Are these Democrats not hearing us? Are they ignoring the protests? Do they need to replace the batteries in their hearing aides?! They keep giving away all of the advances we, the people, are making. We give them ammunition and they turn around and shoot us in the foot. Until you get corporate special interests out of politics, we are never going to fix DC. Not to mention, you don’t get hope and change with geriatric representatives.
The fix was in. You can try to convince me that Schumer was not in on the deal. His whip (not running in 2026) was a leader in the GOP CR passing. Jeanne Shaheen is also not running. Tim Kaine was safe. What a tangled subterfuge. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/pieces-of-8-shit?r=3m1bs
They caved in for the airlines and retailers. Remember that holiday season is nearing. The shutdown was about hurt the airlines at their busiest time. Their opening the government will also put money back in the hands of many laid off works in time to spend for the holidays. We lost, again, to big money.
As if Russell Vought/Trump will honor that. Even with an end to the shutdown in sight, the regime appealed to SCOTUS to be allowed to continue denying SNAP benefits.
I hope that you are right about the silver lining in this debacle. I'm still stunned that the Dems surrendered without getting ANYTHING in return, except for an empty promise to hold a vote on SNAP benefits. Why can't Chuck Schumer grow a spine?
The only reason I will not change my party enrollment to independent is because I want to be able to vote in primary races. I will vote to remove all of the current spineless Democrats in the Senate and the House from now until you are all replaced with progressives who will represent our interests. And please don't bother asking for donations. You have done nothing to deserve a penny from me.
If there isn't an immediate move to oust Schumer as Senate minority leader then nothing's changed. We need CONCRETE actions that impose CONSEQUENCES on those responsible for a capitulation that betrayed all those opposing Trump. Schumer is out of touch, clueless and, as we see, woefully ineffective. He's old and does not understand or represent the future - or the present - of the party. Durbin needs to be stripped of his leadership position as well, for all the same reasons.
Leaders who are and HAVE BEEN truly leading should be in control. Bernie Sanders. Tammy Duckworth. Adam Schiff. Elizabeth Warren. Amy Klobuchar. Cory Booker. Jon Ossoff.
The party is in desperate need of YOUTH and relics like Schumer and Durbin need to be stipped of all power. Saying this as an old man.
It’s time for our version of morena. Let’s build AMoR (American Movement of Renewal) on a similar foundation…getting rid of billionaires and stopping the extortion of Americans when seeking basic needs like healthcare, food, transportation, shelter, education, safe expression of identity and wellness. We can enshrine basic rights for all people of all backgrounds. We can build back protections for our environment and shared resources. We can reinvigorate scientific discovery and innovation. We can! We must!
I went ballistic when I heard that 7 Dems in the Senate had caved. The only saving grace is it's a 2 month reprieve to ease suffering over the holidays and force a vote on the Epstein files.
The fight resumes in January. It was smart for Dems to put ACA subsidies front and center. The unforced error of illegally refusing to fund SNAP ... confirmed the GOP's selfish bent. Citizens will remember.
Dems must continue to push ACA subsidies and healthcare as a right. Evidently the GOP does not realize how popular the ACA has become and will continue to vote against it.
The GOP has no plan nor expertise to legislate a new plan so killing the ACA is toxic. Citizens have lost patience with insurance. If the GOP kills the ACA that may be the bridge needed to enact Medicare for all.
The saving graces you mention were not the only two. the holidays would have made the shutdown more unbearable for more on both sides true- resulting in a pox on both. The center might very well have not held. The 5 week shutdown showed solidarity- glass 2/3 or 3/4 full that can only be marred by continued infighting. The fight will resume. In the meantime the air was cleared for the next storm, the focus of attention- the Epstein Files and more evidence of the unfitness and mental issues of Trump and the complicity of the administration working not for the people, but to cover for him. Plus ongoing ICE storming.
The MAGAs are doing plenty to shoot themselves.. and we need to keep together protest and vote.
I considered the holidays part of the pain for everyone. For the airlines, travelers, air travel safety, govt employees, retailers and especially SNAP recipients.
It's merely a 2 month reprieve to alleviate the GOP's punishment of citizens. It's not a GOP victory. Dems care about constituents and refuse to be party to a culture that deliberately punishes citizens.
Yes I agree. Democrats showed that it bothers them (some) that this hurts the people and they are part of making that pain more severe by continuing the Shutdown.. that is my best interpretation. We have to keep the people above all, bring them along when clearly there are those of us willing to sacrifice more and bear more pain than others are. The "incandescent" anger towards those who caved including Schumer ( and I am not great fan of Schumer) registered disappointment in the failure of their ( those who wanted prolonged shutdown) greatest hopes- projecting more, it seems, than was possible in terms of causing a Trump retreat. Trump Inc was betting on 1. this "cave-in", and 2. Democrats disarray from it. This was the worst time for a shutdown to continue and the fact is that THEYMAGA were willing to keep it up, THAT, should be the message. Instead .....
