The Democrats were furious Monday over eight senators who caved to support a deal to end the government shutdown that does not include the Affordable Care Act subsidies their party had spent weeks fighting for.
The offending lawmakers include Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Tim Kaine, Jacky Rosen, John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, and independent Senator Angus King, who claimed that they’d ensured a Senate vote on extending the tax credits. Their capitulation comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted for weeks that he wouldn’t promise them a vote on anything, and even if he does follow through with a vote, it’s unlikely such a measure will pass the House.
Democratic lawmakers slammed their colleagues for forfeiting health care coverage for an estimated 5.1 million Americans by 2034 and increasing premiums across the marketplace.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders railed against the deal while speaking before the Senate Sunday. “If this vote succeeds, over 20 million Americans are gonna see at least a doubling in their premiums in the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “For certain groups of people, it will be a tripling and a quadrupling of their premiums. There are people who will now be paying 50 percent of their limited incomes for health care. Does anybody in the world think that makes sense?”
Preserving the extremely shitty health care system as it was before the shutdown is not what I would call greatness
Sure but now 50k extra people die a year. Some of the users here included.
Thanks for making things so great bud!
“We ensured a vote!”
Bullshit. Even if the vote happens, it won’t pass, and even if it did, Trump could veto it. This was the one chance to save the ACA and also to really damage Trumpism. The shutdown was devastating to the GOP and the Dems would have won eventually just like in 2019, but instead these 8 traitors are handing the country over when they’ve just had their only real opportunity to fight this administration.
Fuck them all. Every single one of them should be ejected from the caucus.
I bet they’d have voted differently if they needed SNAP and had to get a “marketplace” healthcare plan.
Our “public servants” cannot represent us when they’re a part of their own elite, untouchable socioeconomic class.
THESE are the Democrats that should be uprooted from the party and replaced with candidates that actually represent their voter base.
The fact that Dems has this many spoilers shows you that they aren’t really beating the controlled opposition claims.
We need a Democratic Party that fights back. Not one that caves to evil.
THIS is why many people on Lemmy are disillusioned by Democrats. Dems had only positive outcomes for themselves by letting the shutdown continue. They could have waited while Trump fucks the citizenry more and more, deepening their political capital for 2026.
Instead, all of the Dems who aren’t facing re-election next year, or have re-election in 2028 or 2030 voted to end the shutdown. These Dems have no opportunity loss for voting this way. Un-fucking-believable
They’re not evil and old like Trump They’re just old and unable to fight a post-truth populist like Trump
They don’t understand how important it is to never show capitulation
If your actions are indistinguishable from evil, you are evil.
There is no way these people don’t know how many lives they’re going to ruin and end with this vote. There is no way they actually believe they’re going to get the ACA tax credits from the political party that let the government shut down over the issue. Functionally evil is the same as evil.
Do not give them excuses. They were bought out at the very least. They held on this long knowing why, they gave up for probably a monetary reason. Maybe threats, because he’s the mob. Threats are the only reason I will accept.
I have seen no evidence for your assertion about monetary compensation.
You’re basing your beliefs on tribalistic other-hating, a very post truth thing to do.
Do better. Show evidence.
“Show evidence” is a crap debating technique.
You’re basing your beliefs on tribalistic other-hating, a very post truth thing to do.
You made this evidence-free assertion in the very same post. Grow up.
They’re not confused, they’re not cowards, they know what will happen, they are complicit.
they are capitalists. they are career politicians. they. are. evil. anyone who ever says “the dems and reps are different” is a documented dumbass. this is proof that all parties are effectively right wing.
Of course they’re both right wing, but that doesn’t make them the same. Angela Merkel and Adolf Hitler were both rightwing chancellors of Germany. It DOES NOT make them the same.
8 crap senators who aren’t standing again capitulated and gave in to the republicans. The rest were standing firm. If there were just a few more dems they could have still stood firm.
i’ll have more faith when the 8 change parties
Actually, it turns out 1 is independent and another is already suspended or something.
