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Seven Democratic senators and one independent, none of whom will be up for reelection next year but all of whom have great health insurance, voted with almost all Republicans on Sunday night to begin the process of ending the longest government shutdown in US history.

In return for folding, they received a promise that they would be given a vote on legislation that would extend the Obamacare subsidies without which the health insurance premiums of millions of Americans are set to skyrocket.

To be fair, three of the eight, Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Angus King (I-ME), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), had been voting with the GOP all along.

The turnabout of the five others, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Jackie Rosen (D-NV), and Tim Kaine (D-VA) is an extraordinary betrayal of Democratic voters who had handed their party massive victories across the country less than a week ago.

Yes, it is true that the shutdown was beginning to cause real pain across the country, not just for government workers who weren’t getting paid, but also for travelers affected by canceled flights, and, most importantly, for the tens of millions of Americans who rely on funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to put food on the table.

However, polls showed that voters blame Republicans, who control all branches of the government, for the shutdown more than Democrats, who had refused to pass a continuing resolution until the issue of the health care subsidies was addressed.

And regardless of the spin Donald Trump and GOP officials tried to put on things, it was clear that it was them, for example, who wanted Americans to go hungry to put pressure on Democrats. Instead of complying with a court order mandating the government to use billions of dollars from a contingency fund to keep SNAP benefits flowing, the administration this week appealed that decision to the Supreme Court even though Trump has (illegally) been using the federal treasury as a piggy bank for his own purposes and (unconstitutionally) shifting funds around to punish states that didn’t vote for him or starve agencies whose goals didn’t align with his own.

So why did these eight senators fold now even though Democratic voters wanted their elected representatives to fight for something for once?

One thing is for sure: It wasn’t because they were worried about reelection. The terms of only two of them, Durbin and Shaheen, end next year, and both have already announced that they wouldn’t run again.

As for the others, incensed Democrats will have to wait at least two more years until they can vote them out in a primary.

Strategically, ending the shutdown might be the safer thing to do.

Democrats are riding a wave of voter discontent with how Trump is running the country.

The economy is in real trouble, people are losing their jobs, and even the GOP’s gaslighting that things are great cannot mask the fact that groceries are getting more expensive and Americans are having trouble making ends meet.

So why risk being blamed for the effects of the shutdown?

Because, as congressional Democrats have been telling the country for weeks now, some things are worth fighting for – like preventing health insurance premiums from soaring after Republicans didn’t bother to extend the Obamacare subsidies.

Or standing up to a wannabe dictator who is turning the country into a right-wing autocracy.

More than anything, the decision of these eight to end the shutdown on their own terms, i.e., with a whimper, shows that there is one party that seems a lot more willing to fight than the other.

And while their acquiescence might be a low-risk maneuver for them personally and perhaps even for all Democrats in the long run, it is taking the wind out of the sails of a resistance movement that had finally scored some big wins last week.

It is way too early to tell how this will ultimately shake out. For example, maybe those subsidies will get extended, and the federal workers Trump has sought to punish will be protected for a few more months (which was another demand of the eight).

But, for now, this isn’t a good look for Democrats, and when their voters wake up to this news, they won’t be happy.

On the plus side, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will now have to bring back the House of Representatives to vote on the new compromise.

And that means that he won’t be able to duck a vote on the release of the Epstein files much longer.

To prevent the disclosure of documents related to Trump’s erstwhile pal Jeffrey Epstein, he had kept the House out of session for weeks and refused to swear in Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who won her election more than six weeks ago.

Of course, that won’t be much of a consolation to all those Americans who will find out what their new insurance premiums will cost.