Democrats are basically very different than the present form of those who remain Republican. This should be clear.
As a 78-year-old Boomer, I find it hard to understand how the DNC Geezer Bosses can be so out of touch with voters and so clueless that their time is over. They disenfranchised David Hogg, then recently seem to have admitted that he was right all along! Even Pelosi got the message and bailed.
We Boomers were the hippies. We were the Vietnam war protesters shot at Kent State. We were arm-in-arm with MLK and the equal rights movement. I joined CORE at age 16. We disrupted the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention. Many of us were doing volunteer work in the Deep South to end the dominance of the KKK. We are still in the streets protesting ICE Capades in our cities. So what happened? Citizens Unitedosis? Dementia? What?
Old and in the way defines both parties. Old and chicken shit describes the Dems. Old pedophile- enablers describe the Repubes. All of us need to look deeply at ourselves for allowing this to occur. Do we deserve to vote after a certain age? Are we boomers wimps? Do we care about our progeny?
They caved in for the airlines and retailers. Remember that holiday season is nearing. The shutdown was about hurt the airlines at their busiest time. Their opening the government will also put money back in the hands of many laid off works in time to spend for the holidays. We lost, again, to big money.
There’s something poetic about this moment, the Democratic base finally realizing that the party’s ghosts can’t save it.
For years, Democrats have borrowed moral vocabulary from the very strategists who hollowed out the civic imagination. This shutdown deal just made the haunting visible.
To surrender like this, a week after the first promising rebuke of Trump, at a time when he appears to be losing his mind - sleeping in press conferences, hosting ever more lavish parties, appealing to the Supreme Court to keep people hungry, proposing more and more edifices to his ego - and late on a Sunday night, with what appears to a carefully Schumer orchestrated capitulation - well, it sucks. And I'm pissed, even more than I already was. I don't live in the same state as any of these fools, and neither of my Senators supported this but I have contributed to the campaigns of a number of them which only serves to make me feel even more burned. Pathetic.
While I was majorly upset at the news of the compromise, I later did a lot of thinking about whether it was realistic to think that continuing the shutdown would result in a renewal of ACA subsidies. After the offer of a mere one year extension was rejected out of hand, I began to doubt that. And I have begun to wonder whether we can be sure that as the shutdown continues to hurt people, particularly those who don't use the ACA, whether the blame might not recede from the GOP and switch to the Dems. As none of us have crystal balls, that possibility can't be dismissed. And of course, government employees themselves don't depend on the ACA.
So my initial feelings of betrayal have made me wonder whether it is rational to feels betrayed over a mere hope of success and an uncertainty of the downside of continuing. After all, the issue of healthcare is now deeply in front of the public; the bill does protect federal workers from long litigation to get their clearly due back pay from regime resistance, ICE is NOT funded further and certainly not at the "new" levels, and the REST of the budget still needs passing. If the House can't get its butt in gear to get all 12 appropriations bills passed (given the Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays) the NEXT attempt to extend the old budget via another continuing resolution can be blocked.
I'm not fond of Schumer, though he DID vote no and I'm not sure why any leader can be expected to vanquish all opposition through sheer what? Will power? Hypnotism? I worry that the Dems are now showing a schism and conflicting messages; What we need in 2026 is the best slate of ELECTABLE candidates in both House and Senate. If some of those turn out to be "old guard" then "old guard" it should be. The old guard will die off in any event. This doesn't feel like the time to emphasize a purge with so much at stake and with so much messaging that can continue to work to excoriate the activities of this inexpressibly corrupt regime.
Excellent. I read yours after I posted mine above. We were rare in this opinion and maybe still are as some keep on the Democrat's "capitulation" case... even respected people here, strategists and "opinionators". "Just a couple more weeks!" Who knows what that would have brought!! It's divisive to go on. And now more than a week after, things already look different. We need to get over disappointments and keep going.
Thanks. Check out James Fallows post on this; he agrees. It has a paywall but most of the argument is above the fold. What he adds below is an analysis of the "attention attraction" of all this and concludes that the actual cave is attracting little attention any more; is is the "betrayed Dems" that are keeping the issue alive.
Are these Democrats not hearing us? Are they ignoring the protests? Do they need to replace the batteries in their hearing aides?! They keep giving away all of the advances we, the people, are making. We give them ammunition and they turn around and shoot us in the foot. Until you get corporate special interests out of politics, we are never going to fix DC. Not to mention, you don’t get hope and change with geriatric representatives.
