Democrats didn’t cave on the shutdown
Here are some thoughts on today’s three-week deal in Congress to reopen the government, take a vote on an unspecified immigration bill, and fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years:
1) There’s a rollicking debate on Twitter over whether Democrats “caved.” I’ll confess that I’m mystified by this argument. For the moment, this seems like a good deal — but it’s impossible to say anything definitive without knowing what happens over the next three weeks.
2) Consider what we don’t know about what comes next. We don’t know which immigration bill, or bills, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring to the Senate floor. We don’t know if any immigration compromise passes the Senate. We don’t know if an immigration bill that passes the Senate will get a vote in the House. Even if it does get a vote in the House, we don’t know if it’ll pass. And if it does pass, we don’t know if Trump will sign it.
3) We also don’t know what the implicit Democratic position is here. If Democrats get a fair vote in the House and Senate on an immigration deal and it doesn’t pass, will they shut down the government again in three weeks? Put differently, is this a deal about a fair process or about a particular outcome? If Democrats don’t get a deal and they shut the government back down in three weeks, it’s hard to see what was lost here.
4) Democratic opponents of the deal believe that an extended shutdown increases the likelihood of a DREAMer compromise. But does it? That is to say that an extended shutdown will cause Trump so much political or personal pain that he will accept one of the immigration compromises he has thus far rejected. Neither dynamic is obvious to me.
5) Politically, Trump’s entire brand is anti-immigration politics, and if there is round-the-clock news coverage of a shutdown over immigration, he’ll think it’s good for his base. Personally, Trump’s goal in life is to be seen as a winner, and to double down when attacked or under pressure, and so it’s hard to see how a high-stakes battle over a shutdown — which would make a deal on immigration look like a cave to reopen the government by Trump — helps.