Hari Rao

UPDATE: The Senate votes 53-47 to shoot down the Baldwin amendment to extend ACA funds for 1 year. A party-line vote with every Republican rejecting it.

we're all clear that SNAP has work requirements for almost everybody, correct

"The Democratic Party is fresh off a wildly successful election. For centrist Democrats like myself, it spelled a perfect time for unconditional surrender!" @rexhuppke.bsky.social satirizes the shutdown "deal" and the quaint negotiating customs of moderate Dems. www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

“If we fight united”

That’s it, Senator, no one believes you will. Not Trump and the GOP, who will go even harder now that they’ve seen what makes the Democratic caucus crack and fold. Not the base, which feels betrayed after helping the party to an electoral win.

Any plans to change anything?

In response to this claim that the "strategy didn't work."

The people were on our side. We were building momentum to help save our democracy. We could have won - the premium increase notices were just starting.

And giving in now will embolden him. Things will likely get worse.

Hoax (noun): Something real that actually happened that one dislikes and would've preferred hadn't happened

For example, "Democrat Shutdown Hoax" or "Russia hoax"

Democrats Have to Get Out of a Normal Democracy Mindset By folding in the government shutdown in exchange for virtually nothing, eight Democratic senators aid Trump's authoritarian takeover rather than oppose it

I wrote about the "Appeasement Eight" Senate Democrats getting the party to fold to Trump in the government shutdown, and why it shows that pro-democracy Americans badly need a real opposition party, full of leaders who recognize the United States isn't a normal rule of law democracy anymore.

If Trump has been right about anything, it is that there is a deep rot in the upper echelons of American society, among people who have been put in positions of power and leadership. Trump understands that many of these people are weak, that their public commitment to civic principles can crumble under sustained pressure. In many cases, those folding have had ample resources to resist Trump’s shakedowns but haven’t been brave enough to do so. They are, in a word, chickenshit.

America’s chickenshit elites problem continues to be the biggest obstacle to fighting Trump www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Wow, even Matt Y. is against the deal.

The craziest part is that Republicans could’ve ended the shutdown on their own anytime they wanted. 50 senators is all it would take.

But they didn’t feel like it. Which is accepted as a premise, so fixing things becomes Democrats’ responsibility, and apparently enough Democratic senators agree.

“We will keep fighting.”

Okay. In the same way? Because it will likely have the same result.

Or in a different way? If so, why not fight that way now?

It’s not left v. center or progressive v. liberal or anything like that. It’s fight v. don’t fight.

Never forget who sold us out:

Hassan
King
Cortez-Masto
Shaheen
Kaine
Fetterman
Durbin
Rosen

Tonight’s Senate vote on the federal government shutdown should have been a time for strength.

Instead we saw capitulation and a betrayal of working Americans.

The American people need more from their leaders.

Thanks to @mostmuscle.bsky.social

www.opensecrets.org/orgs/america...

i think an especially depressing part of this whole saga is that "we need to win primaries so establishment dems are replaced by true progressives" is a thing we've done before but one of the progressives we worked hard to install over the establishment pick was fetterman

80% of Democratic voters want a new leader in the Senate.

Does that matter at all to Democratic senators?

Remember when some of us said the Democratic leadership would take all the wrong lessons from the blue tsunami and squander all the goodwill?

Here you go.

Van Hollen Senate Minority Leader vote when

We can't vote Schumer out until 2028 but we can make him being the senate majority leader a litmus test for 2026 candidates. Every single Dem senate candidate should be forced to go on the record and state they will not vote for him as majority leader.

I will not support a deal that does nothing to make health care more affordable.

We are in a health care emergency. A simple one-year extension of these tax credits would cost less than Donald Trump’s $40 billion bailout for Argentina.

A vote for this bill is a mistake.

Just imagining the meeting where they must have been like “they might cancel my flight? Time to kill the sick.”

Senate Democrats are useless and cowardly. Not even close to meeting or understanding the moment. And just because you voted against The Cave doesn’t get you off the hook unless you call for Schumer’s resignation as Democratic leader by tomorrow.

This is really good to see: Miki Sherrill just put out a statement sharply criticizing the Senate Dems' pending cave in the government shutdown, ripping it as "malpractice" and a betrayal of the people who are "counting on us to fight for them." Sherrill knows what drove her victory. Wake up, Dems.

There will be some "Wow you can't make these people happy" sentiment but what's really happening is the Dems are beginning to reap the consequences of not really believing in anything. Choreographed maneuvers, too clever by half talking points. People have just had it

Important to understand this. There's a reasonable chance that your Dem Senator who voted against it and is acting mad now was in on the play. It's the same reason why they scheduled the surrender for AFTER the election this week. They didn't want people pissed at Dems right before an election.

a big problem for Democrats in general is that moderation on policy and temperament are pretty strongly correlated

things would be so much better if there were a bunch of politicians who can win swing-state seats and also don't give a fuck about the filibuster

if democrats want to retain any amount of integrity they need to immediately vote out chuck schumer as party minority leader

This is what I'm saying. Democrats have done so much to erode nearly all trust in the party. Their actions tonight gutted what little was left.

You want to rebuild trust? Come clean about this and demand Schumer be removed.

Caving for nothing means that Democrats are the ones responsible for the shutdown because they could have taken this shit deal weeks ago.