Thanks for the breakdown, Paul. Spot on❣️
The fix was in. You can try to convince me that Schumer was not in on the deal. His whip (not running in 2026) was a leader in the GOP CR passing. Jeanne Shaheen is also not running. Tim Kaine was safe. What a tangled subterfuge. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/pieces-of-8-shit?r=3m1bs
It’s not survival of the fittest any more. It’s now survival of the shiftiest. Trump exposed the rot all the way down to the core.
They caved in for the airlines and retailers. Remember that holiday season is nearing. The shutdown was about hurt the airlines at their busiest time. Their opening the government will also put money back in the hands of many laid off works in time to spend for the holidays. We lost, again, to big money.
“SNAP benefits won’t be cut off again”
As if Russell Vought/Trump will honor that. Even with an end to the shutdown in sight, the regime appealed to SCOTUS to be allowed to continue denying SNAP benefits.
Yes, he did…😒
And he might yet lose if the Extremes decide that the agreement looks on track and thus his appeal is seen as moot.
Epstein files might solve all of our problems…🙏
I hope that you are right about the silver lining in this debacle. I'm still stunned that the Dems surrendered without getting ANYTHING in return, except for an empty promise to hold a vote on SNAP benefits. Why can't Chuck Schumer grow a spine?
The only reason I will not change my party enrollment to independent is because I want to be able to vote in primary races. I will vote to remove all of the current spineless Democrats in the Senate and the House from now until you are all replaced with progressives who will represent our interests. And please don't bother asking for donations. You have done nothing to deserve a penny from me.
We'll see.
If there isn't an immediate move to oust Schumer as Senate minority leader then nothing's changed. We need CONCRETE actions that impose CONSEQUENCES on those responsible for a capitulation that betrayed all those opposing Trump. Schumer is out of touch, clueless and, as we see, woefully ineffective. He's old and does not understand or represent the future - or the present - of the party. Durbin needs to be stripped of his leadership position as well, for all the same reasons.
Leaders who are and HAVE BEEN truly leading should be in control. Bernie Sanders. Tammy Duckworth. Adam Schiff. Elizabeth Warren. Amy Klobuchar. Cory Booker. Jon Ossoff.
The party is in desperate need of YOUTH and relics like Schumer and Durbin need to be stipped of all power. Saying this as an old man.
It’s time for our version of morena. Let’s build AMoR (American Movement of Renewal) on a similar foundation…getting rid of billionaires and stopping the extortion of Americans when seeking basic needs like healthcare, food, transportation, shelter, education, safe expression of identity and wellness. We can enshrine basic rights for all people of all backgrounds. We can build back protections for our environment and shared resources. We can reinvigorate scientific discovery and innovation. We can! We must!
I went ballistic when I heard that 7 Dems in the Senate had caved. The only saving grace is it's a 2 month reprieve to ease suffering over the holidays and force a vote on the Epstein files.
The fight resumes in January. It was smart for Dems to put ACA subsidies front and center. The unforced error of illegally refusing to fund SNAP ... confirmed the GOP's selfish bent. Citizens will remember.
Dems must continue to push ACA subsidies and healthcare as a right. Evidently the GOP does not realize how popular the ACA has become and will continue to vote against it.
The GOP has no plan nor expertise to legislate a new plan so killing the ACA is toxic. Citizens have lost patience with insurance. If the GOP kills the ACA that may be the bridge needed to enact Medicare for all.
The saving graces you mention were not the only two. the holidays would have made the shutdown more unbearable for more on both sides true- resulting in a pox on both. The center might very well have not held. The 5 week shutdown showed solidarity- glass 2/3 or 3/4 full that can only be marred by continued infighting. The fight will resume. In the meantime the air was cleared for the next storm, the focus of attention- the Epstein Files and more evidence of the unfitness and mental issues of Trump and the complicity of the administration working not for the people, but to cover for him. Plus ongoing ICE storming.
The MAGAs are doing plenty to shoot themselves.. and we need to keep together protest and vote.
I considered the holidays part of the pain for everyone. For the airlines, travelers, air travel safety, govt employees, retailers and especially SNAP recipients.
It's merely a 2 month reprieve to alleviate the GOP's punishment of citizens. It's not a GOP victory. Dems care about constituents and refuse to be party to a culture that deliberately punishes citizens.
Yes I agree. Democrats showed that it bothers them (some) that this hurts the people and they are part of making that pain more severe by continuing the Shutdown.. that is my best interpretation. We have to keep the people above all, bring them along when clearly there are those of us willing to sacrifice more and bear more pain than others are. The "incandescent" anger towards those who caved including Schumer ( and I am not great fan of Schumer) registered disappointment in the failure of their ( those who wanted prolonged shutdown) greatest hopes- projecting more, it seems, than was possible in terms of causing a Trump retreat. Trump Inc was betting on 1. this "cave-in", and 2. Democrats disarray from it. This was the worst time for a shutdown to continue and the fact is that THEYMAGA were willing to keep it up, THAT, should be the message. Instead .....
