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“Caved.” “Capitulation.” “Betrayal.” You’ve seen the headlines. The move by one independent and seven Democratic senators to end the government shutdown by voting with the Senate Republicans did not go over well with either the Democratic base or the liberal commentariat.

The knees jerked, the bricks flew, and are still flying, fast and furious: calls for Chuck Schumer’s head and new leadership, rage at the “sellouts,” shock that their party could, yet again and for the umpteenth time, somehow manage to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” and kneel and tremble before the snarling, projected visage of Donald Trump the Great and Terrible.

I’ll admit, the whole thing was, in context, hard to stomach. Because that context was not merely the recent history of bowing and scraping, capitulating, and betrayal of ordinary people by their once-trusted, now Trump-cowed institutions, but the even more recent thumping electoral triumph by the very party that then turned around and just, well, caved.

Last Tuesday’s drubbing of Republican candidates and causes everywhere (except Texas), with Trump very much on the ballot, tasted like ambrosia in Democratic voters’ parched mouths, lighted a propitious path to the midterms, and renewed hope of America’s ultimate survival of the Trumpocene.

It felt like a hospice patient rising from their deathbed to go out dancing, miraculously cured. The momentum shift was unmistakable.

For what truly felt like a miracle to then be followed, within the week, by this crushing concession — what cruel timing! The whipsawed Democratic base writhed in the kind of paroxysms generally associated with cold-turkey drug withdrawal. Many of my colleagues and friends joined the howl — commentators who usually can be counted on to count to 10.

I counted to 10. But even at five, I had my doubts about the bricks. 

Did Anyone Have a Better Idea?

I’m going to go light here on the play-by-play analysis, but what stands out to me is that no one among the brick-throwers has presented a plausible alternative scenario with a winning endgame in which Trump and the GOP cave on extending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, the nominal peg in the ground for the shutdown.

Perpetuating the shutdown was all but certain to result in an extended game of chicken without viable off-ramps (barring getting rid of the filibuster, a double-edged political sword if there ever was one) and a standoff that would inflict deep, widespread pain on Americans all along the political spectrum, sparing only the very rich.

Not only is shutdown history very discouraging when it comes to such wins by the minority party, but in this particular case there was absolutely zero reason to expect the steroidally vengeful Trump ever to give aid and comfort to an act named Obamacare after the White House predecessor he loathes. Things are nothing if not personal with Trump; we’ve seen that his bitter animus is the one thing that can triumph over his transactional MO.

So, perpetuating the shutdown was all but certain to result in an extended game of chicken without viable off-ramps (barring getting rid of the filibuster, a double-edged political sword if there ever was one) and a standoff that would inflict deep, widespread pain on Americans all along the political spectrum, sparing only the very rich. 

That would be the price of “standing up to Trump” — a price a lot easier to pay in the abstract than in starving children, unpaid workers, disrupted air travel, and potential disasters. And not even the full price: As long as the shutdown continued, the House was closed for business, which meant that Adelita Grijalva, who promised to be the 218th discharge-petition vote, remained unsworn in, ensuring that the Epstein files would remain, happily for Trump, in limbo.

It shouldn’t be that hard to see why decent human beings who happen to be senators would balk at that scenario. Especially if they reached the conclusion that the firefight would turn out to be not only futile but unnecessary, and perhaps even politically counterproductive.

A Dramedy Worthy of Gogol?

As some commentators have pointed out, from a strictly political standpoint, prevailing upon Trump to extend the ACA subsidies would have neutered one of the Democrats’ most powerful issues going into the midterms. Viewed this way, the whole shutdown was some sort of upside-down and inside-out absurdist psychodrama. 

A rational Trump would have accepted the Democrats’ gift with both hands, agreeing to the extension of subsidies and thereby relieving himself and his party of just about the only people-screwing provision of his Big Ugly Bill that, for some crazy reason, was slated to kick in before the midterms.

My best guess is that Schumer and the Democrats, with good reason, were banking on Trump not acting rationally — refusing the gift because it smelled of Obama, and because he just never loses, OK?

So the purpose of the shutdown, for the Democrats, was never really to force the extension of the ACA subsidies. Rather it was, first, to put the spotlight on Trump and the GOP as cruel and callous on “affordability” — starting with health care — going into last Tuesday’s election. Mission accomplished. 

