One of the frustrating things afflicting Democratic activists, is the establishment Democrat’s seeming insistence that things are perfectly normal, and they should continue to play by the rules that obtained 20 or 30 years ago, when there were still some reasonable and somewhat honest Republicans.
Case in point discussed here. The Republicans don’t have the votes to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running. It looks like they will repeat their actions of the past, and give the Republicans what they want in exchange for a meaningless concession or two. The meaningless concession discussed at the link is “short-term extension of the Obamacare subsidies which were cut as part of the President’s budget bill.”. This would do some good, but would simply give the Republicans what they want while paving the way for them to ellminate the subsidies altogether, not to mention paving the way for the continuing transition to a fascist state.
At this point, the Democrats should be fighting fire with fire. Were the Democrats in charge, Republicans would be lining up to shut down the government, and then blame the Democrats if they succeeded. I give Newsom credit for recognizing that you can’t sit back and refuse to respond by giving them a dose of their own medicine because, after all, as the Schumer’s of the world would say, Democrats don’t stoop to that sort of stuff, and anyway, what’s all this talk about fascism.
Not only do the Democrats have to start fighting fire with fire, they have to start working the press for its utter failure to cover what is actually going on in this nation. If the government shuts down, not only should the Democrats rightly blame the Republicans, they should ride the press for failing to lay the blame where it belongs.
None of this will happen of course. The Democrats in DC have no ability to get a message out, and the messages they try to get out are insipid. Schumer will likely cave, and even if the doesn’t, Fetterman, who has become a functional Republican, will no doubt give them one of the votes they need.
Speaking of Schumer, by the way, it is impossible to believe (well, no, it’s actually easy) that he is urging the 78 year old Janet Mills to take on Susan Collins in Maine instead of backing the candidate who will appeal to a broader spectrum of voters and one who is actually speaking up for ordinary people.