Why is it never no enemies on the left?

As you’ve probably heard, the Senate Democrats folded on the shutdown. Forty days and the result is a piss-poor deal — and that’s even if the Republicans honor the terms. It’s bad politics (it shows once again the Democrats in the Senate have no stomach for a fight) and it’s bad policy. Sure, they got a guarantee federal workers will be rehired and get their back pay, but what’s to stop the Necrotic Toddler from doing it again? Speaker Mike Johnson has already said he doesn’t guarantee a vote on the ACA subsidies that are part of the deal.

I’m sure when Republicans welch, Senate top Dem Chuck Schumer and others will be shocked, shocked — dang it, they pinky swore! (Schumer did declare himself opposed to the deal. The assumption online is that the eight senators who caved, none of whom are running again, are standing in for a larger block, including Schumer, that don’t want their fingers on it. I agree with the assumption). I agree with Digby they should have spun this better too.

Out of the many reasons I’ve heard suggested for the Dem collapse, the main ones seem to be that cutting back flights at major airports affects Congress and the people in their social circle much more than threats to SNAP benefits or Obamacare. Another is the realization that to end the shutdown without compromise, Republicans would have to kill the filibuster. This seems like a good idea — overall the filibuster benefits Republicans more — but the Senate is deeply wedded to its arthritic, unwieldy traditions.

In the end, like that Churchill quote I used Monday, Senate Dems were given the choice between war and dishonor. “You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”

That said, by this time a year from now, it’s unlikely folding in the shutdown will bother people as much as the Republicans continued war on America. That’s not an excuse for caving, but Dems should start making the most of it.

That said, it got me thinking about the topic of Monday’s post, the right-wing philosophy that there are “No Enemies To The Right.” That is, whether you’re Protestant, Catholic, Nazi or generic Republican, the desire to defeat the left and shore up the hierarchy outweighs trivial matters such as who you want on the top. The Night of the Long Knives will wait until after the left has been crushed forever.

Why is it we liberals can’t get united the same way?

None of us want a fascist takeover. Most liberals (for the purpose of this post I’m using “liberal” to include liberals, left-wingers and progressives) would like to level the hierarchy and see greater equality. Whether our prime issue is breaking capitalism, seeing that kids don’t go to bed hungry, ending the carceral state or greater equality, we should be able to agree that job one stopping the Republican fascist takeover and pushing back against them remaking America in their diseased image. Then we can start the infighting.

Somehow that doesn’t seem to happen. As witness Dems with no dog in the hunt shitting on Zohran Mamdani. I realize there are lots of pressures to push them to the center but Republicans have plenty of pressure on them too. Somehow they hold their coalition together

This is not to argue we should just shrug about things like the shutdown failure. We should call out our senators, encourage our representatives to block this in the house (the margins for passing the bill are razor thin — and things like Republicans tying abortion restrictions to Obamacare subsidies won’t help), primary the officials who won’t fight. But again, Republicans are willing to do the same to anyone who’s not far enough right, yet NETTR is a thing and NETTL isn’t. I wish I knew why …though even if I did, it’s not like I have any clout to impose a solution.