Anyway, yes, but they can do so much more damage from within, so I think they won’t.
If you vote to enable fascism, you are yourself a fascist, regardless of what color arm band you choose to wear.
And if the vote happens and passes and people get to keep their health care, will you apologize to all these democrats and admit they made the right decision?
That won’t happen. Cons will fuck over Americans.
The Dems that caved with this vote had “hope” their Con counterparts would vote the right way.
They didn’t even get real assurances in policy measures!!!
And if the vote never materializes, or ends in inevitable failure, will you apologize for posting stupid fucking hypotheticals like this one?
I will never apologize for hypotheticals. Even the stupid fucking ones!
But… What if you did?
Now that’s a stupid fucking hypothetical!
All the skies need the pies?
🥧
This is absolutely not going to be what happens or it would’ve happened already
I think raising attention to this issue is the only thing Democrats could hope to accomplish. And they did it with the shutdown.
Now if Republicans do not hold a vote, or if they vote against it, there will be much more negative attention given to them.
I believe this funding only goes until Jan 31st. So if they don’t pass the healthcare in December, the government will just be shut down again.
I think raising attention to this issue is the only thing Democrats could hope to accomplish.
They certainly raised attention to how utterly worthless they have always been and always will be.
Haha, good one
What are you smoking? 8 Democrats have now cosigned a poison pill of throwing millions of people off healthcare in addition to everything trump is doing with the government
And what is keeping the government shutdown going to do that is different? They would still lose their healthcare!
Do you honestly believe the Republicans were going to cave on this issue?
They were because they need to pay ICE agents etc.
You sure they weren’t still getting paid? This article was from a few weeks ago. Maybe it’s changed since then.
I will give you $100 if the vote passes. 100 United States Dollars if they get the vote, it passes Congress, and Trump doesn’t veto it. Hold me to this. I will send you $100 dollars, via PayPal, Venmo, Cash app, or a fucking wire transfer. (If you wait for me to get paid, depesning on when the vote passes.)
Republicans won’t allow it. To think they ever will is a foolish wish. You might as well ask Trump to suddenly become a good person like he was haunted by 3 sprits in the middle of the night.
They had the the Trump and Republicans in a gambit of chess, and then sacrificed a Queen and Rook to just get rid of their possible Checkmate. And that’s somehow smart when they lost more pieces and haven’t won anything, just lost more things we could have kept around.
That’s a couple of fucking enormous ifs you’re basing your dreams on. In all my days, and I’m very old, a party caving while they had the support of the voters but the minority in Congress has never worked out.
In all your days had a government shutdown ever resulted in anything substantial?
Substantial yes, but not necessarily good. One enabled Reagan to get the Contras funded,one helped Bush lower taxes on the wealthy, another led to Clinton’s reelection…
In general the population has blamed Republicans for causing shutdowns, through history, but Democrats have repeatedly caved on them without attaining their goals.
I sincerely hope this one brings about the end of Schumer’s career.
On the other hand the end of ACA will hurt Trumpism a lot, since many of his voters were using this benefit
They held out for 40 days just to torture ppl who need benefits
Sure, they held out all that time, so they could get a massive midterm victory, just to completely surrender all their new political capital.
While American citizens see that election as a victory, Democrats don’t really see it that way. That was a Progressive victory, and the Dems look at it as almost as big a loss as the MAGAs do. They weren’t about to keep holding out, and giving the Socialists another victory to run on 2028.
flights getting cancelled, and atc quitting got them nervous asf.
Well, we wouldn’t want any politicians to be nervous, so let’s give up our health care so they feel better.
There, there, Schmuckie Chuck, are you feeling better now that you can fly whenever you want, while your constituents suffer and die without health care?
Maybe when you lose your healthcare you will understand why they did it.
Are you implying I don’t already need the affordable care act? Because I do. They acted like they wouldn’t fucking cave for 40 days then these 8 go and say meh fuck it who cares. wtf was it all for then?
