Once Again, Senate Democrats Show They Don’t Get Who They Represent

Second, literally every poll I've seen has shown a majority blaming Trump and the Republicans, not the Democrats. This is quite surprising considering that, by any objective calculation, it was the Democrats who actually shut down the government. In addition to this, we have another poll looking at Trump's approval rating, where it is also falling. A stadium full of football fans booed him during Sunday's Washington Commanders game. As the pain mounted leading up to the holidays – people going hungry, travel nightmares and everything else – would this public opinion only metastasize? Why not let Trump fall to 35 percent approval, maybe 33? Personally, he doesn't care – he's just blindly claiming now that his approval is higher than ever. But he'll have dozens of Republicans coming to him predicting complete disaster in the midterm elections, and under those circumstances, he just might cut some kind of deal. He's done this before.

Third, if you're going to do something like this, you need to lay some groundwork so that people are emotionally ready for it. It would be different to do it just two weeks later—say, the day before Thanksgiving. I think very few progressives would like to see Democrats shut down the government forever: everyone who believes in the federal government to do a good job wants it to function and do these things. So I think most progressives would come to that view. But it was somehow out of the blue. People were not emotionally prepared for this.

To miss these three realities, to not smell them in the air, is poor leadership. Chuck Schumer himself voted “no” on this resolution, but no one thinks he didn't give the eight his permission to go and vote “yes.” Schumer has shown many times over the years that what he can do is lead legislation, just like he did with those big bills when Joe Biden was president. He has a talent for that kind of leadership. However, he does not have the right rebel instincts to control the opposition. And he really came from a different era. He came of age politically during the Reagan years. Sometimes a team just needs a new coach.