Capitulation or Counterstrategy?

Two Views on the Democratic Senators' Move Last Night on Capitol Hill to Reopen the Government

Photo by Heidi Kaden on Unsplash

By now, you’ve read all about what has happened on Capitol Hill. There is supposedly an end in sight to the government shutdown.

It’s unlikely that the resolution will fail in the House, which means the government will reopen, and everyone will return to work for the Federal government. It also means SNAP would be fully appropriated, “averting the risk of another food assistance cut off after January 30 if no appropriations bill is passed to fund the government beyond then,” according to Newsweek reporter Aliss Highman. Furthermore, the government will rehire the thousands of workers who were fired at the start of the shutdown.

The majority of people who had been on the Democrats’ side are pissed about the negotiations. At this point, you’ve probably read the thousands of pages of analysis that have made it clear that the Democrats capitulated, betrayed their base, and caved to the GOP. (A lot of folks want to primary every single Democrat who agreed to reopen the government.)

There are sound reasons for these arguments and the infuriated sentiment being expressed, but I won't rehash those points here, as there are plenty of others discussing them.

I wanted to share some opposing views, some of which suggest that the decision was based on counterstrategy. A caveat here: please don’t shoot the messenger; I’m simply sharing the ideas and the reasoning behind them. That’s all!

Here are the ideas behind this theory: that last night’s decision to reopen the government was a counterstrategy versus capitulation.

• The ACA enhanced subsidies will automatically end in December unless Congress takes action to extend them. That means, they will go away on their own. Obviously, the Republicans would not agree to extend the subsidies, regardless of how adamant the Democrats were on the issue.

• Even if the Democrats refused to work on reopening the government, the subsidies would have gone away anyway, so they would have gained nothing. After they had expired, the Democrats would have had no leverage.

• Once those subsidies ran out, and the government was still closed, who would people blame? The Democrats.

• Now, the Republicans will have to vote to end the subsidies, which leaves them responsible for doing so, whereas the Democrats can vote to save them.

• If the Democrats can actually convince some Republicans to vote to save the subsidies, it will be a huge win (this outcome is highly, highly unlikely).

The argument goes that perhaps the Democrats had an actual strategy when deciding to reopen the government. In addition, Democrats should take credit for ending the cruelty of the shutdown without permitting Trump to continue moving ahead on his depraved wish list (ending free and fair elections, redefining tariffs, repealing the War Powers Act, and so forth). Those who support the Democrats’ decision to end the shutdown argue that such a wish list would end our democracy, which Trump would certainly do.

In short, there are two views on the decision Democrats made to end the shutdown. The more popular view is that it was total capitulation and that every Democrat who voted in favor of ending it should be primaried and have their asses kicked out of office. The other view, the less popular one, is that the Democrats implemented a counterstrategy to put a stop to the dangerousness of Trump with his long wish list, force the Republicans to vote on the ACA subsidies eventually, and help reopen the government to stop Trump’s cruelty.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on where you stand.