You can say the same about every lost fight. With that mentality, nobody would ever fight for the right thing. Obviously it was an attempt to save ACA, then these 8 jumped ship, probably claiming the pain threshold had become too high.
It sucks, but you can’t say the fight didn’t have to be fought.The sunk-cost fallacy isn’t a winning argument, here. But the goal is protecting healthcare for regular people is a strong enough goal that it doesn’t need sunk-cost. These 8 could have protected their people but jammed-out.
They’re saying that the fact that they folded makes all the harm of the last 40 days meaningless. These 8 motherfuckers waited until extra harm had been done before signing off on the harm caused by getting the ACA.
This outcome is the worst possible. If they’d been spineless 6 weeks ago they’d still be traitors, but this is somehow even worse.
They’re saying that the fact that they folded makes all the harm of the last 40 days meaningless.
Oh come on! It wasn’t meaningless! It was a cynical con to get votes that they abandoned as soon as the election was over!
They basically treated it like every U.S involved conflict in recent history.
Commit tons of resources, suffer massive casualties, give up and go home declaring an empty victory.
they more than likely planned to do this anyways.
Dummie this vote just cost me my healthcare. Good job I’ll probably be one of the first 50k dead thanks fuckhead chuck
So why am I the dummy for backing them up on trying to save ACA?
I think people here read my post out of context.
Yep and Leadership sit this up so it look like it was 8 traitor. These were all safe seats. Its goddamn conspiracy. Fuck Chuck.
And this is why we need to shout down and muppet that blindly parrots “vote blue no matter who.” These folks rely on the flawed assumption that electing Democrats is the fastest way to fight authoritarianism. But if the party is actually just a scam? If it’s just controlled opposition? You have no great options at that point. At that point your only option is to ignore the fake opposition and push for a new left wing party, even if it takes you 20 years to implement. Voting for a captured opposition party is little more than an act of masturbation.
Voting is hilariously low effort. Always vote for the best option available. If you don’t actually like who you voted for of course you should advocate for a new party and/or voting system, but you should still vote in the meantime
I would say it is far worse than masturbation, there is no gratification to be had from it.
Indeed. I haven’t felt good when I’ve voted for a long time. =\
i think they were gauging the democratic wins recently in other elections, they are banking people will forget and ride thier way into the 2026 elections. i think if NYC mayor dint win, they probably wouldnt have forced the reopening so soon. its extremely calculated by schumer, plus he handpicked the people not up for re-election anyways,.
They know it won’t pass.
They’re relying on the old tactic of them getting that vote, then blaming progressives for failing to get it passed.
claimed that they’d ensured a Senate vote on extending the tax credits
Stonewalling the budget was how you could have done that. Fucking lying pieces of shit.
California Governor Gavin Newsom summed the situation up the most succinctly. “Pathetic,” he wrote on X Sunday.
Even Newsom is piling on?
He’s a very opportunistic politician, he knows how unpopular the dems are right now, he is carving out his path for '28, but I have very little faith that his almost inevitable presidency will bring us any real change for the people.
Hey, Gavin’s dad!
I cannot fucking believe it. -Jon Stewart
What we’ll never hear is what those eight received in their personal bank accounts. They weren’t so much “holding out” as negotiating.
I have to say, some kind of incentive (monetary or next step of career/legacy) seems like kind of an obvious question, and it’s weird nobody has even pointed that out. Especially if most of these Dems aren’t seeking reelection.
What kind of Democrat betrays her party, and then goes on Fox News of all places to give the details?
Which one of these senators has a primary opponent?
My understanding is none, because they chose members who are already retiring for this
Fetterman isn’t a Democrat anymore. He will likely get voted out next term, regardless.
King is not a Democrat.
Masto is barely a Democrat, but that’s what her constituents wanted.
Shaheen is retiring.
Durbin is retiring.
