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A blessing in disguise?

The Republicans now own the reopening of the government on Trump’s terms. Whether that helps the Democrats depends entirely on how the Democrats play it.

Commentators are always looking for a new morning line. Today’s is that the Democrats’ disunity and defeat on the Senate vote to reopen the government is really a blessing in disguise.

Is it? I’m reminded of Churchill’s comment when his wife Clementine, trying to cheer Winston up after he lost the election of 1945, suggested that his landslide defeat might be a blessing in disguise. Churchill replied, “It is certainly very well disguised.”

The good thing about the new morning line, if nothing else, is that it changes the headline from “Democratic Debacle” to “Republican Risks.” The latest Epstein revelation, that Trump was in the room for hours (doing what?) during one of Epstein’s sordid sessions with a victim of sexual abuse, only adds to those risks and further changes the headline.

The blessing-in-disguise story goes like this:

Soon, millions of Americans will face significant increases in their health insurance costs. Although only a small fraction of these are for people who get their insurance via the Affordable Care Act, the details are complicated. Since the Democrats made such a big deal of coming health premium increases, voters are likely to blame Republicans even when the proximate cause is the general mess of health insurance and not the immediate failure to extend ACA benefits.

Despite the fact that the budget deal includes only a Senate vote in December on extension of the ACA subsidies, and no commitment of Republican support or even of a vote in the House, Republicans will be even more vulnerable then to voter backlash, and Democrats can keep banging on them. Moreover, the rest of the budget deal funds most of the government only through January, when Democrats will get another whack at the piñata.

Also, the Democratic cave-in energized outraged progressives, shamed Chuck Schumer, and probably accelerates his departure as Senate Democratic leader. All to the good.

But all of this is small comfort unless Democrats maximize the moment. Some of the morning-after analysis emphasized the apparent split verdict in the Democratic successes last Tuesday. Zohran Mamdani won as a progressive; the governors-elect in New Jersey and Virginia won as centrists.

However, if you take a closer look, all candidates emphasized what has emerged as a common winning Democratic theme: People can’t afford to live. And it’s very hard to get serious about that theme without bumping into the oligarchy.

Why can’t people afford to live? Because large corporations screw workers; landlords jack up rents; tax cuts for the rich underfund public services; Republican policies raise costs via tariffs; and Trump’s gutting of antitrust allows vendors to raise prices on captive consumers. In short, you can’t get serious about addressing the affordability crisis, even if you think you are a centrist, without embracing progressive remedies and a progressive narrative.

Trump is desperately coming up with gimmicks to put himself on the side of addressing the cost crisis. It’s his acknowledgment that he and the Republicans have a real problem. But this is not one of those battles that can be won with symbols and lies. People will know whether the cost of living is shifting in their favor or not.

The real split among Democrats is not between principled progressives and principled centrists or even tactical centrists. It’s between effective Democrats and Democrats on the take from crypto and Wall Street. It’s that split that deprives Democrats of greater unity and a consistent message that resonates with the real frustrations of real people.

Here, there is one seemingly perverse piece of hopeful news. Corporate contributions to Democratic leadership PACs and dark-money conduits are down, because corporate Democrats fear the retribution of Trump. That’s poetic justice: Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. It forces Democrats to turn to small donations from regular motivated people, where they should have been all along.

It’s still premature to call all of this a blessing in disguise, but it’s an opportunity—if Democrats take it.

–ROBERT KUTTNER

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