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First of all, the Democrat’s
pressure resulted in 6 year financing of health insurance for over 9 million underpriviledged children which Republicans had repeatedly backed away from, even to the point
of standing there with their arms folded saying essentially, “I don’t care
about the health of those children.”
That is a really good thing!
Secondly, they got a
‘commitment’ from McConnell to bring to the Senate floor for a vote a bill that deals with
immigration, which is something he has refused to do up until
now. I have already told you how I feel
about McConnell in a previous blog, so I hold no trust in his
follow-through. He is a slimebag and we
can expect him to try to weasel his way out of honoring his word. However that will be a lot harder to do now. Why?
Because, thirdly, he is now
faced with a substantial new power base that has arisen in the Senate in the
form of moderate Democrats and Republicans who pushed for and got an agreement
through the Senate to end the shutdown.
These 25 or so legislators actually acted in the best interest of the
country, which is something we haven’t seen for awhile! It remains to be seen whether this group will
be able to alter the course of the majority to actually get an immigration bill
through the Senate, but we won’t have to wait that long to find out. Either way, McConnell has lost some of his
cache because now there are a substantial number of Republicans who have
actually put country before party.
Fourth, the Dreamers will
just have to wait a few more weeks.
Their deadline is still over a month away, and as much as they have to
grind their teeth over this, all is not lost.
Can you imagine what might happen if Trump actually starts to try to
deport these people? My guess is that
the resistance might take some actions that as yet we have not seen, but you
can be sure would be ugly! The House
will be a separate fight if, in fact, the Senate passes something, but much can
happen between now and then.
Fifth, Trump has shown his
Republican ‘colleagues’ that he is an abject failure as a negotiator. The last two weeks have shown him, and much
of the country, just how weak he is and how malleable he is by his Rasputin
like staff and arch conservative Republicans.
This Miller character is all bad.
I knew he was bad news from the moment he made his television debut on a Sunday
morning talk show and decreed to all of us that ‘This President will not be
disobeyed!’ (I knew
kids like him in Junior High School….arrogant and self-righteous---and no one
cared to be around them—ever!) And
Kelly! The two of them are ‘managing’
Trump’s access to outside influence. I
think many Republicans are now seeing why it is important to take power and
responsibility to be a check and balance against the chaos, lies and madness
emanating from the White House.
Sixth, as mad and angry as
the Democratic progressives are, tempering of their anger is a good thing when
seen in the context of actually making strong headway in the November
midterms. Moderate Democrats elected in
2016, and those senators up for re-election in 2018 in really ‘red’ states need
to be protected. We need them in the
Senate. There would be a good chance
they would be sacrificed if the shutdown had dragged on and been blamed on the
Democrats. No need to take that chance
now. The most, and I mean the MOST
important result we need is to make the majority party the minority party after
November. Everything must be in service
of that objective.
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So on balance, even though at
first blush it seems like the Democrats ‘caved’ according to ‘His Trumpness’, I
think Schumer and the Democratic caucus made the right call. You have to pick your battles in the effort to
ultimately win the war.
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