...suffered during a shutdown, we have different understandings of Donald Trump.

The shutdown was a tactic. For lots of reasons I thought it was a bad one. But it did draw attn to healthcare affordability.

And it was never going to succeed.

I'm not talking about resisting, and neither do I think we're going to be better off by trying to be more like him.

They were supposed to write into statute that the President should be costrained by a statute?

And they're telling me today that I am the one who's naive....

Better fighter. Get it right if you're going to @ me.

And yes. He simply doesn't care what burns. If you're saying I shouldn't either, then we definitely disagree.

We know this because he told us.

The reality is the government was shut down the first day Trump entered office. We just didn't talk about it that way.

The only real leverage Dems had is on appropriations. Schumer screwed that up in February/March for FY 26. It imperiled his political support.

...better at it than you are. He is a sociopath.

In realistic terms, there are wins in this deal that are dangerous to Trump. The best thing for him is what his opponents are doing now—behaving like him.

There is a Left version of Trumpism. In the end, it's the one more likely to destroy us.

...all this (and restore ACA subsidies, tax billionaires, etc.) quite so much as the furious circular firing squad unleashed since last night because Senate Democrats won't "fight." The furious demand for a "fight" is very good for Trump. It's human relations the way he comprehends them, and he's...

...many of us. I don't care if you're MAGA or The Resistance, if your only political calculus is the partisan framing of who's winning and who's losing you have been infected by Trumpism. You are part of the problem and you give Trump power.

Nothing injures the hope to recover our politics from...

...yet. I think this Senate deal sets us on a good path toward those weapons. But we aren't there yet.

Still there is another danger that gives Trump power.

Trump only understands human interaction in terms of pain for others and pleasure for him. And, 10yrs of Trumpism has done that to too...

...an important source of the danger. No political pressure based on accountability can work. Forget democracy, that means politics as such is not possible.

So the Democrats never had "leverage." If you thought they did, you were misled. To "fight" you need effective weapons. Those aren't here...

...American citizens or the congressional GOP means as little to him as the suffering of a contractor he stiffed. And you're wrong to think his underwater polling numbers make him suffer because he can tell himself they're fake news, he has a bubble around him telling him he is great.

This is...

...has gotten his way by inflicting pain on others—leverage, "the art of the deal." Important to his success has been his indifference to others. The only pain he understands is pain he feels himself. So nothing in his experience has prepared him to comprehend accountability. The suffering of...

A shutdown that doesn't end until the Nov midterms wouldn't help you, and that's all a "fight" would get you.

Unless I'm missing something.

What's happening to your family is terrible. There was never any 'fighting' that will end it. The American ppl chose this last year. This is us.

I see all realism here.

ACA vote hangs health affordability on GOP. So does no vote.

Also Grijalva is sworn in, the discharge petition goes. Fed workers are paid, SNAP distrib.

Unless the plan was to stay shut down until the midterms, I don't see another way. This had its use. So does ending it.

The outcome on healthcare premiums was fixed on Nov 5, 2024.

...suffering now can be reduced among fed workers & SNAP recipients, and that is good.

I'm sorry about that, genuinely. But you were misled to think the shutdown would fix this. Politically the shutdown was useful for drawing attn, assigning blame. But this was never going to reach veto-proof majorities in both houses and Trump was never going to be moved abt ins costs. Other...