After three long days of assuring everyone in the Western hemisphere that Republicans would shoulder the full blame for the government shutdown, the Democrat leadership blinked on Monday when they came face to face with reality. Whether that reality check came in the form of polls that said the American people do NOT support DACA amnesty as much as the left thinks or simply in the form of actually waking up and taking a look at the world…we don’t know. But we do know that Chuck Schumer decided to end the shutdown having gotten nothing but empty promises from Republicans – and that’s a HUGE win for Trump and the GOP.
On Monday, Schumer agreed to vote to re-open the federal government in exchange for a promise from Mitch McConnell: If the legislature hasn’t hammered out an agreeable immigration deal by February 8, McConnell agrees to bring the latest version of the DACA bill to the floor for an up-or-down vote. This is the kind of agreement you make when you literally have no ground on which to negotiate. Every poll from every survey-taker in the country shows that this shutdown is only hurting Democrats. Every poll shows that while many Americans support DACA amnesty, they don’t support it so much that they want to see a shutdown over it. The Democrats overplayed their hand, fell right into Trump’s trap, and now they’re crawling back on their hands and knees: “Okay, sorry, we messed up, can we have a do over?”
They won nothing. Nothing! They only proved to their liberal base that they don’t have the spine for this kind of hardball and proved to the rest of the country that they are willing to put illegal immigrants ahead of the military, children’s health, and every federal worker in the land. Nice work, guys. That’s why you make the big bucks, eh?
Self-styled progressives within the party are, of course, fuming over the weak deal.
“They caved. They blinked. That’s what they do,” said Rep. Luis Guttierez, who was, just a day or two earlier, calling on Democrats to build the wall themselves if it meant protecting Dreamers.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, safe in her House confines, took a shot at Schumer from across the Capitol Building. “I don’t see that there’s any reason – I’m speaking personally and hearing from my members – to support what was put forth,” she said.”
Sen. Kamala Harris, who actually thinks she’s going to be president one day, said, “The Majority Leader’s comments last night fell far short of the ironclad guarantee I needed to support a stopgap spending bill…I will do everything in my power to continue to protect DREAMers from deportation.”
We saw Republicans make some bonehead moves while Obama was president, but we’re not sure they ever did something this politically catastrophic. This was the weekend that Democrats finally realized they aren’t actually calling the shots.
Let’s hope Republicans came to the same realization.
