Right and Left React to the End of the Government Shutdown

The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.

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From the Right

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Ben Domenech in The Federalist:

“The only rational explanation for this shutdown error was Democrats’ belief that President Trump would not be able to resist the urge to intervene and worsen the situation — either by making some base-splitting promise or saying something objectionable.”

Democrats made a tactical — though not all that unreasonable — mistake, Mr. Domenech says, by pinning the government shutdown on their hope for a deal to protect hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants brought to the country as children. The Democrats had hoped, he suggests, that President Trump would say or do something that would derail Republican unity on the issue.

Moreover, the party was hampered by a “distinct lack of clarity in what they are trying to do.” Only the “hard-core Democratic base” cares about protection for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, and had the shutdown continued, “it could have damaged their ability to win over independents, who may be more susceptible to voting based on the country’s economic success heading into the midterms.” Read more »

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Jim Geraghty in National Review:

“The bottom line is that most Americans don’t like government shutdowns, and will rarely find other political goals sufficient to justify them.”

If there’s one lesson to take away from the three-day government shutdown, Mr. Geraghty writes, it’s that Americans really don’t like government shutdowns. They didn’t like them in 2013 when Senator Ted Cruz of Texas led his fellow Republicans in a shutdown over the Affordable Care Act. And the same will be true in three weeks when Democrats hope to bring DACA to a vote: “Americans will still like DACA, but not enough to accept a government shutdown over it,” Mr. Geraghty says. Read more »

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From the Left

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Tim Murphy in Mother Jones:

“In taking the deal, Democrats have drawn the wrath of a fired-up activist base that now feels betrayed.”

Mr. Murphy reports that liberal and immigration activists are furious about the Democrats “caving” on the shutdown. He quotes an unexpected critic, Ezra Levin, a founder of the anti-Trump group Indivisible: “There need to be repercussions for selling out Dreamers and broadly selling out progressive policy priorities like this.” Read more »

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Alex Shepherd in New Republic:

“For the moment, at least, Democrats appear to have squandered a three-day shutdown and the leverage it provided.”

Democrats may be hoping the government shutdown is a “win-win,” Mr. Shepherd explains, “either the legal status of the Dreamers is resolved in the next three weeks or they head in to a second shutdown with greater leverage.” But, he warns, there’s no reason to feel hopeful that Republican leaders will keep their promise to bring DACA to a vote. Read more »

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Finally, From the Center

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Stan Collender in USA Today:

“It’s hard to see how government shutdowns will go back to being something elected officials want to avoid.”

Mr. Collender bemoans the fact that, because of political polarization and gerrymandering, the incentives for elected officials to avoid government shutdowns have all but disappeared. As he points out, ordinary citizens who aren’t federal employees generally don’t tend to see how shutdowns affect them personally. He predicts that even if Democrats sweep in the midterm elections, the country will still have a Republican president, a fact that would exacerbate partisan tensions between Congress and the White House. “That could, in fact, make shutdowns even more likely as one side or the other adopts the political equivalent of threatening to hold their breath until they turn blue,” he argues. Read more »

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Caitlin Owens in Axios:

“Republicans may have won the government shutdown battle, but there is still no winning strategy for the party on immigration.”

Ms. Owens explains why even though the Democrats may have “lost” in the narrative surrounding the shutdown, the Republican Party may yet “lose” on the larger question of immigration. On this issue in particular, she writes, the Republican Party is splintered between centrists seeking to protect DACA recipients and more hard-line conservatives who regard the legislation as amnesty and oppose it at all costs. Read more »

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