My question: Was there a plan or goal with the shutdown?
Lives were fucked over and disrupted. The stated goal was - something about health care. I don't even recall what the goal of the shutdown was.
So they shut it down. And it dragged on and some people were happy. because the Dems were finally doing something. All this was supposed to improve health care.
Meanwhile, The airports were fucked up. Government workers weren't being paid - probably worrying about how they were going to pay the rent or the mortgage, credit card bills and food on the table.
But don't worry. The Dems got it. The Repubs will fold like a cheap camera (Ya gotta be old to know what that's about). Health care will be saved, SNAP will return, the Republicans will look like fools and assholes and everyone will vote for Democrats in the next 5 or 6 elections.
Instead, we put 10's of thousands of people through hell for a month and what did we get for it?
We got shit. merda, merde, mierda.
If there was a plan, what was it?
= new reply since forum marked as read
If they wanted to make sure, when the bill came due, millions of voters (who will be pissed) will be well aware that Democrats fought tooth and nail, within the confines of their limited power, to try to get the Trumputin GQP to extend the COVID subsidies for a 2nd time? Then that goal is hopefully, probably achieved. Pretty much everyone knows now who to blame, thanks to the actions of Democrats in Congress.
For those of you who REALLY held out hope that Democrats could possibly prevail in this situation? I'm sorry you're disappointed, especially if you and your family were counting on this money, I really am, and also everyone else who's going to suffer. 
To my mind however those subsidies pretty well died on a Tuesday night in early November, 2024. There was realistically little chance IQ47 was going to let his lackeys in Congress extend the "Democrat Subsidies to Buy Illegal Immigrants Health Care" (his words of course) from the moment he won and the GQP held Congress 
These realities suggest that we really don't want to give the GQP and the M$M any cause to make the argument that it was all a show, that this outcome was "planned from the beginning", etc, because then we lose the one thing in the scenario we could actually gain. The suffering voters may randomly decide due to such coverage that Dems are actually "the bad guys" for "giving them hope" or whatever spew the media (esp. Faux) tries to convey about this "misdeed".
While I'm not sure what Dems in Congress believed, I really never felt like there was much chance this gambit would work, and I suspect they largely believed the same. Not with Trump in charge. He LOVES it when he gets to be the cause of people suffering, dying, declaring bankruptcy, being arrested and jailed, and just generally being afraid 
It's the only thing that gets the blood really flowing for him 
