[continued from previous message]   
      
   It’s not improbable that a larger share of Senate Democrats wished to   
   reopen the government, and that Schumer helped arrange a lineup of   
   lawmakers with the most plausible deniability. Not that anyone angry   
   with the Senate considers that a sufficient explanation.   
      
   Saving the Filibuster   
   Frustrated with both the shutdown and the negative public reception of   
   his governance, Trump had pushed on Truth Social and in private meetings   
   for Republicans to kill the filibuster. That would have negated the need   
   to reach a 60-vote supermajority for budgetary approvals, allowing the   
   GOP to pass this bill with a simple majority. As angry as many Senate   
   Democrats are with the Trump administration, its longest-serving caucus   
   members remain committed institutionalists and would prefer to keep the   
   filibuster. Some political analysts have made an accelerationist case   
   for allowing the president to nuke the filibuster once and for all,   
   noting the tradition’s anti-democratic history and pointing out that the   
   legislators have already junked the 60-vote requirements that had   
   formerly been in place for judicial and Cabinet appointments. But, as my   
   colleague Jim Newell has put it: “Some Democrats believe that this would   
   redound to their benefit in the long run. … I personally don’t think   
   those Democrats have internalized how long the next three-plus years   
   would be.”   
      
   Occam’s Razor: There Was Never Any Strategy   
   Points in favor of this argument include the lack of unified messaging   
   from Democrats post-passage; the fact that yet more Dems went on to   
   co-sign the intoxicating-hemp ban after caving on health care, including   
   every defector except for Kaine; and the wishy-washy press-conference   
   reassurances from Cortez Masto, Hassan, Rosen, and Shaheen that   
   Republicans will hold up their end of the bargain on a health care vote.   
   And if they don’t? “Then the American public will know where the   
   Republicans stand,” per Cortez Masto. “The voters will know who let them   
   down,” per Hassan. So much for that fight.   
      
   The Most Depressing Possibility: They Had No Choice   
      
   Some observers claim that the shutdown fight, for all its moral   
   signposting, was always destined to fail. The Trump administration had   
   made this a more brutal shutdown than any other in American history,   
   illegally gutting SNAP benefits and retracting already-appropriated   
   funds for blue states’ clean-energy and Army Corps projects. The   
   president himself, who’d tried his damnedest to repeal and replace   
   Obamacare during his first term, was never going to encourage   
   Republicans to preserve the extended premiums. In a Wednesday op-ed for   
   the New York Times, Kaine echoed this line of thinking, writing that the   
   chances of earning “more concessions” with an extended shutdown “were   
   near zero.”   
      
   Trump “was never serious about negotiating,” the senator added. “I have   
   close knowledge of key actors, and I do not believe Republicans would   
   have conceded on health care during the shutdown. That was true even   
   after their electoral wipeout last week, and even with polls showing   
   that many Americans blamed Republicans for the shutdown. More likely,   
   the chaos of continuing the shutdown would have led them to eliminate   
   the Senate filibuster.”   
      
   Indeed, even Democrats open to abolishing the filibuster would not have   
   chosen to do it while they are in the legislative minority. And the   
   nihilistic mode of governance Trump has mastered this round, doubling   
   down on unpopular federal-troop mobilizations and unpopular tax cuts,   
   meant he didn’t care about the Americans suffering during the shutdown.   
   Senate Democrats had chosen this fight to show they were willing to   
   oppose Trump. But every opposition movement has its limits.   
      
      
   Get the best of news and politics   
   Sign up for Slate's evening newsletter.   
   Email address:   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)