General Discussion

We'll never know, but you can bet the felon would have ramped up the pressure while rank and file Trumpublicans started freaking at the thought of constituents hating on them over Thanksgiving dinner.

I'd have put good money that the filibuster would be gone and the CR with an amended end date would have been passed by 11/14.

It seems to me there is widespread false premise that the only "win" would be getting an extension of the ACA subsidies. The corollary to that is that the shutdown would somehow have gone on forever if the 5 democrats hadn't defected.

The thing is, there were two way ways to "win."

1) Trumpublicans ended the shutdown by adding an ACA subsidy extension

2) Trumpublicans ended the shutdown by jettisoning the filibuster.

Option 2 was always the most likely outcome, and a far, far, far, far better outcome than the "deal."

The 5 additional defectors only needed to hold out another week or so before Thune would cave on the filibuster. The result:

-Instead of saying, "Why oh why did the Dems subject us to this pain for nothing," more would be livid with: "You mean you could have ended this by getting rid of the filibuster before it even started!!!"

-Democrats would be the ones that stood strong, doing battle on behalf of the American people with the leverage they had right up to the point that that leverage was forcibly taken from them.

-Our Democratic electeds would have demonstrated an unprecedented strength.

-People who support the Democratic Party would be riding as high as they were on Friday. Enraged by the ACA loss, but proud as hell of the strength demonstrated.

-The depravity and cruelty shown by the felon during the shutdown would be all the more evident as his Trumpublicans took 100% responsibly for the horror show.

If you are angry, as I am, when we contact Democratic leaders I think we need to be crystal clear that they failed us, not be failing to get their demands met, they failed us because in this fight we had faith that they would (1) make their demand, (2) hold out until either (a) MAGA R's met the demand, or (b) MAGA R's went nuclear and ended the shutdown on their own, without the complicity or capitulation of the Democrats.