Remember that Obamacare only passed in 2009-10 because two successive wave elections had briefly — for about six months — given Democrats the now unimaginable margin of 60 senate votes. Anyone who tells you the filibuster affects both parties equally is either lying or has been sleeping for the last 30 years.

Third, because the filibuster is a permanent bar on any Democratic legislation, any reforms to protect the republic against Trumpism are all ruled out in advance. As long as the filibuster exists, it means any future Democratic presidency or trifecta is simply a replay of the Biden presidency, a short breather before the further advance of Trumpist autocracy.

None of the above is new. It applied in 2021-22 when Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema refused any effort to limit or abolish the filibuster. These are the longterm, structural reasons why opposing the filibuster should be a litmus test for every Democratic senator. But there are also short-term and immediate reasons why, from the Democrats’ point of view, the timing is great.

Democrats refused to give their funding support for Trump’s autocracy and draconian cuts to health care. They’ve hung about as tough and as long as anyone imagined. That has inspired new confidence in their voters and prospective voters. It has also dramatically raised public awareness about the crippling cuts to health care Republicans chose to fund their mammoth tax cuts. It’s provided a monthlong spectacle of Republicans digging in, insisting on keeping the government shut down rather than just allowing people to keep their coverage. From a messaging and political standpoint it’s been a disaster for the GOP. In a revealing update this morning, the DC insider sheet Punchbowl pondered how it can be that voters don’t realize that the whole thing is Democrats’ fault and Democrats should take the blame. Their bafflement is a good reminder how much DC remains wired for the GOP. 

At this point it seems clear that Trump not only doesn’t want to compromise but doesn’t even want to engage. It’s less a hardball negotiating stance than a lack of focus. He’s consumed by his ballroom and domestic military deployments and foreign trips and barely seems aware the government is shut down at all. We’re also now days away from the new Obamacare price hikes being locked in. I’m certainly not saying Democrats should throw in the towel. My point is that they have already gotten most of the political gains they can get from this.

Indeed, if you’re inclined to be cynical you could say that in narrowly electoral terms it’s almost the best of both worlds for them. There was a debate leading up to the shutdown about whether it made sense for Democrats to demand that Republicans repeal or soften their health care cuts. Those cuts will be causing pain across the country throughout 2026. Voters will be looking for someone to blame. Why should Democrats use their political capital to save Republicans from the electoral consequences of their own awful actions, the argument went. And in narrowly political terms it was a pretty good argument. If this ends now with Trump forcing the abolition of the filibuster, Dems won’t have had to choose. They’ll have fought, never given in and also be in a position to reap the political backlash against Trump’s taking health care coverage from millions and hiking the rates for millions more.

Democrats don’t need to pine or anguish over what the moral choice is here: political benefit vs getting people back their health care. The choice is abstract and purely notional. Trump and Senate Republicans are either going to do this or not. Democrats have no input on the decision. I’m only noting that in political terms, it leaves them having their cake and eating it too.

Which brings us back to my skepticism that this will even happen. Senate Republicans know better than anyone that the filibuster is their secret weapon. Trump doesn’t give a crap about any of this stuff. But these senators care a lot and they have a longer time horizon than the next three years. We say that Trump gets everything he wants from the GOP. But that’s not entirely true. When there is concerted GOP opposition to something, he doesn’t get his way, at least not in more than a superficial way. That’s especially so here because the entire thing just isn’t something Trump cares much about. Tariffs, soldiers in cities — those things excite him. This is just his tenth idea for how to force the Democrats’ hand, along with DOGE 2.0, which mostly didn’t happen, threats to cut SNAP funding, hammering Dems over hating the military and a bunch of other things they’ve tried and failed over the last month. If anything this latest gambit should be a reminder to the gullible — which includes most of official DC — that those constant claims that this was actually all going great for the White House maybe weren’t true after all.

The key points remain the same. Trump will likely have a much harder time getting Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster than most people imagine. But if he does, it’s a good thing. No good future for the American republic is possible with the filibuster in place. And the short-term politics are pretty good too. So go ahead, clown, make every thinking Democrats’ day.