Democrats Smart to Reach Compromise and End Government Shutdown
Democrats were heading into a no-win situation with Donald Trump and the Republicans.
President Donald Trump and Congressional leaders shut the United States government down for less than 72 hours. The semi-drama came to an end when lawmakers reached a compromise to restart the gears on Monday.
Of course, this being 2018 and the political environment being what it is, not everyone is happy about the Democrats’ decision to blink in their game of political chicken. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California both expressed disappointment with the deal in what CNN curiously characterized as “an indication of progressive sentiment.”
Putting aside whether Feinstein or Harris carries the Dems’ progressive banner, they’re both wrong.
The Democratic Party was smart to compromise because it was painting itself into a corner. Thanks to its leadership’s habit of framing everything as a referendum on or attack against President Trump, the government shutdown quickly became a Democrat vs. Trump issue and left the Republican Party relatively unscathed in the process. This turned the work stoppage into a loser for the Dems with the potential to become a catastrophe the longer it persisted for obvious reason.
Namely, Trump was always going to pull an Andy Dufresne and emerge on the other side of his metaphorical river of sewage clean as a whistle.
Granted, it all sounded bad for Donnie. Democratic powers-that-be and mainstream media had a field day discussing all the gory ramifications of any protracted stalemate. They channelled their best Serious Tones to dissect who was at fault, who was heroically working to reach a compromise, who the voters would blame, etc. Cable personalities like Rachel Maddow, Brian Stelter, Chris Cillizza and Joy Reid railed against the GOP’s cold hearts and Trump’s incompetence. The CNN-/MSNBC-watching segments of the public presumably ate the coverage up with a spoon and delighted in taking pot shots at Donnie with their friends.
All of which made for lucrative business in the infotainment world, but…so what?
The coverage didn’t reflect broader reality any more than mainstream coverage has done so for the last few years. It did do a wonderful job reflecting the sentiment of Democratic insiders and rabid anti-Trumpers, but anyone who regularly traffics in sludge pushed by the Cillizzas and Reids of the world is in no danger of suddenly seeing redemptive qualities in our 45th President. These are the #StillWithHer and #NeverTrump echo chambers; they despise Donald Trump. That’s why they’re out marching in pink pussy hats or circling up with David Frum and Bill Krystol to rekindle the good ol’ days of their agenda going straight from Dick Cheney’s ears to a Bush’s lips. Their collective opinion of the Golfer in Chief couldn’t go lower in any meaningful, political sense.
Consequently, the price of this coverage for Trump was minimal.
Furthermore, the rest of the politically aware population was unlikely to be moved significantly by anything but a severely protracted work stoppage.
The pro-Trump crowd has made it abundantly clear they’ll stick with their orange-hued champion through far worse than a little federal downtime. On the contrary, many probably saw the beltway going dark for a reasonable amount of time as a positive, not as a black mark on the administration. After all, many in this group chose the real estate tycoon over Hillary Clinton precisely because they hoped he’d bring business as usual to a spectacular halt.
In any event, these people elected him after the Access Hollywood tape and sexual misconduct allegations. They stood by him after he dumped kerosene on the Charlottesville dumpster fire. The chaos of Trump’s first year in office did little to shake their faith in him so it was highly unlikely a government shutdown would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
As for those somewhere in between these pro and con extremes? Meh.
Again, we’ve seen far worse from candidate and President Trump.
Whether for, against or somehow managing to remain balanced on the fence, we’ve been inundated with negative coverage of the man. For example, CNN has written about Trump’s “worst week” since entering the political arena almost monthly since he took office. MSNBC has become the de facto hub for all things related to the Russian-collusion narrative and still throws around accusations of treason from time to time. We’ve listened to ostensibly respected journalists declare the Trump administration guilty of trying to enact a “Muslim ban,” being a true-blue racist, stripping rights from the LGBTQ community, flirting with nuclear war, feeding the poor to the rich and other embarrassments—some real, some imagined.
Against this carefully constructed background, what difference could a government shutdown really make?
Ultimately, it boiled down to simple logic once it became clear Trump would be the antagonist more so than the GOP.
The pro-Trump crowd wasn’t going to abandon him over anything (apparently) and the anti-Trump crowd can’t get much more anti-. The vast majority of the rest of the country has digested Trumpian acts far more egregious than shuttering the halls of government. The issue wasn’t going to move most needles even if an individual put 100 percent of the blame on Donnie.
Meanwhile, both Republicans and Democrats have been dealing with intra-party squabbles and grassroots-voter insurgencies since 2015. Each party’s establishment is losing control of anyone outside a small faction of partisan hardliners as more and more voices add to the chorus of discontent over the status quo. Not coincidentally, most of the independent and independent-esque voters wear that description because they’ve already added to that chorus.
In other words, everyone hates Congress, especially both party’s leadership.
Washington DC closing up shop was another example indicating our politicians are incapable of acting like adults unless there are massive benefits for their biggest donors at stake. The longer the shutdown dragged on, the louder that message would’ve resonated.
Fair or not, the shutdown had no upside for the Democrats and would’ve done more damage to them so ending it quickly was the right move.