Rosen and Kaine have not announced retirement, so they are interesting. Rosen just won a very close race in Nevada, so she either tried to appease conservative voters there or thinks she is gone anyway. No idea what Kaine is thinking.
Rosen and Kaine have not announced retirement, so they are interesting. Rosen just won a very close race in Nevada, so she either tried to appease conservative voters there or thinks she is gone anyway. No idea what Kaine is thinking.
Never discount the possibility of blackmail, too.
At this point we should assume every establishment politician at every level of government is being blackmailed.
If “they” chose these members to do this, why are “they” now mad at them? Either this was not a planned move by Democrat leadership and they should be pissed, or… well, while I don’t think the Democrats are all that great, I won’t slip into the “both sides” or “it’s the same party” mindset, as they hardly are comparable and that’s a very deep conspiracy to think that this was the plan all along.
Sorry should have been more specific, they in this case refers to senate leadership, specifically Chuck Schumer, but also including anyone else involved in negotiating the ‘deal’
The dog walks itself.
https://prospect.org/2025/11/08/why-does-schumer-keep-trying-to-cave-government-shutdown/
This article says they moved with the explicit approval and knowledge of Schumer.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m5bpyndmlp2u
This links to a clip on Fox news where Shaheen confirms they informed Schumer of their moves every step of the way. It’s not just a few bad apples, the bunch is rotten.
It’s like a race to the bottom, who can destroy things faster, Trump or Schumer. He had the support of most of the public to hold the line, right? Is he an idiot? Seems to be.
None this year but now you have 2-4 additional years to raise a candidate?
Dafuq kind of question is this? You think from today to 2026 you’re going to get an opponent on the ballot? Do you even understand how this works lol
They may have been “protecting” the filibuster. If Republicans removed the filibuster, it would pave the way for Democrats to do the same thing. If Democrats were to lose the excuse of the Republican filibuster stopping them from passing legislation, they’d be forced to reveal that there are many more fucking disingenuous pieces of shit just like Manchin and Sinema ready to tank progressive legislation.
This is paranoid. Reality is not a giant conspiracy when simple explanations exist.
This is the simple explanation. Corrupt individuals in positions of power using their power to engage in more corruption.
What’s ridiculous are the claims that this is some 4D chess move that will reveal some indeterminate major benefit for us at some indeterminate point in the future. That these people are all good with good intentions simply because they belong to a specific private organization, and that if things appear to contradict this, it’s only because we couldn’t possibly understand their big brain moves. Anyone who’s been paying attention can see right through this farce.
How is “corpo dems are corpo” not simple?
It’s “oops all manchins” as far as I’m concerned,
That feels like a convenient and simple viewpoint. It must be easy for you.
It’s a conclusion I’ve drawn from decades of behavior. No, it’s not even remotely easy because the people who would crawl over used heroin needles to drink the bilge water from manchin’s houseboat keep gaslighting and employing other methods of abuse against those who disagree with them from the left. There is no one who disagrees with them to the right.
From a functional standpoint, there is no democratic party.
Everyone has decades of experience with human behavior. Yours is no more valuable than anyone else’s, so it’s not a valid support of your argument.
Your opinion is easy because it’s simple and convenient. For people facing harder realities, their opinions will vary, and that’s ok. Those opinions are valid.
Peace and blessings.
Everyone has decades of experience with human behavior. Yours is no more valuable than anyone else’s, so it’s not a valid support of your argument.
There is no argument that supports any criticism of democrats as far as you’re concerned.
Your opinion is easy because it’s simple and convenient.
Sometimes, things are simple.
For people facing harder realities, their opinions will vary, and that’s ok.
“If you have a different opinion from my unconditional worship of the democratic party, it’s because you have it easy, not because your experience is valid.”
I never said your experience was invalid. I’m sorry but whoever trained you in rhetoric missed the mark completely. I’d ask for a refund, assuming you paid for it.
I never said your experience was invalid.
Sure you didn’t. Just that mine’s not worth anything and those of people whose opinions match your own are valid.