Next, to keep the issue of health care — a big winner for Democrats, at least until Trump delivers on his notorious, nonexistent “concept of a plan” — alive and in the spotlight going forward. Check: There will be a vote on extending the subsidies, as promised by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), in December, and another bite at the apple when funding comes up again in January. 

Meanwhile, skyrocketing premiums will kick in for around 18 million Americans, most of them in red states that are less apt than their blue counterparts to pick up any of the slack left by the expiration of the federal subsidies.

And because funding for SNAP (once known as food stamps) benefits fortuitously ran out a few days before the election, the Democrats received the added bonus of exposing even more Trumpian callousness and cruelty, as Trump quite openly used hunger as leverage against the Democrats. 

Trump was probably correct in claiming that the shutdown — and the fact that more voters were blaming him and his party than the Democrats for it — was a major factor in the GOP’s electoral disaster (it certainly didn’t do much for his tanking approval rating). 

Sic Semper Democratibus?

But it appears that that very disaster, the Democrats’ unequivocal electoral triumph, set the famously “undisciplined” party up for a fall. 

From euphoria to this “sic semper” letdown — a nasty plunge. Just as, in sports, bad teams always seem to find a way to lose, a knowing inner Democratic voice piped up: “See, I told you how it would be. We always lose. Trump always wins. Some of our so-called leaders gotta pay. Off with their heads!”

There was also the perception — persuasively presented by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a staunch progressive Democrat and grizzled political veteran who’s seen it all — that Republicans would never cave like this, that there is a great asymmetry between the parties when it comes to discipline and fortitude under fire. 

Republicans, never more so than under the strongman Trump, are all about authority and obedience; Democrats are all about tolerance, diversity, and going one’s own way. So, of course they can’t stay in formation and take Hamburger Hill!

I am wary of the tendency, which I think is on display in the shutdown fury, to read the epic into the episodic — that is, to see each individual case as a pat manifestation of the overarching theme.

I have no argument with Reich regarding the asymmetry, except to say thank god for the Democrat side of it. But I am wary of the tendency, which I think is on display in the shutdown fury, to read the epic into the episodic — that is, to see each individual case as a pat manifestation of the overarching theme.

Thinking this way, ending the shutdown is deplored as a cave — capitulation, betrayal, sellout — because, don’t you know, the Democrats always cave. 

So even if this particular “cave” winds up, when all the dust settles, having made good political sense, which I’ve come to believe it will, it’s received like a cup of salt in an old, gaping, festering wound — that is, perceived thematically rather than being judged on its own individual merits. Those are, I would submit, complex, involving multiple layers of difficult trade-offs. In light of which, so much of the furious criticism strikes me as the kind of oversimplification typical of breaking-point frustration and blind rage.

Perhaps the problem of poor discipline in this case is less with the senators who “caved” or with Schumer, and more with the critics whose knee-jerk response — without being able to articulate a winning alternative endgame, mind you — was to indulge in their outrage and lose not a second in pillorying their own.

But there is another asymmetry between Democrats and Republicans (and certainly Trump) exemplified by the current situation: When Trump concedes a point, backs down, or loses, he declares victory — and just about everyone in his camp echoes that claim, no matter how absurd it is. 

And guess what? Most of the time, that tactic works. 

Democrats, on the other hand, immediately commence wailing and hand-wringing and assembling a circular firing squad.

So perhaps the problem of poor discipline in this case is less with the senators who “caved” or with Schumer, and more with the critics whose knee-jerk response — without being able to articulate a winning alternative endgame, mind you — was to lose not a second in pillorying their own. 

That’s at least as big a difference in party behavior as the one Reich points out — really the flip side of the coin.

Granted, It’s Been Hell

I’m not suggesting that Democrats, especially progressive Democrats, should suppress their frustrations over the long-term rightward veer of American politics. It does often feel that genuinely progressive politics — call it the promise of the 1960s — has never really stood a chance in this country. 

One way or another, its champions — from Mo Udall, who narrowly lost the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter in 1976, to Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 — have been stopped short of the goal line; its causes — from gun control to environmental protection to distributive justice — have been consistently sacked, despite attracting large, even majority, popular support. 

The pendulum does seem to swing, but the whole political frame has precessed inexorably rightward over the decades, such that Richard Nixon would, in most respects, today be considered liberal.

