Senate sellouts enrage Democrats—but why act surprised?

This week’s capitulation by Senate Democrats has set off a firestorm of long overdue controversy. But why is anyone surprised at the weakness of elected Democrats?

What happened this weekend

Seven Senate Democrats defected from the party line to accept GOP demands to support a continuing resolution in order to end the government shutdown without any decision to extend healthcare benefits that remain set to expire at the end of this year. They were joined by Sen. Angus King (I-ME), an independent who usually caucuses with Democrats but had voted for weeks to end the shutdown alongside his GOP colleagues.

As summarized by Politico, the compromise approved by the Senate “promises Democrats a December floor vote on extending the expiring Obamacare subsidies, though it’s uncertain to pass the GOP-controlled chamber and Speaker Mike Johnson won’t promise to bring up such a vote in the House.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was appropriately skeptical of the tepid rationales offered by the defectors to explain their concessions. He described their move as “a very, very bad vote,” for both substantive and political reasons.

Substantively, Sunday’s concession paves the way for millions of Americans to face escalated price gouging for healthcare. He explained:

[F]irst of all…it raises health care premiums for over 20 million Americans by doubling, in some cases, tripling or quadrupling. People can’t afford that when we are already paying the highest prices of the world for health care.

Number 2, it paves the way for 15 million people to be thrown off of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

Bernie also described America’s disappointing defeat at the hands of timid careerists who made a “horrific situation even worse.”

As everybody knows, just on Tuesday, we had an election all over this country, and what the election showed is that the American people want us to stand up to Trumpism, to his war against working-class people, to his authoritarianism.

That is what the American people wanted. But tonight, that is not what happened.

The defecting Senators who sided with the GOP have argued unpersuasively that the compromise they accepted was the best one available. None of them face re-election in the next electoral cycle, however, suggesting that their defection was coordinated and supported by other Senators who will face voters but couldn’t accept the political risks of openly betraying them.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who is retiring and supported the concession, admitted that “This bill is not perfect,” while claiming that “it takes important steps to reduce the shutdown’s hurt.”

Durbin’s view was forcefully rejected by other Democrats representing his state. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, for instance, condemned the defection and GOP-enabling vote as a “complete betrayal of the American people.”

That betrayal may ultimately achieve nothing, since multiple obstacles have emerged that could block the bill from ultimately passing both houses of Congress, including provisions that could perversely compensate policymakers investigated by authorities for supporting the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, and others that would ban hemp farming, which is supported by many GOP policymakers from Kentucky, in particular.

Confused policymakers

On the one hand, some of the Senators who caved to GOP demands in order to end the shutdown may have been answering calls from their constituents.

@roguednc

RogueDNC on Instagram: "After more than a month of a government…

Three of the eight Senators had been voting alongside Republicans to end the shutdown since it began: King, John Fetterman (D-PA), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).

Cortez Masto was joined on Sunday by Nevada’s other Senator, Jacky Rosen (D-NV). They may have been motivated by concerns about travel delays and canceled flights resulting from air traffic controllers not getting paid during the shutdown, which especially threaten their state given the role of its largest cities as tourist destinations.

But even to whatever extent one might support their reasoning, their concessions appear to have come too late to make an immediate difference. As explained by the Guardian:

The Senate passed legislation Monday to reopen the government, but the bill still needs to clear the House and final passage could be days away. Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, made clear last week that flight cuts will remain until the FAA sees staffing levels stabilize at its air traffic control facilities.

Many planes also aren’t where they’re supposed to be, which could slow the airlines’ return to normal operations even after the FAA lifts the order, said Mike Taylor, who leads research on airports and airlines at JD Power.

Regardless of how one evaluates the wisdom of conceding to GOP demands in order to support beleaguered air travel, their position reeks of corporate influence: the Senators who defected have been among the biggest recipients of campaign contributions from airlines, which have been aggressively lobbying to end the shutdown.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) argued that his vote would help support his constituents, who include a large number of federal workers. He explained his vote by focusing on its provisions to “protect federal workers from baseless firings, reinstate those who have been wrongfully terminated during the shutdown, and ensure federal workers receive back pay.”

Those interests are important, but narrowly shared, offering a meager gain for the profound loss implicit in giving away the Senate’s approval. Ultimately, given Kaine’s role as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, it should not surprise anyone to see him making tactical concessions to the right wing.

