Are Democrats Right to Cut an Immigration Deal with Trump?

"In October, Senate Democrats plunged the country into a shutdown. As I wrote at the time, the Party's leaders primarily needed their base to see them pushing back on Donald Trump's authoritarianism, especially after ducking out of a funding fight earlier in the year, though, in the end, they oriented their crusade around the extension of expiring health-care subsidies, a relatively conventional policy dispute."

"After forty-three days-the longest government closure in U.S. history-eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus switched their votes, breaking the filibuster and allowing the government to reopen. The base howled with fury: Democrats had been winning in the court of public opinion; Trump himself said that the shutdown was a "big factor" in the Democrats' rout of the G.O.P. in off-year elections the prior week."

"But I suggested that the Party had already succeeded, both in putting up a fight and in forcing a critical issue up the agenda, and that carrying on would harm, for example, recipients of government-provided food benefits, without making Republicans likelier to cave on the subsidies. Plus, under the terms of the vote, most of the government was funded only through the end of January, when Democrats would again have leverage."

"A Senate vote on extending the subsidies, promised in exchange for ending the shutdown, came, predictably, to nothing, and those subsidies expired at the end of the year. But health care remained a live issue, not to mention a political liability for the G.O.P. A shutdown redux looked possible, too, over health care or something else. (Inevitably, the Epstein files were mentioned.)"

In October, Senate Democrats triggered a 43-day government shutdown centered on extending expiring health-care subsidies. Eight Senate Democrats flipped, breaking the filibuster and reopening the government. The move energized the base and was seen as politically consequential, but continuing the shutdown risked harm to beneficiaries of government programs such as food assistance and was unlikely to force Republican concessions. Funding was extended only through the end of January, preserving future leverage. A subsequent Senate vote on the subsidies failed and they expired, keeping health care a live political issue while Democrats signaled reluctance to renew the shutdown fight.

Read at The New Yorker