THE REAL DEMOCRATIC DIVIDE IS BETWEEN FIGHTERS AND CAVERS

I don't have anything good to say about the sellout by seven Democratic senators and one Democratic-aligned independent that brings us close to the end of the government shutdown. The issue that Democrats focused on, Affordable Care Act subsidies, will get a vote in December under the plan, but the vote is likely to fail and there'll be no relief for skyrocketing premiums. John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and first-term Donald Trump couldn't kill Obamacare, but in Trump's second term, it's on life support.

The one small silver lining I see is that the popular front we thought we saw in Tuesday's elections -- progressive and moderate Democrats agreeing on the importance of affordability and economic relief for the non-rich -- genuinely seems to unite the party ... or most of it. The Judases who voted to end the shutdown are on the wrong side, but quite a few moderates seem as angry as the lefties right now.

Hakeem Jeffries is angry. Hakeem Jeffries!

In a statement, the Democratic leader dug his heels in on his party’s position that any legislation to reopen the government must include an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year, raising premiums for millions of Americans.

“House Democrats have consistently maintained that bipartisan legislation that funds the government must also decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis. For seven weeks, Democrats in the House and Senate have waged a valiant fight on behalf of the American people,” Jeffries wrote in a statement.

“It now appears that Senate Republicans will send the House of Representatives a spending bill that fails to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” he continued.

So is New Jersey's governor-elect, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill:

Even the "centrist" Sherrill is against the caving.

[image or embed]

— Wajahat Ali (@wajali.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 11:54 PM

So is Senator Elissa Slotkin:

You'll say this is all theater. You'll insist that the outcome we're getting is what Establishment Democrats wanted all along, because they're crypto-Republicans.

All I can say in response is that it's a sign that we're pushing the party to the left, at least on affordability, if centrist Democrats are merely pretending to fight hard. They know we're angry. They know quite a few of us would love to primary every last one of them. That's a step in the right direction, even if this was a big loss. And you should at least consider the pssibility that some of these moderates mean what they're saying.

It's also interesting to me that quite a few centrist pundits -- Ezra Klein, Jonathan Chait, Nate Silver -- think the Democrats should have kept fighting. All of them are impressed -- and surprised -- that Democrats were winning the public relations war: Klein says it's "remarkable that Democrats were winning this one," Chait says it's an "odd thing ... that the shutdown was actually working for Democrats," and Silver argues that the shutdown wasn't working for them, according to the polls, until the SNAP deadline was hit, at which point, he says, President Trump's poll numbers plummeted. None of them seemed to think Democrats could win, exactly, but they all believed that Democrats should have made Republicans own the pain they're inflicting. Chait writes:

Republicans were unlikely ever to give in on the tax credits, because their ideological opposition to universal health care is so overwhelming that they would rather suffer defeat than surrender. But that is just the thing: They were taking the hit. Democrats succeeded in drawing news coverage to health care, and even baited Republicans into floating more of their toxic and radical ideas for changing the system.

Klein writes:

If I were in the Senate, I wouldn’t vote for this compromise. Shutdowns are an opportunity to make an argument, and the country was just starting to pay attention. If Trump wanted to cancel flights over Thanksgiving rather than keep health care costs down, I don’t see why Democrats should save him from making his priorities so exquisitely clear.

Democrats don't agree on healthcare. Incrementalists disagree with advocates of single payer. But moderates agree with progressives that we shouldn't be making healthcare massively less affordable. And even middle-of-the-road pundits agree on that.

But eight moderates thought it wasn't worth continuing the fight. And that's where the battle lines are drawn in the Democratic Party now: between fighters and cavers. Democratic voters forced Democrats to fight this long and will demand fighters in the future. This is a huge loss, but maybe the days of get-along-to-go-along Democrats are numbered.