Admire your capacity to heal quickly as I am still smarting a bit today.
100% agree that the 8 need to STFU. I heard Angus King say that standing up to Donald Trump doesn’t work. I thought my head was going to explode. What a tone deaf, out of touch, destructive thing to say to the millions of activists who have been protesting, canvassing, fundraising, phone banking, voting, and winning. Angus, GET OUT OF THE WAY.
We are now forced to move on. I hope the Democrats have better strategists and media savvy members taking over. Not holding my breath.
I heard Angus King this morning and reacted the same as you! Thankfully, my Democratic senators are not for this and are working hard on our behalf. I'm not letting 8+1 bad apples spoil the whole bunch for me. Besides, the truth is that I'll vote for the rabbit in my backyard before I'd ever vote for a Republicn.
Hi Dan, I know I will be unpopular here, but I have a different take on things. You mention, at the end of your posting, that next year no one will remember the way the shutdown ended, and that is actually key to my perspective.
You noted this, which also makes sense: " Let me stipulate up front: I highly doubt the promised vote to extend the Obamacare tax credits will pass, and even if it does, it seems even more unlikely that the House would take it up, let alone pass it."
"This is now a messaging campaign. It is an opportunity to make sure that every American knows two things: Republicans raised their premiums and Democrats tried to stop them."
Anyway here is my perspective, which I give knowing that neither I nor anyone else has a crystal ball. Meaning, I certainly could be wrong....
The R's were never -- I repeat. never -- going to relent on extending the ACA subsidies. Your post above suggests that, and it's what I happen to believe. The R's also seemed to be quite comfortable with continuing the shutdown. I'm not at all sure they were as "panicked" as some media sources said they were.
Meanwhile, the shutdown was (has been) growing steadily more painful, with air travel increasingly difficult and hazardous, and families of furloughed workers in increasingly more desperate straits. Already, my sister thinks both parties are a disaster because of the continued shutdown. She is a typical voter -- hates Trump but doesn't really follow politics. Again, I don't have a crystal ball, but I do honestly believe that if the shutdown kept dragging on into the holidays eventually the voters would start blaming both parties.
The Dems did get something, if I recall correctly -- reinstatement of those laid off and a promise of back pay. Meanwhile, the R's are now totally 'on the hook' for whether a bill authorizing continuation of the ACA subsidies is ever passed or not.
I do understand the anger and the perspective that Dems were in a good place to keep on holding out. I especially understand anger from those who will be affected by the loss of the subsidies. But since I honestly don't believe the R's would ever have relented on that point, I am left with the belief that Dems tried to do something to end the growing pain of the shutdown while baiting the hook for R's to totally 'own' whether the ACA subsidies are ever renewed or not.
Because there are different ways this could have played out, I am hoping that Dems will pull together and move forward, because this intra-party war could really hurt us badly in the mid-terms. Yes, we do need to elect more progressives! But I am angrier at Gillibrand than I am at Shumer, because she authored (co-authored?) the GENIUS Act.
Even if you are right, the timing was wrong. Just after such big wins, and just after so many people had willingly cancelled their plans to be with family for holidays, had donated so much to food banks. People were willing to suffer and this made it feel like we suffered for so little. Should have waited, honor our sacrifices, show us we have some power. A little good will come of this, and one is that the House will have to come back into session and then don't they have to swear in Adelita Grijalva (or does he "have to" Dan?) and then we get the Epstein files...
I totally agree with you about the timing. I wish the Dems had held out longer, but I must admit I was getting increasingly worried about the possibility of an air disaster. Maybe they could have held out another week, but Thanksgiving is coming up fast. It sure would be good if we all could somehow know in advance what 'would have' happened if Dems had held out. That's the real problem -- none of us knows the future, so we can only look back later to see what we should actually have done.
Well, now we move forward, and I hope the Epstein files, now maybe accessible whether they seat her or not, as the emails have come out, make a difference. One vaguely feels a change in the air for many reasons. For the first time yesterday and then again today I thought: maybe this won't last forever. We will see.
A part of me would have found it interesting to see how the shutdown would have impacted the Thanksgiving holiday, but as I have gotten older I have become less and less inclined toward political strategies that "heighten the contradictions." For one thing, too many innocent people tend to get hurt.
I get people's anger with the Democrats, but it seems to me that we need to be careful about not letting anger drive our actions.
Dan admits that we will be here again. And we can say again, we are trying to get these clowns to help with the subsidies. And let them be indifferent again…
What was the preferred exit strategy if the GOP gives no cares about healthcare? Did we miss out on maximal pain for them? Who knows? in due time we get to make them look like imbeciles again.
