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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSlate - "The Democrats Are Losers. Democrats in Congress fail, again, to deliver for an active,
energized base"
By OSITA NWANEVU
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/the-democrats-are-losers.html
About one year ago, an estimated 4.2 million people participated in the Womens March, which is thought to have been the largest demonstration in American historyseveral times larger than the massive protests of the Vietnam War Moratorium of 1969. By the end of 2017, thousands of anti-Trump protests across the country brought a total of between 5.2 million and 8 million people to the streets. This past weekends marches again brought out hundreds of thousands of participants. These protests are only the most visible manifestations of broad and seething discontent with our president and those advancing his agenda in Washington, discontent that has also encouraged tens of thousands of people to consider running for office and prompted hundreds of thousands of phone calls to Congress last year from those hoping to defeat the repeal of Obamacare, one of the key items on the presidents legislative agenda.
Through all of this, the Democratic Party has exhibited little of the confidence and daring one would expect from a party on the right side of what may well be an unprecedented movement in the history of American politics. Monday was no different. After several discussions, offers, counteroffers, the Republican leader and I have come to an arrangement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the ranking Democrat in Washington, announced this morning. We will vote today to reopen the government to continue negotiating a global agreement with the commitment that if an agreement isnt reached by February the 8th, the Senate will immediately proceed to consideration of legislation dealing with DACA.
So ended, in Schumers words, the Trump shutdown. This moniker is a not insignificant bit of obfuscation on the Democrats part. It is of course true, as Schumer and others have said over and over again, that the Republican Party has the presidency, the House, and the Senate, making the shutdown the first to occur with ostensible one-party control of government. It is also true that moving forward on a funding bill required 60 votes in the Senate that the Republican Party did not have, even with the support of vulnerable shutdown-wary Democrats. The vast majority of Senate Democrats, who did not lend them that support, are responsible for the shutdown. Those Democrats have spent the past three days blaming it on Republican procedural incompetence rather than making a straightforward, honest case to the American people that the shutdowns true purposesecuring a DACA dealwas worth it. Its the presidents and congressional Republicans responsibility to govern, Schumer said in a speech Saturday. Its their responsibility to keep the doors open and the lights on around here. The word for this is cowardice.
There may well be another shutdown in the coming weeks. But an opportunity was blown Monday.
Luckily for Democrats, polls repeatedly showed that the American people backed their framing. A Public Policy Polling/Center for American Progress poll released Sunday found that 52 percent of Americans blamed President Trump and Republicans for the shutdown. It also found that 58 percent of Americans wanted to include Dreamers as part of a package deal to reopen the government. Forty-two percent of Americans, the poll says, would have strongly supported this.
snip - more at the link.
(Again - don't shoot the messenger - but reading around the progressive web, few share much good about what just happened.)
RandySF
(59,279 posts)I dont give a shit what Slate writes. Get a grip.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,022 posts)RandySF
(59,279 posts)We need to push ahead and not worry about every publication. Besides, Slate is Mickey Kaus Site.
I'm getting sick of this "politics as a spectator sport" attitude.
fallout87
(819 posts)Yes.
Demsrule86
(68,696 posts)Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)milestogo
(16,829 posts)Response to NRaleighLiberal (Original post)
Post removed
RandySF
(59,279 posts)Atticus
(15,124 posts)they don't.
RandySF
(59,279 posts)Atticus
(15,124 posts)Demsrule86
(68,696 posts)I really don't care what he thinks.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)JackInGreen
(2,975 posts)No matter how much it feels like he sold us out for a 3week hiatus during which the terminal fucking of our federal systems will continue.
It feels like little finger saying 'just a little more time, they've agreed to negotiate, but keep your skirts up for them"
Atticus
(15,124 posts)MaryMagdaline
(6,856 posts)We had no cards. None. And the other side knows our hand.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)Democrats say they are unhappy with the way the shut-down was ended! Guess they are " not acknowledging reality" and are riding around on their "purity ponies" while they "bash" true Democrats. I hope they are aware that we here will always applaud WHATEVER our party does because to openly question a decision once it is made "drives voters away".
Demsrule86
(68,696 posts)have only themselves to blame.
still_one
(92,422 posts)I also suspect the media is going out of their way to push this outlier view
Cary
(11,746 posts)EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)On Friday night, before the shutdown was even official, memes started circulating trashing the red-state senators who voted for cloture.
Too bad they don't spend as much of their time, resources and energy going after the real enemy as they do trying to destroy people on our side.
Cary
(11,746 posts)Democrats suck!
VOTE REPUBLICAN!
Seriously, look at what you wrote. You make a better argument for Republicans than any actual Republican that I know.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)about ME? How you twist that into "Democrats suck" and "vote Republican" is beyond me. Why stop there? If you are going to make things up, why not go all out? Say that I'm a serial killer or that I barbecue beagle pups in my back yard!
Seriously, why tell such obvious lies about someone?
Cary
(11,746 posts)You fight so hard for your right to be critical of Democrats. Do I not have an equal right to be critical of You?
Atticus
(15,124 posts)criticizing the opinion, not the person. I don't have to argue my Democratic credentials or bona fides with anyone.
Cary
(11,746 posts)Thank you for.giving me permission to criticize you.
Now answer my question: why are you so defensive?
Atticus
(15,124 posts)obviously unconcerned with the truth.
Cary
(11,746 posts)Two can play that game.
Now for the third time, why are you so defensive? Why not own your words and stand behind your implications?
nini
(16,672 posts)So fuck this shit sideways.
Purtiy BS AGAIN.
Demsrule86
(68,696 posts)Trump revokes the DACA but it is our fault.
nini
(16,672 posts)I know so many parents who don't have to worry about their sick kids anymore. Yes, we have to save DACA but to get anything out of those evil repubs is a win.
Demsrule86
(68,696 posts)And who know if it would have survived a long shutdown....for now those kids are safe...they were held hostage and are now released. It is a good thing.
That one had to be done fast and relief for many is an understatement.
Me.
(35,454 posts)so far they've gotten one of the hostages out of the room
Demsrule86
(68,696 posts)EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)without health insurance also saw no problem telling immigrants, minorities, Muslims, poor people, etc. that the election of a xenophobic, authoritarian racist was a small price to pay in order to foment some kind of revolution they didn't ask for.
nini
(16,672 posts)Makes my head want to explode.
Demsrule86
(68,696 posts)SHRED
(28,136 posts)As if anything is "over".
still_one
(92,422 posts)the Democratic nominee in 2016
The act of keeping the government closed would not have made DACA happen, it certainly would not have made CHIPS funding happen, and it very likely would make 2018 even more precarious.
What some progressives don't understand is that cutting one's nose off to spite one's face does win anything.
Now the real fight for DACA and 2018 begins
Wwcd
(6,288 posts)Good post
EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)And get no satisfactory answers - they just keep saying things like "we needed to force them to" do thus and so - as if a minority party is in a position to strong-arm the majority into doing anything.
still_one
(92,422 posts)it will accomplish anything or not
In some instances that does apply, however, in this situation it is so obvious that the act of shutting down the government would make things even worse. There would be no chance of funding for CHIPs, DACA wouldn't occur either way, and it could very well make the already formidable challenge of the 2018 election even more difficult.
EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)appal_jack
(3,813 posts)The majority of the voting-eligible public are either not affiliated with either Party, or did not vote at all during the last election.
SCOLDING most of America from your high horse will NOT bring them into the fold here.
-app
Vinca
(50,311 posts)Cosmocat
(14,575 posts)I have seen a half dozen mind blowing rationalizations for why getting CHIP off the table was some kind of "loss" for dems.
This is just another reminder of a BIG part of why we are where we are at.
The media needing to tip the scale against Dems to make up for how horrible Rs are.
lkinwi
(1,477 posts)I was one of the group that never thought a contract was good enough, that is until I was actually a part of the negotiation team. Give and take is a necessary evil when it comes to negotiations. I understand where people are coming from with DACA. I hate that they are being held hostage by Republicans, but Im also happy that CHIP has been renewed. Im hoping that Dems and repukes can come to some sort of agreement about DACA, but Im pretty sure that if there is an agreement, it also wont be all that I/we want, and Im not going to bash Democrats for making some concessions.