The Party Is Over

“I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.” —Aeschylus In the interest of preserving an accurate historical record, one that’s not whitewashed or otherwise obscured, let’s briefly chronicle how Democrats stabbed the American people in the back last Sunday. First, here’s the context: The Republican Party has been going on a rampage this year, destroying every part of the government that has any human significance. They have savaged the public sector by arbitrarily firing thousands of workers; they have gutted funding for agencies such as FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), which rescues people from natural disasters, and the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), which runs the National Weather Service, a crucial agency for detecting extreme weather events and warning people in advance; they have effectively dismantled the CDC (Center for Disease Control), stopped funding cancer research, and are waging a war on vaccine-science even as unvaccinated communities suffer from measles outbreaks; and they have halted clean energy investments, pulled out of every imaginable treaty on climate change, and have given permits to corporations allowing them to build mines and oil wells in places that were previously off-limits due to the fragility of rare local ecosystems and the wishes of native populations, primarily in Alaska. And that’s just the headlines. In their “Big Beautiful Bill” from last summer, Republicans dramatically cut the already frail social safety nets, primarily in healthcare and food assistance. “These cuts will kill poor people,” I wrote at the time. “There’s no way around that.” Somehow it’s especially grotesque that Republicans didn’t even repeat the European austerity lies. They never even tried to argue that the government was broke and unable to fund the safety nets. On the contrary, they gave ICE a bigger annual budget than most militaries. The Democrats had already passed up an opportunity last March to stop most of this from happening. In order to fund the federal government, Congress must pass a budget. This required a three-fifths majority—also called a “super majority”—in the Senate. This gives the opposition party leverage: the governing party is forced to negotiate with the opposition, and that’s the point. Republicans have naturally used this to their advantage when Democrats are in power. They are, after all, ruthless politicians. If Democrats needed more motivation, the Republican funding resolution included provisions that transfered power from the hands of Congress to the White House, further empowering Trump. However, eight Democrats, most notably Chuck Schumer, head of the Senate Democrats, defected to the Republicans and voted to give them everything they wanted without getting anything in return. It was a typical betrayal from a decaying party. The anger from their voters was palpable. In July, Axios reported that: Democratic members of Congress are facing a growing thrum of demands to break the rules, fight dirty—and not be afraid to get hurt. … Liberal voters have angrily accosted Democrats at town halls for—in their view—not doing enough to counter President Trump’s agenda. One Democrat explained that his voters “have suggested” that “what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” “Our own base is telling us that what we’re doing is not enough,” another lawmaker said, adding that people have told them “there needs to be blood.” Overall, the Democrats mainly displayed contempt for their voters. “For months, Democratic lawmakers have fumed that their base’s demands to ‘fight harder’ misunderstand the lack of legislative and investigative power afforded to the minority party in Congress,” Axios added. But the minority party does have leverage—the system was deliberately designed that way—and the Democrats willingly gave up that leverage! It’s like a man who murders his parents and then pleads for leniency with the court on account that he’s an orphan. Last October they had a chance to remedy their mistake. Another budget needed to be passed. This time Republicans refused to fund subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Even with these subsidies, healthcare remains wildly expensive in the US. Medical bills are the single largest cause of bankruptcy in America. Without those subsidies, health insurance premiums would skyrocket for working-class citizens. Democrats finally made a stand. Mostly because they had little choice; polls show that the party has never been as unpopular as it is now. They refused to vote for the GOP’s funding bill if it didn’t include the ACA premiums. Trump fumed that he didn’t want to fund the ACA because it also provides gender-affirming care for trans people. Therefore, no deal would be reached and the government “shutdown,” meaning it stops functioning. So-called non-essential services are suspended, whereas “essential” federal workers (e.g. air traffic controllers and the police) have to work without pay. This is now officially the longest shutdown in American history. During the shutdown, the Republicans, in an effort to get more leverage, decided to stop funding SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) which provides food for struggling poor people. Democrats could choose: either agree to cut healthcare funding or make people go hungry. Blofeld would be impressed. The Republican strategy backfired. The public rage was overwhelmingly directed against the Republicans, too intransigent to make a reasonable deal with the Democrats, who profited from this fight. It probably didn’t help that Trump threw an extravagant Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago hours before they stopped SNAP. Depriving your citizens of food whilst enjoying a “roaring twenties”-style party is something that President Snow from The Hunger Games  would do. By the way, withholding SNAP funds is illegal. I don’t know if anybody still gives a damn about that, but in a real country with a judiciary and laws this isn’t supposed to be possible. Who’s going to arrest these criminals? The Democrats and Republicans were now effectively playing a game of high-stakes chicken, whoever blinked first would lose. We all expected the Democrats to cave first. The Republicans certainly counted on that. But I believed that the sweeping victory for Democrats in this year’s state elections—including that of Zohran Mamdani in New York—would strengthen their resolve to hold on and keep fighting. I was wrong. In fact, the opposite seems to have happened.  Now that the elections are disappearing in the rearview mirror, the Democrats seemingly took the results to mean that they had sufficiently restored their reputation with the voters, and once again gave the Republicans everything they wanted without getting anything in return. Last Sunday, the Democrats voted to allow the Republicans to stop funding the ACA subsidies. Or, putting it more directly, the Democrats voted to end ACA subsidies. All that suffering during the shutdown has now been for nothing. Whereas before, Republicans were blamed for the effects of the shutdown—it happened because of their obstinance. Now, the Democrats are basically saying that they didn’t have a good reason to shutdown the government. Apparently the healthcare subsidies are worth abandoning. So what was the point? And who was responsible for inflicting this needless pain on the citizenry, given that it was all for naught? If anyone is still feeling happy and optimistic because of last week’s election results, that feeling should be over now. No more enthusiasm. The after-party is over.