Thank you, DJ! There are no easy answers here, when dealing with sociopaths like today's R's. My 'take' could end up being totally wrong, too. Many smart people are having varied reactions and perspectives... it may be too soon to tell what the Dems should have -- or could have -- done....
Too bad The Cowardly Eight didn’t think of the DNC when they took that vote. I am 100% less likely to donate my hard earned dollars (that I will now need for my healthcare premium anyway) to a party in which I can’t trust those elected to represent me to actually represent me. Tim Kaine has been sending this NJ resident a fundraising email a day. Yesterday he got a big fat unsubscribe.
I am in complete accord with everything you wrote this morning, Dan. The Press is eager to embark on weeks of their favorite "Dems in disarray" humbug. I'm no happier than you are about the climbdown, but since our primary objective is to save our democracy, the last thing we need is involve ourselves in internal spats which the Press will blow out of all proportions.
We need to be careful to pin blame on the nine Senate Democrats (Schumer and King included) who caved, and not "Democrats" as a whole, who overwhelmingly stood firm. I'm seeing way too many headlines and memes trashing the entire party.
It seems we’re a political party that needs constant reminding to focus our fire on Republicans, not each other. Which you did—for about 25% of your message. The other 75%, you beat up on Democrats.
The shutdown was a hostage negotiation. And there were plenty of hostages who were fearful of financial strain, hunger, cold, and the growing hazard of air travel. MAGA had demonstrated a complete willingness to shoot the hostages. So, we were going to win?
No. In the modern era, there is no precedent of the shutdown party successfully extracting major legislative concessions.
As I read claims that “you just need to fight harder,” history says otherwise: shutdowns are a losing weapon. And that “fight harder” phrase always reminds me of Demi Moore’s line in A Few Good Men: “Your Honor, I STRENUOUSLY object”.
Who actually remembers voting one way or the other because of how a shutdown played out? No one.
Who remembers voting over the issue that caused the shutdown? Plenty of us. And on those issues Democrats are the clear winners — and these are big issues.
Republicans made health care unaffordable for millions so they could fund tax cuts for their wealthy donors. They literally took food assistance away from the poorest families, and then went all the way to the Supreme Court to stop Democrats from fixing that cruelty. They cut Medicaid benefits — mostly from their own voters.
And that’s just this week.
If Democratic candidates can’t turn that into winning messages, then what are we even doing here? This is political malpractice. These are kitchen-table issues affecting real people, right now, and we should be winning this argument every single day.
Let’s not be Stalin—starting a war by purging the army. If you don’t like Schumer, tell your Senator to vote for someone else as leader. That’s democracy. But turning on each other mid-fight only helps Republicans.
Because as angry as anyone is at “the eight,” it was Republicans who put the country at risk. They engineered the cruelty. They did the damage. That’s where the outrage belongs.
I wish you would stop trashing the Democrat brand. It isnt helping. We didn't get the best outcome but we got an ok outcome and we're better off politically to help people in the future. That's what our message should be- still a win. Comments like yours are hurting, not helping. Maybe the pundits like you say outlandish things to get clicks and subscriptions....
I’m a Democrat - always have been. But our party’s leadership for years has not just allowed, but sanctioned the eroding of our rights and perks of living in our country. They are complicit with hedge funds and big tech, big pharmaceutical and insurance companies. This deal the 8+1 just made won’t restore the billions in SNAP funding the BBB took away, and we need to remind them all that we SEE them and won’t trust them again. And yes, move on.
Going to have to push back here a bit and ask, what evidence is there that any recent electoral victories had anything to do with popular approval of Democrats? From what I can gather it seems to me that aside from Mamdani, most races were anti-GOP and not pro-Dems. In other words the shutdown wasn't rehabilitating the Dems image, but was instead damaging the GOPs, which isn't really the Dems doing either. I mean maybe if NO Kings was started after the shutdown fight I might believe the shutdown was accomplishing something, but that's not what's happening. Anti-GOP sentiment is being fostered by the current admins own actions, not the Dems.
Its somewhat insulting to think that the Dems shutdown fight was more influential than say the daily reminders of the growing autocracy we have everyday in the form of ICE.
The shut down is I am sure very disappointing for people who really wanted 'Dem Pride', but the fact of the matter is, the shut-down was a small side battle in the bigger war.
