I think they could have kept the government closed until Trump forced Pubs to remove/modify the filibuster so that the Senate could re-open the government by majority vote, which I think was the best political result for Dems and the country.
Of course, but now the Republicans own that choice, there is no spin that will resonate with people, and ads in 2026 about how your premiums skyrocketed due to the Republicans will land some serious blows. In debates and interviews they’ll be asked why they let premiums spike and when they criticize ACA the follow-up is you’ve had both Houses and the Presidency, why haven’t you done anything to fix it?
If he doesn't then I would be incredibly livid if the next shutdown isn't in February
Thune has promised debate and a vote and the whole thing would start all over at the end of January with zero negotiation credibility left if he doesn’t deliver, but he could make that choice. It would be dumb though because even if enough vulnerable Senate Republicans up in 2026 (see Susan Collins) vote for it and it passes the Senate, it is highly unlikely to get a hearing in the House under current leadership.
Thune will hold a vote, but Johnson won’t. Enough for Republicans to say they upheld their end but not enough to to actually get a bill passed. But this is how it was always going to be. No length of shutdown was going to save the subsidies. Republicans have no limit to the amount of cruelty they are happy to inflict on everyone. The ultimate point was to make the 2026 election about key pillars of affordability, healthcare being a huge one.
I'm not drawing any conclusions yet but I'm headed in this direction too. I thought the Senate Pubs might go along with Schumer's recent proposal to extend the subsidies for a year because that would be the smart political play. But it's becoming more clear all the time that Johnson won't cooperate, regardless of whether that's politically smart or not. And it's really not feasible to have airports at severely diminished capacity during Thanksgiving week. The anger would be so extreme it would likely start to hurt the Dems as much as the Pubs.
I also think as the Epstein battle plays out over Thanksgiving the time may be ripe to work with the MTG/Massie wing to move to vacate Johnson as speaker.
This is so sad and something I recognize intellectually but continue to trip over in this gilded age of unpunished political cynicism.
Personally I didn't think there was that much chance of a policy concession - but I did think there was a chance of Trump strong-arming the Senate into weakening the filibuster, which would be a great thing for everyone. Unfortunately I suspect there are still a couple of Dems in the group that just broke ranks on the vote (Fetterman, King (not technically a Dem) Durbin (who is at least leaving) who still have a hard-on for the filibuster, either for personal or political reasons.
I just want to point out that no one should be mad at the "Democratic Party" they should be mad at the specific people who broke ranks, and maybe throw Schumer in there for not being able to hold the caucus together. But there are also people who think this was the right political decision, so I'll moderate my anger at some of those people for now (the one I definitely won't let off the hook is Fetterman, who is absolutely useless to Dems and who I sincerely hope will be primaried into oblivion at the next opportunity).