Perhaps it is the Supreme Court. Perhaps it is our politics awash in Big Money and our less-than-secure electoral processes. Perhaps it is our exceptional Americanness, our latent bigotry, our embrace of feel-good myths and blissful ignorance, the co-option and corruption of our corporate media, or some vast cultural backlash against the progressive values whose gradual ascendancy characterized most of our last century. Perhaps it is Donald Trump.

Whatever the case may be, liberals in America feel just as thwarted and angry as MAGAs ever did. 

And that anger deserves expression. Constructive expression.

No Kings is constructive expression. 

Mass economic actions are constructive expression. 

Last Tuesday’s vote was constructive expression. 

Demanding protection of voting rights and real election security is constructive expression. 

Continuing to communicate among ourselves and with our leaders, continuing to make our presence felt, continuing to speak truth to power and reason to depravity, and winning over those who may finally be starting to question how a gilded ballroom and a SNAP-cutoff-eve Gatsby shindig speak to their lives and needs: These are all constructive expressions — of both our anger and our vision.

Playing straight into Trump’s hands by screaming “caved” and “sellout” and “betrayal,” by starting what the corporate media is only too happy to call a “Democrat civil war” — that is not a constructive expression. 

Spilling the Half-Full Glass?

I’m not sure why so many are doing it, why these astute armchair quarterbacks, furious as they may be, are missing the big picture, which is the fight to control Congress and stop Trump.

A big part of the rage has centered on the perception that the Democrats got little or nothing of substance for their cave. The Senate will, assuming Thune upholds his pledge to schedule a vote in December on extending the ACA subsidies, likely vote it down. And even if it passed, over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has made it clear that he has no plans to permit a House vote on the proposal. 

If you buy that the ACA subsidies were the goal of the shutdown, it was indeed a failure. But it’s worth considering: The shutdown had virtually no chance of achieving that particular goal; continuing to try to achieve it would have meant a great deal of pain for ordinary people; and the shutdown’s other achievements were, politically, quite formidable. 

So perhaps calling it a failure is the failure.

Fortunately, the news cycle being what it is and Trump being what he is, this intraparty skirmish will surely pass. Epstein will rise yet again from the dead; we’ll have a war with Venezuela; the 101st Airborne will attack Chicago; a recession; a pandemic; show trials; grift like no one’s ever seen before? Who knows, but, as Trump once said about January 6, odds are “it will be wild.”

Still, I suspect that this episode and its epic overtones may leave a bitter taste; and bitter tastes have a way of lingering, perhaps even till next November. 

If they could just lay off the hand-wringing, finger-pointing, and resignation-demanding for a minute and put a fraction of that energy into such a constructive plan, a huge win is within the Democrats’ reach. 

You Want a Big Dem Win?

So how would this be for a palate cleanser? Persuade three (or more) Republican House members from swing districts, facing virtually certain defeat to even a blue ripple in the midterms, to become Democrats, putting them in the majority, handing Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) the gavel, and ensuring a vote (and a win) for the ACA.

I’ve detailed how that could work here. That was before last Tuesday’s electoral shellacking put the writing on the wall for these already anxious moderate Republicans, in bold, black Sharpie — making the conversion pitch a much easier sell.

Two of the targets I cited were Reps. Jen Kiggans (VA-2) and Jeff Van Drew (NJ-2) — who, incidentally, until 2020 was a Democrat and just might be experiencing some buyer’s remorse. Here’s what The New York Times just told us about them:

Representatives Jen Kiggans of Virginia and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, two Republicans facing competitive races next year, recently sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson telling him that once the government was reopened, Republicans needed to “immediately turn our focus to the growing crisis of health care affordability and the looming expiration of the enhanced Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.) premium tax credits.”

Well, good luck with that, Jen and Jeff! You might make a copy of that letter and send it to Jeffries, who would actually read it. 

Then get just one more from the handful of your endangered GOP colleagues to join you in switching parties, and Speaker Jeffries will grant your wish, not to mention that your 2026 electoral prospects will brighten by a few thousand watts.

If they could just lay off the hand-wringing, finger-pointing, and resignation-demanding for a minute and put a fraction of that energy into such a constructive plan, a huge win is within the Democrats’ reach. 

Not a symbolic victory, a substantive one — next November or much sooner. A great big, double middle finger to Trump and Johnson and their pack of smirking, cruel, cynical liars.

That’s what anger can do — if it thinks things through and plays to win.