This helped me a lot in preventing my anger from fully boiling over, but no promises that holds. I sincerely hope Dems take a similar tack as you outlined, it's at least something representatives of my party can do without a fraction of it dragging down the rest. In a way it's similar to how I came down from the Presidential election loss: if my party has failed at harm reduction and incremental change we'll need to work to make the pendulum swing harder for when (if) its in power again. This doesn't have to be a Democrat failure, it can be a Republican + 8 failure
Good points, Val... and I'm hoping you and everyone will remember that Dems didn't necessarily 'fail at harm reduction' because they had no control whatsoever over what R's chose to do or not do. Yes, they could have held out longer -- I do agree with that -- but holding out carried its own risks, with the holidays approaching. Also, if the R's had been the ones to cave, it's possible that by midterm time voters would have only remembered that the shutdown ended and they got their affordable healthcare. They might even have credited Trump for that.
I'm sorry, Grace, but you misunderstood my comment... and that's my fault because I didn't word it very well. What I was trying to say was, IF the Dems had held out until the R's finally agreed to keep the ACA subsidies, the voters would probably only remember that they still had their subsidies... and might even credit the R's for that. Now, the R's are still 'on the hook' for taking away the subsidies and if they refuse to vote on it, or Trump refuses to sign, it will be crystal clear to the voters exactly which party is at fault for them losing affordable healthcare.
Saw a quote from my Senator (Ron Wyden,OR) that there was language in the bill that would allow Senators to sue over investigators examining their phone records as part of Jack Smith’s investigation.
How on earth does Schumer and the Capitulation Caucus explain that?
I agree we need to move forward. I also understand that when leadership is taking us down the same road that got us here, moving forward begins with changing that leadership.
I wish the DNC would hire you for a year, and you could go in and reorganize their strategic and messaging strategy.
What makes me angry is that they think we are too dumb to see through all of this. Schumer has to go
Exactly!
Hi friend. Amy
Admire your capacity to heal quickly as I am still smarting a bit today.
100% agree that the 8 need to STFU. I heard Angus King say that standing up to Donald Trump doesn’t work. I thought my head was going to explode. What a tone deaf, out of touch, destructive thing to say to the millions of activists who have been protesting, canvassing, fundraising, phone banking, voting, and winning. Angus, GET OUT OF THE WAY.
We are now forced to move on. I hope the Democrats have better strategists and media savvy members taking over. Not holding my breath.
I heard Angus King this morning and reacted the same as you! Thankfully, my Democratic senators are not for this and are working hard on our behalf. I'm not letting 8+1 bad apples spoil the whole bunch for me. Besides, the truth is that I'll vote for the rabbit in my backyard before I'd ever vote for a Republicn.
Rabbit in My Backyard! 2026! I love it. Me, too, I would never vote for today’s Republicans.
Hi Dan, I know I will be unpopular here, but I have a different take on things. You mention, at the end of your posting, that next year no one will remember the way the shutdown ended, and that is actually key to my perspective.
You noted this, which also makes sense: " Let me stipulate up front: I highly doubt the promised vote to extend the Obamacare tax credits will pass, and even if it does, it seems even more unlikely that the House would take it up, let alone pass it."
"This is now a messaging campaign. It is an opportunity to make sure that every American knows two things: Republicans raised their premiums and Democrats tried to stop them."
Anyway here is my perspective, which I give knowing that neither I nor anyone else has a crystal ball. Meaning, I certainly could be wrong....
The R's were never -- I repeat. never -- going to relent on extending the ACA subsidies. Your post above suggests that, and it's what I happen to believe. The R's also seemed to be quite comfortable with continuing the shutdown. I'm not at all sure they were as "panicked" as some media sources said they were.
Meanwhile, the shutdown was (has been) growing steadily more painful, with air travel increasingly difficult and hazardous, and families of furloughed workers in increasingly more desperate straits. Already, my sister thinks both parties are a disaster because of the continued shutdown. She is a typical voter -- hates Trump but doesn't really follow politics. Again, I don't have a crystal ball, but I do honestly believe that if the shutdown kept dragging on into the holidays eventually the voters would start blaming both parties.
The Dems did get something, if I recall correctly -- reinstatement of those laid off and a promise of back pay. Meanwhile, the R's are now totally 'on the hook' for whether a bill authorizing continuation of the ACA subsidies is ever passed or not.
I do understand the anger and the perspective that Dems were in a good place to keep on holding out. I especially understand anger from those who will be affected by the loss of the subsidies. But since I honestly don't believe the R's would ever have relented on that point, I am left with the belief that Dems tried to do something to end the growing pain of the shutdown while baiting the hook for R's to totally 'own' whether the ACA subsidies are ever renewed or not.
