Angus King is not a Democrat
I kind of half defend, half don’t a “cave” by the group of Democratic Senators who have called off the shutdown, or appreciate some logic here. You are disappointed because this was the first fight, gumption, the legislative party members have shown. And really, it seems they are just waiting for the election to pass to pull the rug from it and move on. The right least vulnerable Democrats — set to retire or not up in 2026 — getting a couple piddlywinks
This was not going to end well. Yes, it is setting up Health Care against SNAP benefits, leveraging one against the other and causing flight delays in the meantime. But the game was set in the 2024 election. The American people spoke. One party stood for they/them. The other party stood against they/them. There is only so much you can do on this one. An issue has been raised — welfare is strangely popular all of a sudden, though you grasp some question if we are still not floating past the right questions.
And recall America’s short attention span here. 2013-2014. Suddenly as a result of poll crashes for Republicans off of the great government shutdown. Boehner falls on the sword, ends it. Republicans in disarray. Angry “tea party”ers demanding heads. Wait to November and see where that got us. I spy that in going down a list of outraged Democrats with blaring type and graphics of eight Democratic “traitors”, a smattering of Fox News graphics — a few puzzling in its stock image of Schumer and Bernie on the question of who else to insert and they land on in some instance… Gavin Newsom, a guy who is not at all involved in this anywhere much. And maybe indeed Schumer is falling on his sword, but he is old anyways and knows his time is about up.
Lawrence O’Donnell on his msnbc show makes the case for the “traitors” — the two Nevada Senators and the Virginia Senator are looking at the barrel of not abstract but actual human suffering and economic peril. And what they got here — expanded Snap benefits, a vote that puts Republican Senators if not House members on record. Cynically they passed by the Elections, though here the President accommodated everyone by bulldozing the East Wing and holding shindigs around great literary commentary on rich oppulence. The commentators of The Bulwark join the small chorus of “Democrats did as much as they could with the hand voters gave them a year ago”, with one eye toward lobbing a raspberry at the media appearances of Maine Senator Angus King who… has one thing to say regarding him… Not a member of the Democratic Party… so, I guess dude has an out. The one thought on a calibrated politically posturing positioning “Centrist” of his ilk is we really do need the more New York City mayor elects in and about to make the vacuous-ness make a lick of sense.