Democrats Flipping the Script

But still doing it wrong.

I comment frequently about the perils of political calculations getting in the way of effective governance. Prioritizing the latter is one reason I support Democrats over Republicans. As a group, Democrats actually want government to work for the people when Republicans want to destroy it. So it’s not surprising that some Democrats have reached a tentative deal to reopen the government. They want government to do its job - deliver SNAP payments, keep airports running efficiently - the little things. However, in the deal they've appeared to reach over the weekend, this handful of compromisers have, I fear, managed to screw up both the politics and the governance.

Politically, I’m certain these Senators will argue that reopening the government was necessary if only to restart SNAP payments and keep people from going hungry. Plus, they will argue, the extracted a promise for negotiations on extending ACA subsidies. While I don’t anyone to go hungry, the first political victory is hollow, at least politically because as a matter of sheer numbers, most of these voters (not necessarily SNAP recipients but just those likely to vote) tend to vote for Republicans. So what Democrats have done, if I understand the parameters of the deal correctly, is to ensure that a large swath of Republican leaning voters will not be worried about their SNAP benefits again until after the mid-term elections next year. I’d wager these Senators believe they can peel these voters away by reminding them that it was Democrats who helped ensure they started getting benefits again. This shows an astounding lack of awareness about why people choose to vote and for whom. It also forgets the basic math that when it actually passes, most Senate Democrats will vote against the CR.

As an additional political loss, they have extracted a promise from John Thune. They now have about 7 more weeks, over the holidays, to get Republicans to agree to extend ACA subsidies, which was the ostensible reason for the shutdown. Oh yeah, they didn’t get the thing they said they were shutting down government in order to obtain - political loss #1 (also bad governance). Let’s not forget the number of times Republicans have attempted to repeal the ACA and their continuing promises to do so. I understand why a handful of individuals might make the calculation that this was politically wise, they’re thinking about their own re-election and how it will be framed, but I have no idea how Democratic leadership is unable to see the lying trees through the forest of Republican dishonesty. Virtually no one in the Democratic electorate was blaming Democrats for the hardships of this shutdown. Polling is still horribly flawed but it has been overwhelmingly consistent on this point. And the polls that matter the most, the ones this past Tuesday, gave the shutdown strategy resounding support. What we have then is a handful of Democratic Senators using selfish and bad political calculations to undermine the key piece of leverage the larger party currently has.

And to what end? To reopen government. For which Republicans will claim credit, because it will be done with predominately GOP votes. Which President Trump will use to once again paint Democrats as weak and himself as a master negotiator. But government will still be run poorly because it is still being run by a cabal of sycophants following the lead of a kindergarten tutoring session dropout. The political victories are more likely losses and the improvements in governance are nil.

On any given Monday, I’d rather see more headlines about the government doing something well that benefits the people than those about how this or that candidate is positioning their campaign for the next battle. When in charge, Democrats tend to make government work for the people more effectively than their opponents but have proved to be consistently politically inept. What they should have learned from Tuesday’s vote was that making sure voters understand the other guy is to blame for their problems is how you win elections. I’m not sure what they believe they actually learned because this plan to reopen government implies they learned 2+2+5. They will claim it is a good deal because people who need it will be getting their SNAP benefits again. But this is short sighted. To restate, the GOP will take full credit for this because theirs will be the majority of votes that make it happen. And still in full charge of Congress and the White House, there is no reason to suspect Republicans will start attempting to make government work effectively when all they have been doing for 5 years of Trump Presidency is working to screw it up.

So what are Democrats actually walking away with from this shutdown and the deal to end it? A chimera of a political victory for a hand full of Senators. A gift to their political opponents whose supporters will have forgotten this pain by the time they next vote. A loss of their own leverage to pressure the GOP. And a promise from John Thune (notice how little I comment about the value of this concession). In attempting to make a play for effective governance over political grandstanding, Democrats have managed to ensure the further erosion of good government while also weakening their own political hand at the table.