Don't lose sleep over the shutdown deal - Lucian K. Truscott IV [View all]

Do not pass “Go.” Do not collect $200. Take your anger over the result of this shutdown directly to November, 2026, when we’re going to kick their asses and take back the House and Senate both.

Republicans, following the instructions of Donald Trump as they always do, allowed Democrats to make the fight over financing the government about one issue: Health care subsidies for Affordable Care Act. Trump thought, oh, they want to hold out for a big Obamacare giveaway? Let them. People hate Obamacare!

The people he knows, maybe, but not even all of them. Fifty fucking percent of Republicans favor extending the ACA health care subsidies, according to a KFF poll take during the middle of the shutdown. Democrats? 94 percent, natch. Do you think we might need some votes from independents to win next November? 76 percent of them want the ACA extensions.

With RFK Jr. defunding the CDC, cancelling vaccine research, and promoting cod liver oil to “cure” measles, we own the health care issue. Refusing to vote to reopen the government unless the ACA subsidies are extended is maybe the single most popular thing Democrats have done since…jeez, I don’t even know when. It was smart to begin with, it was smart yesterday, and thanks to blinkered Republican small-minded shitweasal idiocy, it will be popular when they vote against the subsidies in December, it will be popular at the time the same fight comes up in January when we go through this whole charade again, and it will be even more popular by next November after Trump has spent the better part of a year screeching that he wants to kill Obamacare altogether.

Continued https://open.substack.com/pub/luciantruscott/p/dont-lose-sleep-over-the-shutdown