Democrats are basically very different than the present form of those who remain Republican. This should be clear.
Corporate dems making a deal with the devil may become a godsend for an angry dem base looking for fighters instead of capitulators.
As a 78-year-old Boomer, I find it hard to understand how the DNC Geezer Bosses can be so out of touch with voters and so clueless that their time is over. They disenfranchised David Hogg, then recently seem to have admitted that he was right all along! Even Pelosi got the message and bailed.
We Boomers were the hippies. We were the Vietnam war protesters shot at Kent State. We were arm-in-arm with MLK and the equal rights movement. I joined CORE at age 16. We disrupted the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention. Many of us were doing volunteer work in the Deep South to end the dominance of the KKK. We are still in the streets protesting ICE Capades in our cities. So what happened? Citizens Unitedosis? Dementia? What?
Old and in the way defines both parties. Old and chicken shit describes the Dems. Old pedophile- enablers describe the Repubes. All of us need to look deeply at ourselves for allowing this to occur. Do we deserve to vote after a certain age? Are we boomers wimps? Do we care about our progeny?
They caved in for the airlines and retailers. Remember that holiday season is nearing. The shutdown was about hurt the airlines at their busiest time. Their opening the government will also put money back in the hands of many laid off works in time to spend for the holidays. We lost, again, to big money.
There’s something poetic about this moment, the Democratic base finally realizing that the party’s ghosts can’t save it.
For years, Democrats have borrowed moral vocabulary from the very strategists who hollowed out the civic imagination. This shutdown deal just made the haunting visible.
I wrote about this fracture and how Democrats keep consulting the architects of yesterday to build the future: https://www.stewonthis.com/p/two-silences
To surrender like this, a week after the first promising rebuke of Trump, at a time when he appears to be losing his mind - sleeping in press conferences, hosting ever more lavish parties, appealing to the Supreme Court to keep people hungry, proposing more and more edifices to his ego - and late on a Sunday night, with what appears to a carefully Schumer orchestrated capitulation - well, it sucks. And I'm pissed, even more than I already was. I don't live in the same state as any of these fools, and neither of my Senators supported this but I have contributed to the campaigns of a number of them which only serves to make me feel even more burned. Pathetic.
So what will the new people do differently? Even Bernie Sanders said no one wants Chuck Schumer's job.
I'm 100% confident if Sanders was offered the job he'd take it.
I doubt it. I think he's wise enough to know his strengths and weaknesses.
While I was majorly upset at the news of the compromise, I later did a lot of thinking about whether it was realistic to think that continuing the shutdown would result in a renewal of ACA subsidies. After the offer of a mere one year extension was rejected out of hand, I began to doubt that. And I have begun to wonder whether we can be sure that as the shutdown continues to hurt people, particularly those who don't use the ACA, whether the blame might not recede from the GOP and switch to the Dems. As none of us have crystal balls, that possibility can't be dismissed. And of course, government employees themselves don't depend on the ACA.
So my initial feelings of betrayal have made me wonder whether it is rational to feels betrayed over a mere hope of success and an uncertainty of the downside of continuing. After all, the issue of healthcare is now deeply in front of the public; the bill does protect federal workers from long litigation to get their clearly due back pay from regime resistance, ICE is NOT funded further and certainly not at the "new" levels, and the REST of the budget still needs passing. If the House can't get its butt in gear to get all 12 appropriations bills passed (given the Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays) the NEXT attempt to extend the old budget via another continuing resolution can be blocked.
I'm not fond of Schumer, though he DID vote no and I'm not sure why any leader can be expected to vanquish all opposition through sheer what? Will power? Hypnotism? I worry that the Dems are now showing a schism and conflicting messages; What we need in 2026 is the best slate of ELECTABLE candidates in both House and Senate. If some of those turn out to be "old guard" then "old guard" it should be. The old guard will die off in any event. This doesn't feel like the time to emphasize a purge with so much at stake and with so much messaging that can continue to work to excoriate the activities of this inexpressibly corrupt regime.
Excellent. I read yours after I posted mine above. We were rare in this opinion and maybe still are as some keep on the Democrat's "capitulation" case... even respected people here, strategists and "opinionators". "Just a couple more weeks!" Who knows what that would have brought!! It's divisive to go on. And now more than a week after, things already look different. We need to get over disappointments and keep going.
Thanks. Check out James Fallows post on this; he agrees. It has a paywall but most of the argument is above the fold. What he adds below is an analysis of the "attention attraction" of all this and concludes that the actual cave is attracting little attention any more; is is the "betrayed Dems" that are keeping the issue alive.
Talking Point Memo Josh Marshall as well
this and a day after to confirm his first take:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-quick-take-on-team-caves-big-win?