Because there are different ways this could have played out, I am hoping that Dems will pull together and move forward, because this intra-party war could really hurt us badly in the mid-terms. Yes, we do need to elect more progressives! But I am angrier at Gillibrand than I am at Shumer, because she authored (co-authored?) the GENIUS Act.
Even if you are right, the timing was wrong. Just after such big wins, and just after so many people had willingly cancelled their plans to be with family for holidays, had donated so much to food banks. People were willing to suffer and this made it feel like we suffered for so little. Should have waited, honor our sacrifices, show us we have some power. A little good will come of this, and one is that the House will have to come back into session and then don't they have to swear in Adelita Grijalva (or does he "have to" Dan?) and then we get the Epstein files...
I totally agree with you about the timing. I wish the Dems had held out longer, but I must admit I was getting increasingly worried about the possibility of an air disaster. Maybe they could have held out another week, but Thanksgiving is coming up fast. It sure would be good if we all could somehow know in advance what 'would have' happened if Dems had held out. That's the real problem -- none of us knows the future, so we can only look back later to see what we should actually have done.
Well, now we move forward, and I hope the Epstein files, now maybe accessible whether they seat her or not, as the emails have come out, make a difference. One vaguely feels a change in the air for many reasons. For the first time yesterday and then again today I thought: maybe this won't last forever. We will see.
A part of me would have found it interesting to see how the shutdown would have impacted the Thanksgiving holiday, but as I have gotten older I have become less and less inclined toward political strategies that "heighten the contradictions." For one thing, too many innocent people tend to get hurt.
I get people's anger with the Democrats, but it seems to me that we need to be careful about not letting anger drive our actions.
Not anger: tactics and strategy.
This👆
Acceptable, but many opponents to allowing the gop to run roughshod for another year perhaps more: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2025/11/democrats-shutdown-mistake/684878/
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-quick-take-on-team-caves-big-win
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/give-chuck-schumer-a-break-it-could-have-been-worse-shutdown-deal?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=The+Bulwark&utm_campaign=publer
Dan admits that we will be here again. And we can say again, we are trying to get these clowns to help with the subsidies. And let them be indifferent again…
What was the preferred exit strategy if the GOP gives no cares about healthcare? Did we miss out on maximal pain for them? Who knows? in due time we get to make them look like imbeciles again.
Thank you, DJ! There are no easy answers here, when dealing with sociopaths like today's R's. My 'take' could end up being totally wrong, too. Many smart people are having varied reactions and perspectives... it may be too soon to tell what the Dems should have -- or could have -- done....
"Next year, no one will remember the shutdown cave — but they will know that their premiums have gone up."
Seems right. Make the GOP pay for their choices.
Too bad The Cowardly Eight didn’t think of the DNC when they took that vote. I am 100% less likely to donate my hard earned dollars (that I will now need for my healthcare premium anyway) to a party in which I can’t trust those elected to represent me to actually represent me. Tim Kaine has been sending this NJ resident a fundraising email a day. Yesterday he got a big fat unsubscribe.
I am in complete accord with everything you wrote this morning, Dan. The Press is eager to embark on weeks of their favorite "Dems in disarray" humbug. I'm no happier than you are about the climbdown, but since our primary objective is to save our democracy, the last thing we need is involve ourselves in internal spats which the Press will blow out of all proportions.
We need to be careful to pin blame on the nine Senate Democrats (Schumer and King included) who caved, and not "Democrats" as a whole, who overwhelmingly stood firm. I'm seeing way too many headlines and memes trashing the entire party.
This!
Totally agree
It seems we’re a political party that needs constant reminding to focus our fire on Republicans, not each other. Which you did—for about 25% of your message. The other 75%, you beat up on Democrats.
The shutdown was a hostage negotiation. And there were plenty of hostages who were fearful of financial strain, hunger, cold, and the growing hazard of air travel. MAGA had demonstrated a complete willingness to shoot the hostages. So, we were going to win?
No. In the modern era, there is no precedent of the shutdown party successfully extracting major legislative concessions.
As I read claims that “you just need to fight harder,” history says otherwise: shutdowns are a losing weapon. And that “fight harder” phrase always reminds me of Demi Moore’s line in A Few Good Men: “Your Honor, I STRENUOUSLY object”.
Who actually remembers voting one way or the other because of how a shutdown played out? No one.
