A Foolish Fight

Joe Klein: “Let’s keep this simple: shutdown politics is sandbox politics. For much of the public — those who live heavy lives and have more to think about than the tactical gullies rutted in the rules of Congressional procedure — shutdown politics is about politicians being stubborn, petty and stupid to little effect except human suffering. It is confirmation of the worst caricatures of right-wing populist democracy. It only works for nihilists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and would-be authoritarians like Donald Trump.”

“Democrats used to know this: If they are to be taken seriously, they must be the party that believes in the hard pull of governance, which is why their old symbol, now foolishly abandoned — the donkey, that working-class animal, the embodiment of stubborn effort — was so apt… Sweat, compromise and earnest effort to make lives better is the essential card Democrats have to play.”