Give Chuck a Break. It Could Have Been Worse.
Even though Democrats didn’t get the biggest possible win, they still won the shutdown.
Sorry for no Triad on Friday. There’s a longer explanation down in #3.
1. Outcomes
On Friday, Tim argued that the Democrats could declare victory in the shutdown, vote for cloture, and move on to the next battle. This morning Andrew wrote that Democrats had rewarded a hostage-taker.
They’re both right.
Like Dr. Strange, I have seen all six possible endgames from the shutdown fight and I’m here to tell you that yes, Democrats could have done better. They probably should have done better. But they exit this event in a stronger position than they entered. And also: They could have done much worse.
We’re going to rank the shutdown endgames from best to worst and then I’m going to make the case simultaneously that (a) Democrats played their hand poorly from the start, but that (b) they were ultimately bailed out by Trump’s obsession with dominance, and (c) we ought to appreciate the bad stuff that didn’t happen here.
Boy, howdy, are you not going to like this. Not. One. Bit.
So let’s start with the best-case scenario for how the shutdown could have ended: