Quick(ish) Hitter: The Cave Caucus
So last night my wife and I were enjoying a nice, relaxing Sunday evening. We had finished our household weekend chores, had a great training session with the doggos and watched an episode of For All Mankind.1
After the episode I did my usual “quick” scan of the news before heading up to bed… or so I thought. The first indication that something was afoot was a conversation that was going on in a Florida State Discord server that I am a member of. The gist was that there were enough Senate Democrats who were willing to cave to end the shutdown, and that there could be an agreement “imminently”.
What. The. Fuck?
Look, I get it. I realize that having the government shut down causes serious issues for real people. It causes financial stress to hundreds of thousands of federal employees who just want to do their jobs. It forces essential employees to go to work every day and not get paid (for now) for that work. It’s not easy for anyone. I understand that. We can’t lose sight of the fact that there are real people dealing with real issues while the politicians play games.
That said, we were seeing a pretty clear public rebuke of the MAGOP talking points. Americans were overwhelmingly blaming the Republicans for the shutdown. Trump’s approval ratings were in a tailspin and he was flailing. Both district and federal courts had already ruled that the admin must pay SNAP benefits, and the case was fast-tracked to the Supreme Court.
Last Tuesday Americans across the country spoke out, loudly, in one voice, and told the political class exactly how they felt: that the status quo cannot stand, that the GOP was at fault, and that the people want to support Democrats who are willing to fight for them. For a brief shining moment we were able to enjoy a great Election Day result, and were allowed to have just a little bit of hope that, just maybe, we could turn the corner. Trump even admitted, both on his social media platform and while addressing Republican senators that the public was blaming the GOP for the shutdown.
And then…
Senate Democrats, “led” by Cowardly Chuck Schumer2, decided to step on their own dicks and freely give away all of the hard-fought gains of the last 10 months. Or at least it feels that way.3 Sure enough, by the time I went to bed around 11pm it was being reported that the following eight Democratic Senators had agreed to vote with their GOP counterparts to end the shutdown and reopen the government:
Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)
Dick Durbin (IL)
John Fetterman (PA)
Margaret Hassan (NH)
Timothy Kaine (VA)
Jacky Rosen (NV)
Jeanne Shaheen (NH)
Maybe I don’t understand politics, but this just seems like yet another unforced error on the part of the Democratic Party. I am far from the only one who feels this way. My own Democratic Senator:
Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, one of the folks who was just massively rewarded for standing up and fighting, had this to say:
Even “regular” folks were pissed. Take a look at a comment from a SNAP recipient:
There are many, many more examples that I can link.
I simply cannot understand how the Democrats keep doing this. How do they continue to not realize that when your opponent is fucking themselves, let them. Don’t throw them a life preserver. There is a reason that the Cave Caucus was 4 retiring senators and 4 who aren’t up for reelection in 2026. This was calculated to avoid electoral damage so the Senators could get home for Thanksgiving. So, for those who think that somehow Chuck Schumer is absolved because he voted “no”, miss me with that. This has his fingerprints all over it. He needs to be primaried, as do the four Senators who aren’t retiring. The people need to let Democratic leadership know that we are no longer going to stand by while they crumble.
Maybe it’s all bullshit. All Kabuki theater. But I feel like there are real forces on the right who want authoritarianism and this quisling behavior emboldens them while making the Dems sound like Chicken Little. I understand that there was real pain being felt by real people, but we knew that was going to happen, and it’s going to get worse before (and if) it gets better. Are the Dems going to cave every time? If so, it’s already over and we are now Hungary. At best.
Some have pointed out that this is just a temporary CR, that it expires at the end of January, and should the GOP get up to their usual fuckery, we can come back at them hard then. But… back in March people said “This is only until September” when coping with the first Schumer cave. Why the fuck would any rational person think it will be ANY different in January?
I realize that in any good compromise all sides will be pissed off. That’s how compromise works. I can’t for the life of me see what was given up here by the GOP. Where is their pain point? A promise to hold a (potentially meaningless) vote in the Senate sometime in December (with no commitment on the House side) is the only true concession given. Yes, MAGOP is also promising to undo all of the Reduction in Force firings that happened during the shutdown, to give all federal workers their back pay, and to fund SNAP through Fiscal Year 2026, but those were all already supposed to happen and were being illegally blocked by this administration. The Democrats basically just saved the administration from arguing their exceedingly unpopular points in court. Why?
I will concede on one point: I am emotional about this, and I let that inform my attitude about it. Ironically, none of it directly affects me. I am not a federal employee. I am not a SNAP recipient, nor do I participate in the ACA, so neither side of this will make a direct difference in my life. That said, I am so fucking tired of the GOP fucking over those who can’t fight back, a not-insignificant number of whom are their constituents and voted for them. But perhaps most of all I hate the fact that the Dems continue to lose to the worst people and biggest fucking losers in politics. It’s exhausting and infuriating, and I let that out in my comments here.
Happy Monday!
Take Care and Stay Strong, Together.
Great show! I recommend it if you have access, unfortunately I believe it’s only available on AppleTV. Or some, ahem, other options…
Not that I want to emulate The Unhinged One with nicknames, but Schumer has so little conviction that he refused to answer when asked who he voted for in the NYC Mayoral election, which pretty clearly shows that he voted against the Democrat in the race.
Am I being too emotional about this? Perhaps. But fuck, there aren’t a lot of good days, so when a celebration is so short-lived it’s just fucking exhausting.