Giving into a bully makes it worse.

We had a huge tailwind and we parlayed it into nothing.

In terms of bullying, this wasn't a playground fight. There were lives at stake.

Also, there was never a real hope Repigs would cave and restore the subsidies.

And would they have restored them? We'll never know now, will we?

Big tailwind. And we accepted a deal where we got nothing.

I'll admit. But I'm sympathetic to the argument that the shutdown was hurting more people than Dems could have possible helped. Dems made their point, Repugs can reap the whirlwind now.

The Rethugs have proved they are willing to let kids starve. The Dems aren’t. The courts aren’t helping. We need to look forward to a clean sweep. We need to unite and look ahead.

Ffs, we folded after only 48 hours of a 10% airline slowdown.

Nobody’s fooled.

We got nothing. The ACA vote is a thin sham to (try to) fend off justifiable outrage

If we can use the outrage, go with it. But it seems to me to be self-defeating right now. How can we get past this?

I’ll have to live with the fear and anxiety every single day, that I get sick or injured.

365 days of that ahead.

Doubt I’ll “move past this”. I don’t have that luxury. Y’all are going to have to “move past this” without me.

We can’t let this go. Your health insurance matters to me, too. This isn’t where I wanted us to be. Really.

no longer afford healthcare, and all the horrors associated with that.

It's inadequate to describe my feelings, but I'm so sorry.

he’d ignore it, like so many others.

Again, I reiterate, what would have really brought Thune to the negotiating table would have been another few days of air travel disruption.

Cut off private jets getting any ATC time and the shutdown would have ended Saturday morning

Hell, John McCain saved it by his one vote. We need to bring the fight to them.

They can be pretty certain, after we have done it twice, that we will always cave. So a shutdown, one of our only forms of leverage, is now off the table as something we can expect to work in "bringing the fight to republicans."

Five calls a day is a good app.

Second, to what end? We bring issues to the fore, and then our leaders don't stand behind us and use the few mechanisms of leverage available to accomplish our goals. We are seeing this over and over.

This isn't going to happen by changing republicans' behavior. They are where they want to be and their behavior is serving them just fine.

This has to come from us. And by us, I don't mean the rank and file. I mean the leadership.