I have what I suspect is a somewhat counterintuitive take on the deal senate Democrats’ Team Cave made with the Republican senate caucus tonight. This is an embarrassing deal, a deal to basically settle for nothing. It’s particularly galling since it comes only days after the Democrats crushed Republicans across the country. Election day not only showed that Democrats had payed no price for the shutdown. It also confirmed the already abundant evidence that it has been deeply damaging for Donald Trump. But even with all this I think the overall situation and outcome is basically fine. Rather than tonight’s events being some terrible disaster, a replay of March, I see it as the glass basically being two-thirds or maybe even three-quarters full.
