Nov.13

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

And So It Ends...

It will take a while for everything to begin operating at full speed again, but the latest and longest federal government shutdown is over after 43 days.

By a vote of 222-209, the House approved the stopgap bill that had already passed the Senate. Six Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with nearly all the Republicans; those six are Henry Cuellar (TX-28; PVI of R+2), Donald Davis (NC-01; R+1), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03; R+2), Jared Golden (ME-02; R+4), Adam Gray (CA-13; R+1) and Tom Suozzi (NY-03; EVEN). Perhaps readers will notice that those districts have something in common. That said, Jared Golden wasn't just playing politics, since he's retiring. It would seem all those times he crossed the aisle, it might have been genuine.

There were also two Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote with nearly all the Democrats. One of them was Thomas Massie (R-KY), who is an iconoclast, and usually joins his Senate colleague Rand Paul (R-KY) in voting against anything that involves spending any money at all. The other was Greg Steube (R-FL), who is quite MAGA, and who represents a district, FL-17, that is quite red at R+11. Unlike Massie and Paul, Steube is not a Libertarian who is just pretending to be a Republican in order to be able to win elections. His issue with the bill, in his own words:

After forcing the country to endure the longest government shutdown in history, the Senate's response is the furthest thing from a 'clean' CR. I could not in good conscience support a resolution that creates a self-indulgent legal provision for certain senators to enrich themselves by suing the Justice Department using taxpayer dollars. There is no reason the House should have been forced to eat this garbage to end the Schumer Shutdown.

Kudos to him for, by all indications, voting his conscience. We can see no obvious electoral benefit to rebelling like this, and his social media is now full of MAGA Republicans who are calling him a RINO, a traitor, a pedo, woke, a communist, a socialist, a fascist, a "false flag loser," a narcissist, a clown and a whole bunch of things we cannot print in a family-friendly blog (Hint: Most of those involve suggestions about Steube's sexual orientation, and the various activities he partakes in as part of that).

We're just spitballing here, but we are thinking that mayyyyybe these people just get out these insults anytime they are upset, even if the insults make no sense, and even if the person delivering the insult doesn't really understand what it means. To get a sense of the sort of folks we're talking about here, note also that some meaningful number of the critics declared that he's NEVER going to be able to win a U.S. Senate election next year, now that he's a pedotraitorinofascistwokecommieclown. We must admit we agree with this prediction, if not the pedotraitorinofascistwokecommieclown part of it, since he is a member of the House of Representatives, and is not running for the Senate.

Once the House had done its thing—and, by the way, that includes Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) casting her very first vote, in what will surely be a treasured memory—the bill was hustled down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, where Donald Trump had stayed up past his bedtime to apply his signature. So the deal, as they say, is done.

Yesterday, we noted that while most pundits dumped on the Democrats for caving on the shutdown, a few thought it was the best move possible under the circumstances. After all, the Democrats had to deal with a Republican trifecta and a president who would revel in thousands of children dying of starvation, as long as they were Black or brown.

One of the more articulate defenses of what the Democrats did is from Jonathan V. Last (JVL) of The Bulwark. He made an ordered list of possible ways the funding battle could have been avoided or ended, with likely political consequences of each one, summarized below, from best case to worst case for the Democrats. For the record, JVL is not some hippy-dippy Democrat. He is a Republican and an observant Catholic who hates Donald Trump and wants to defend democracy.

1. Democrats Win a Strategic Concession: The absolute best outcome would have been the Democrats using public pressure to force the Republicans to make a strategic concession that changed the balance of power. One possiblilty would be making D.C. a state. Another would be releasing all the Epstein files unredacted except for blacking out the names of his victims. Another would be reining in the power of the president (e.g., on declaring emergencies, making acting appointments, etc.). These things would be a drag on Trump going forward. Remember, short of his dying in office, he is going to be president until Jan. 20, 2029, at noon D.C. time. Is getting structural changes a fantasy? Probably, but a year ago, who would have thought he would demolish a third of the White House, put Marines on the streets of Los Angeles, and accept a $400 million airplane with Congress quietly accepting that? Impossible stuff happens.
   
   
2. Republicans Repeal the Filibuster: This would have been almost as good. The first thing is that it would have removed the cover Senate Republicans use to avoid tough votes on Trump's nuttiest proposals. If Trump says he wants to give everyone $2,000 or $10,000 or some other crazy number, Republican senators know this is an awful idea that will increase the deficit. If they vote yes, actual conservatives around the country will be furious but if they vote no, MAGA Nation will be furious. Their best strategy is to say: "It is pointless to vote on it because the Democrats will filibuster it." Once the filibuster is gone, Trump will send them a stream of horrible proposals they will actually have to vote on.
   
   The second issue is that next time the Democrats get the trifecta, they will ram through a very long list of laws the Republicans really don't want, ranging from statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the For the People Act, making abortion legal and easy nationwide, banning gerrymandering, and much more. If the filibuster is in place when they next take power, the Democrats may not have the willpower to abolish it on their own.
   
   
3. Democrats Win a Tactical Concession: Something noteworthy, but smallish, like ICE agents being banned from wearing masks and maybe required to wear a badge with their name and number visible at all times. Maybe agreeing not to deploy the National Guard or federal troops anywhere in the country unless requested by a governor.
   
   
4. Democrats Cave and Preserve the Status Quo: That wouldn't be quite as bad as it sounds. By now, the issue of health care has been in the news for weeks. People know where the Democrats stand and where the Republicans stand. Health care could be the main issue in the midterms. If so, that would be a boon to the blue team. If you think not, go review last week's elections again.
   
   Also, the trend in Trump's approval since Sept. 30 hasn't been so great:
   
   
   
   This option is roughly what actually happened.
   
   
5. Democrats Roll Over Immediately and Avoid the Shutdown Completely: This would have been even worse than fighting and then caving. It would have made the Democratic base furious. Fighting and then caving after 7 weeks at least showed some fight. Not even fighting at all would have been very demoralizing for Democratic voters.
   
   
6. Democrats Get Everything They Asked For: Suppose the Republicans had been smarter and agreed to extend all the health insurance subsidies until Dec. 31, 2026. This would have been a victory so bad it would have made Pyrrhus of Epirus cry. It would have completely defanged the Democrats' 2026 argument that Republicans want to take away their health care. Trump would have crowed that he saved everyone's health care. What the Democrats were asking for was to undo the least popular thing the Republicans want. It would have saved Trump from destroying himself and his party. From a political viewpoint, the Democrats need to have the voters touch the stove. No party has ever gotten credit for preventing some bad thing from happening, especially not with voters who are barely aware of what is going on. It has to happen and they have to feel the pain before you can get credit for trying to prevent it, even if you fail.

Think about this from Trump's perspective. The BBB got him some things he wanted, but he needed some very big cuts to keep the deficit from exploding. Otherwise, the Freedom Caucus would have bolted. There are only so many big pots of money in the federal budget, though. Tackling defense would have generated too much blowback. Health care was big enough. But if he had been forced at the point of a gun to restore the health care money, Trump could have told the Freedom Caucus: "I tried to keep the deficit under control, but those nasty Democrats forced this on me. Not my fault."

Now, Trump and his party get to own the issue of rising health care costs. That includes Obamacare, which the Republicans could have done something about, but chose not to. It also includes non-Obamacare insurance, which is also going up, up, up in price. This is not an issue that was actually on the table during the shutdown, but voters don't tend to draw these distinctions. So, they could be very cranky by the time next November rolls around, and they've been paying premiums that are double-digit percentages, or even triple-digit percentages, higher for close to a year. (V & Z)