Who remembers voting over the issue that caused the shutdown? Plenty of us. And on those issues Democrats are the clear winners — and these are big issues.
Republicans made health care unaffordable for millions so they could fund tax cuts for their wealthy donors. They literally took food assistance away from the poorest families, and then went all the way to the Supreme Court to stop Democrats from fixing that cruelty. They cut Medicaid benefits — mostly from their own voters.
And that’s just this week.
If Democratic candidates can’t turn that into winning messages, then what are we even doing here? This is political malpractice. These are kitchen-table issues affecting real people, right now, and we should be winning this argument every single day.
Let’s not be Stalin—starting a war by purging the army. If you don’t like Schumer, tell your Senator to vote for someone else as leader. That’s democracy. But turning on each other mid-fight only helps Republicans.
Because as angry as anyone is at “the eight,” it was Republicans who put the country at risk. They engineered the cruelty. They did the damage. That’s where the outrage belongs.
What did u think of JVL's take yesterday that the cave is not a total loss? Also Chuck needs to go. He's pathetic at this point.
I wish you would stop trashing the Democrat brand. It isnt helping. We didn't get the best outcome but we got an ok outcome and we're better off politically to help people in the future. That's what our message should be- still a win. Comments like yours are hurting, not helping. Maybe the pundits like you say outlandish things to get clicks and subscriptions....
I’m a Democrat - always have been. But our party’s leadership for years has not just allowed, but sanctioned the eroding of our rights and perks of living in our country. They are complicit with hedge funds and big tech, big pharmaceutical and insurance companies. This deal the 8+1 just made won’t restore the billions in SNAP funding the BBB took away, and we need to remind them all that we SEE them and won’t trust them again. And yes, move on.
Going to have to push back here a bit and ask, what evidence is there that any recent electoral victories had anything to do with popular approval of Democrats? From what I can gather it seems to me that aside from Mamdani, most races were anti-GOP and not pro-Dems. In other words the shutdown wasn't rehabilitating the Dems image, but was instead damaging the GOPs, which isn't really the Dems doing either. I mean maybe if NO Kings was started after the shutdown fight I might believe the shutdown was accomplishing something, but that's not what's happening. Anti-GOP sentiment is being fostered by the current admins own actions, not the Dems.
Its somewhat insulting to think that the Dems shutdown fight was more influential than say the daily reminders of the growing autocracy we have everyday in the form of ICE.
The shut down is I am sure very disappointing for people who really wanted 'Dem Pride', but the fact of the matter is, the shut-down was a small side battle in the bigger war.
What about putting pressure on Schumer to resign and let the Dem Senators elect a new minority leader?
Who do you think would do a better job than Schumer?
This helped me a lot in preventing my anger from fully boiling over, but no promises that holds. I sincerely hope Dems take a similar tack as you outlined, it's at least something representatives of my party can do without a fraction of it dragging down the rest. In a way it's similar to how I came down from the Presidential election loss: if my party has failed at harm reduction and incremental change we'll need to work to make the pendulum swing harder for when (if) its in power again. This doesn't have to be a Democrat failure, it can be a Republican + 8 failure
Good points, Val... and I'm hoping you and everyone will remember that Dems didn't necessarily 'fail at harm reduction' because they had no control whatsoever over what R's chose to do or not do. Yes, they could have held out longer -- I do agree with that -- but holding out carried its own risks, with the holidays approaching. Also, if the R's had been the ones to cave, it's possible that by midterm time voters would have only remembered that the shutdown ended and they got their affordable healthcare. They might even have credited Trump for that.
What affordable healthcare? They got a pinky promise to bring a vote - sure - that if it made it to his desk, Trump wouldn’t sign.
I'm sorry, Grace, but you misunderstood my comment... and that's my fault because I didn't word it very well. What I was trying to say was, IF the Dems had held out until the R's finally agreed to keep the ACA subsidies, the voters would probably only remember that they still had their subsidies... and might even credit the R's for that. Now, the R's are still 'on the hook' for taking away the subsidies and if they refuse to vote on it, or Trump refuses to sign, it will be crystal clear to the voters exactly which party is at fault for them losing affordable healthcare.
Saw a quote from my Senator (Ron Wyden,OR) that there was language in the bill that would allow Senators to sue over investigators examining their phone records as part of Jack Smith’s investigation.
How on earth does Schumer and the Capitulation Caucus explain that?
I agree we need to move forward. I also understand that when leadership is taking us down the same road that got us here, moving forward begins with changing that leadership.
But my family still won’t have health insurance.