Shutdown Views

Two good reasons doesn't make a wrong

Following the recent government shutdown, which ended with a short-term deal, much of the media focus has turned to Democratic infighting over the strategy and its outcome.

Democratic Leadership has been taking flak for the outcome of the shutdown standoff. While that’s not too surprising, I think it should find a different conclusion. To frame that context here, I’ve been unsure about engaging in the shutdown from the start. I’ve been a bit more supportive this time around, as there was a clear outcome the Democrats were seeking here, and it did seem worth a stand. All that said, as recently as Sunday I was saying, if I was in congress, I’m not sure what I’d do. My reason for that is that the shutdown was causing real impacts to people, and it was getting worse.

It’s one thing to make a stand, and put your political reputation on the line, it’s another to do it when people you’re trying to protect are being hurt. I’d want to be sure it was going to succeed, and ideally, I’d want to know those that were at risk, were willing to take the risk themselves. If I had been a senator and broken ranks, that would have been the reason, and would have been how I explained it.

When you look at the explanations of those that broke ranks, their explanations aren’t very dissimilar.

“We have airport controllers. And we were seeing lines to our food banks in northern Nevada. These were lines that I hadn’t seen since the pandemic.”

I’m going to suggest that Democrats shouldn’t be spending their time attacking each other right now. Yes, there is a reason to want the group to act as one, and so I understand the impression that this is a failure. But on the other hand, giving in because you care, that’s something you should consider forgiving. More than that, the real story here should be, the Republicans were willing to throw America under the bus to take away healthcare. The separation between Democrats that were willing to take a stand to protect people’s healthcare and those that were willing to take a drubbing from their own party to protect people harmed by the shutdown, shouldn’t be a division you can’t get past. It’s two sets of good intentions, with a hard choice.

Besides being true, that statement is also one every member of the Democratic party should want to reinforce amongst the public, who were largely on their side throughout the shutdown, so reasonably could be expected to understand how terrible the Republican position is. Additionally, if you value unity as a party, I think this is just the moment to take the initiative. Punitive statements and in-party fighting aren’t necessarily more useful for developing party discipline than recognizing the common cause and acting accordingly.