8 individual democrats, the exact number needed for the vote to pass, all of whom are either out the door or safe from reelection in 2026. Quite the coincidence.
I blame the rest of them because of their reaction. House is torching the ones who caved. Not much commentary from the actual colleagues who "opposed" this maneuver.
I wonder what those 8 got in return? They are going to take a lot of flack, they must have demanded something. You don't get anywhere in politics by being the type of person who would just offer something for nothing.
They either aren't rerunning or aren't on the 2026 ballot. Some are taking an exit package. Others hope this blows over when 2028 or even 2030 come for reelection.
If you believe the commentary of one of the defectors, he said (Paraphrasing) "I got my first good sleep since the shutdown began... I didn't have to worry about people eyeing me as I walked into work". So if you take that at face value it was everyday interactions that had him fold. Easier to crush the hopes of the invisible population you represent than look uncouth to your visible peers.
Those 8 people still needed to agree to change their vote and the responsibility is ultimately on them.
And this is yet another political trope: Democrats are always blamed for everything by everyone including their own voters.
Republicans have majorities in the entire federal government, but the shutdown is the Democrats’ fault because they wanted a bill with healthcare preserved.
The majority party isn’t blamed for failing to promote a consensus because they have R’s next to their names.
If the shutdown never happened and senate democrats just voted yes on the spending bill cutting healthcare they’d be blamed for rolling over to Republican policy and failing to use their filibuster to pressure Republicans to compromise.
When will anything be the GOP’s fault?
Are we forgetting that Donald Trump blocked SNAP disbursements that a court ordered him to restore? The GOP is going above and beyond to shut down the government more than it is legally supposed to be shut down.
The Democrats actually did some political good by putting a spotlight on the GOP’s quiet attempts to demolish social programs, and they pulled back as soon as they found out that our president was willing to starve poor people over the issue, something that a normal human with basic morals would never do.
Next time Democrats are in control and Republicans pull the same government shutdown strategy to block a Democrat policy initiative, it’ll magically be the Democrats’ fault because “they are in charge.”
By the way, zero government shutdowns under Joe Biden.
>Those 8 people still needed to agree to change their vote and the responsibility is ultimately on them
Cool, so we're hoping for a Christmas Carol to come in and show them the error of their ways in a dream?
Its the rest of the senator's responsibility to convince them. As it is their constituents. We're all a bit at fault here.
>When will anything be the GOP’s fault?
The evil within will always be worse than the evil you know. No one expects the devil to turn another leaf, but will chastise Judas for betraying Jesus.
Meanwhile the GOP has embraced the evil. They made things very easy for themselves.
Was it actually a cut or was it not renewing something that was expiring? A bill to fund the government seems like the wrong place to be debating new spending.
I don’t know what the news rhetoric on all of this is, I haven’t seen it mentioned on here or on news articles, and I’m not on the socials/don’t watch tv. IIRC the initial ACA bill always had this cliff in order to make the numbers work for the bill to pass.
Like most long-term financial bills, everyone just assumed the cliff won’t hit and new legislation will pass.
This is the actual crux, no? “We expected the funny numbers to pass again” as opposed to “we should have addressed this before Biden left office”