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The last two Senators to join the group of sellouts both represent New Hampshire: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH). Neither of them can claim a rationale even as weak as those of Kaine, Cortez Masto, or Rosen. Shaheen was even publicly refuted by her own daughter, Stefany Shaheen, who is running for Congress and therefore more accountable to public opinion.

As if the concessions by these figures did not do enough damage to their own party, they also emboldened the GOP, leading Republican Senators to expand their demands yesterday. After initially pledging to allow a vote on healthcare subsidies if the 7 Democrats defected, GOP leaders changed their minds after Democrats complied to instead demand tighter restrictions enforcing the Hyde amendment, which was passed in 2010 to prevent Obamacare funds from being used for family planning services.

It feels particularly maddening to watch the Hyde Amendment become a fulcrum for this debate, after running for Congress in part to repeal it against an oligarch who endorsed anti-choice Democrats but was enabled by journalists to duck debates, and any public accountability for her repeated betrayals of her constituents.

Long overdue calls for transition

In the wake of the Senate votes ending the shutdown, the criticism of institutional Democrats has been swift, consistent, and loud.

For example, Indivisible, a grassroots network that helped organize the recent No Kings rallies, as well as groups in congressional districts around the country engaging in grassroots lobbying on progressive issues, laid blame where due:

Despite his no vote, the entire political world knows this is a direct result of Chuck Schumer’s leadership. He either blessed this surrender, or was incapable of leading his caucus to hold the line.

Schumer’s second massive capitulation to the Trump regime has shown Trump that he can continue to plow forward with his authoritarian agenda without meaningful opposition from Congress. It’s shown him that inflicting pain on Americans helps him achieve his agenda.

And it’s shown Americans intent on resisting Trumpism that we desperately need new leadership in the Democratic Party.

Having run to replace a leading Democrat in the House whose concessions paved the path for this continuing pattern, I could not agree more.

Even Schumer’s colleagues were sharply critical. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) described the concession as “a terrible mistake,” while Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) went further to explain that:

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 [Trump]. Things will likely get worse.”

Some Democrats in Congress have responded by calling for Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to either step down as Senate Minority Leader, or instead to lose his seat in the Senate to make way for another voice more committed to the job.

For instance, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said that, “This is a defining moment for the party. We need new faces with bold new ideas. The American people are tired of a failed status quo.” He also argued that, “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”

Why do we keep watching this pattern?

Rep. Khanna’s question was thoughtful, but also dramatically underinclusive.

Millions of voters asked the same question when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to condemn a genocide in Gaza enabled by their support for Israel, only to receive silence in response. One of them was author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who put it simply:

[I]f you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.

That failure of Democrats to stand up for the most basic principles played a critical role in returning Trump to the White House.

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It’s more than just the co-optation of powerful individuals: the party’s structure also enables these patterns, by creating elites within the party whose career interests override the needs of grassroots supporters, as well as the vision of people who have offered better alternatives. The result, beyond a painfully incapable gerontocracy, is an institutional rot with intergenerational roots.

It’s worth noting that the press further enables the pattern, in several ways. Not only do reporters ignore electoral challengers and smear them relentlessly, they also grant undeserved credibility to elected officials even if they duck debates, betray their own rhetoric in action, or unconstitutionally profit from their offices.

We’ve been here before

I dedicated nearly a decade to replacing a perfect example of that pattern: former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Despite ducking debates, routinely selling out positions supported by grassroots Democrats, and unconstitutionally profiting from her office through decades of continuing insider trading, Pelosi has remained entrenched for nearly 40 years by playing the press like a fiddle. Reporters, eager to gain access to influential figures, have constructed a cult of personality surrounding Pelosi antithetical to their ethical obligations to hold power accountable.

As a result of their longstanding co-optation, legions of liberals can’t recognize a conservative even if she stares them in the face, denies them healthcare (sound familiar?), ducks debates for 40 years at a time, relies on a “civic lynching” orchestrated across her party to retain her seat, and accuses her own constituents of being foreign agents.

Pelosi is, sadly, far from alone. The ranks of powerful figures willing to accommodate fascism include those leading any number of news organizations, corporate brands, law firms, and even many universities.

We are living through an era of widespread cowardice.

But—despite the recent grassroots outrage—nothing about it is new. Democratic voters are outraged today by their party leaders making concessions to the GOP, as if they didn’t build their careers by doing precisely that for decades.

In the face of such complicity, I feel all the more proud to have offered a meaningful alternative at a time when it could have mattered—and grateful for the readers who enable me to continue writing and educating today.

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