The reason why he presented “evidence” that contradicts the argument he wants to make is that he has a severe mental defect that prevents him from understanding the information he is given. He cannot keep himself from making illogical arguments because he is mentally incapable of distinguishing a logical argument from an illogical argument.
In his old age, this severe mental defect is getting even worse.
Trump is an evil person. In other words, a sociopath.
We are morally justified in hating and despising Trump. But that said, I am inclined to think that our best public strategy is to exhibit pity for Trump.
Every sentient person has observed that Trump wants to use last night’s speech as the predicate for a variety of forms of election interference. Every sentient person is right in that regard. But his malevolence is greatly inhibited by his incompetence.
As a talking head said recently of his Iran strategy, the problem is not that he strategy is mistaken. The problem is that he does not know what strategy is. When all else fails, he may order a military coup. I don’t think it will work, but I am afraid we may find out whether it works or not.
The American people unwisely reelected a proven traitor. They wanted lower consumer prices. They got higher consumer prices—along with a firehose of ridiculous lies about consumer prices. They wanted no more wars. They got the war in Iran—along with a firehose of ridiculous lies about the Iran war.
Although Trump is fortunate to have legions of uneducated and gullible followers, the environment he has created—higher consumer prices and a war in the Middle East—is not propitious for his gullible followers’ acceptance of his firehose of lies about the election. He has cried “Wolf!” way too many times.
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. …
In my opinion, this story from today’s Wall Street Journal is significant for three reasons:
Because it’s from the Wall Street Journal—not, say, from The New Republic;
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
President Donald Trump accused a group of Democratic lawmakers on Thursday of “seditious behavior” and called for their arrest for appearing in a video in which they reminded members of the U.S. military and intelligence community that they are obligated to refuse illegal orders.
“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand.”
The video released Tuesday features a group of six Democrats who served in the military and intelligence community. Addressing active service members, they caution active-duty military members that “threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.”
“Our laws are clear,” Sen. Mark Kelly (Arizona), a Navy veteran, says in the video. “You can refuse illegal orders.”
“You must refuse illegal orders,” adds Rep. Chris Deluzio (Pennsylvania), who also served in the Navy.
The video does not specify particular orders that might be unlawful. But some of the lawmakers have relayed this week that they are hearing concerns from service members about the legality of strikes that have targeted people the Trump administration alleges are trafficking narcotics by sea.
The Pentagon did not respond Thursday morning to questions about the Pentagon’s post. Traditionally, the U.S. military adheres to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which holds that service members must obey lawful orders, whether they agree with them or not. They are obligated to not follow “manifestly unlawful orders,” but such situations are rare and legally fraught. Members of the military take an oath to the Constitution, not the president.
The video, organized by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) — who previously worked as a CIA analyst, also features Reps. Maggie Goodlander (New Hampshire), a former Navy reservist; Chrissy Houlahan (Pennsylvania), a former Air Force officer; and Jason Crow (Colorado), a former Army Ranger.
On his social media platform Thursday, Trump echoed other Republicans who have called for the Democrats to be removed from office, dishonorably discharged from the military and charged with treason — a crime punishable by death.
The stark punishment was not lost on Trump, who wrote in another post on Thursday: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
He also reposted a post from a Truth Social user proclaiming: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
The White House declined to comment on the record.
Democrats sharply criticized Trump’s threats.
“The administration should never try to force our servicemembers to carry out an illegal order,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) said on social media. “Calling for the execution of senators and Congressmembers for reminding our troops of that is chilling behavior. Every one of my Republican colleagues needs to swiftly condemn this.”
Trump has repeatedly accused different groups and individuals of treason going back to his first presidential term, but has never followed through with prosecution, lobbing attacks on Black Lives Matter, the news media, former FBI director James B. Comey and former president Barack Obama with the claim.
Trump campaigned on prosecuting his political opponents and dispensing with the 50-year custom of insulating federal law enforcement from political influence. This year he has grown increasingly explicit in demanding specific investigations against people who have criticized him, leading directly to action by his appointees at the Justice Department.
In September, Trump pushed out a federal prosecutor in Virginia who declined to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and replaced him with his own personal lawyer, Lindsey Halligan. Halligan then indicted James as well as Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017. On Wednesday, prosecutors acknowledged in court that a grand jury did not review the final indictment, a defect that Comey’s lawyers argued should cause the judge to dismiss the case.
The U.S. attorney in Miami is pursuing a broad probe against Obama administration officials, including former CIA director John Brennan and former director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. related to the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump officials have also initiated investigations at the president’s urging against Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), who led the first impeachment inquiry against Trump in 2019, and Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor he has sought to remove.
And on Friday, Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate prominent Democrats’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy sex offender who killed himself in jail in 2019. Bondi said she would proceed with that case, four months after saying the department’s review of the case found no information to pursue additional charges.
The Justice Department, Pentagon and the offices for Democratic lawmakers in the video did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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 theshutdown 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.
Facing MAGA 