Sometimes in politics, you win not by changing the world but by changing the subject. That’s how the Democrats won this fall’s government shutdown.
It didn’t look like a win for them at first. Progressive activists and many Democratic members of Congress fumed at their leaders for failing to draw any substantive concessions from Republicans. But when the dust settled, the concrete results of the shutdown were three more months of Biden-era spending levels and a healthcare debate that would stretch toward the midterm elections.
Reigniting the healthcare debate was a triumph for Democrats, since healthcare is Republicans’ worst issue and greatest vulnerability. This has been true for two decades. Republicans have struggled to reach an internal consensus on health policy since George W. Bush’s second term, because the economics and politics of healthcare have never lined up well for them.