I’m sorry but whoever trained you in rhetoric missed the mark completely. I’d ask for a refund, assuming you paid for it.
I’m sorry centrists think “gaslighting” and “debate” are synonyms.
I don’t think it’s necessarily all Manchin’s but I wouldn’t be surprised if 30-70% were on a Manchin-like spectrum. I’m pretty sure that when most mainstream Democrats champion anything remotely progressive, they don’t really want it to fully succeed (if at all) and would actually vote against the original legislation as written. The supposed champions are depending on Republicans and the open Manchin’s to negotiate it down to something the champions would actually be willing to vote for.
I remember, years ago, Republicans put some extremely unpopular legislation up for a vote as a performative gesture knowing it would receive zero Democrat votes. Then one or maybe a few Democrats strategically voted in favor, knowing it would be catastrophic for the Republicans approval if they actually passed it in a Republican controlled Congress. Suddenly the remaining Republicans were forced to vote against the bill in order to prevent it from passing. I recall it was considered a very ballsy and impressive move from Democratic leadership.
Without the filibuster, the roles could absolutely be reversed… but the bill would be extremely popular and Republicans could show the true nature of the Democratic party as the Democrats purposely tank it to prevent it from actually passing.
the republicans removed the filibuster the other day to get a bunch of nominations through. It barely made the news.
https://time.com/7316763/nuclear-option-senate-republicans-trump-nominees/
Finally a reasonable response
Fucking expel them.
Oh man they’re really feeling torn into! I bet they’re sitting in their mansions just racked with guilt and shame over how upset their constituents are! I’m sure they feel just awful for their staffer who has to reply to all the messages they get with a bland, form letter that addresses none of their questions or concerns.
schumer is worth like 81million, yea hes sipping his expensive wine, probably dining with the donors, and the gop in secret.
Textbook definition of controlled opposition
Some rambling thoughts:
For all the screeching about 3P leading up to the election, NOW might be the time to drive something like the Working Families Party (that helped elect Zohran) forward and purposefully fragment the Dems at a federal level. What is there to lose? They’re compromised and failing to pose any kind of opposition while Nazis literally control every facet of federal government (and are definitely fucking with elections). Splitting the party would act as a dead man’s switch that puts pressure on the Dems to shift left and form a coalition or officially die as a party.
Realistically, ~3% support would be enough to be a serious threat. Remember that MAGA started with the joke of a tea party
I’m not saying this is a perfect idea, this is just an angry shower thought in response to the Dems. But I wanna know your thoughts, agree or disagree
They’re on the same neoliberal team.
Yeah stop sending money for chuck Schumer to use to fuck everyone. At least Donald trump took donors money and did what he said he was going to do, give to a party you agree with and no longer the so called least bad option. Real progressives need to see the ship sinking and get off now.
They used to kill politicians for less.
We used to know how to deal with aristocrats and bad politicians
What the fuck was the point of the shutdown if the Dems are just going to capitulate to whatever republicans want? This was their one bit of leverage and they pissed it away.
I contacted my democratic representative.
If you didn’t do the same, you have no right to complain.
Yeah I don’t have a Democratic rep to contact
Then what have you done to address the problem? Complaining on Lemmy obviously isn’t helping. Have you tried anything else?
I have an insider secret on government shutdowns. Both sides are in on it, both sides plan it, both side cause it and both sides want it. Oh and super duper secret is that both sides are full of bullshit, and they still get their full salary uninterrupted. And one more thing: all politicians lie. By their own nature or else they would not be in politics or have the desire to get in office.
No, both sides are not the same, but collectively they kind of are. And they all manipulate us to think otherwise.
Yep, with one maneuver, this just became the Dem shutdown. Why were they holding out unless they just wanted to hurt people?
Hey, crazy question for any lemmings here whose Senator was one of the 8 who voted to end the shutdown:
Did ANY of you email your senator and tell them you fully support the shutdown and urge them to never give in until the health care provision was fixed?
Everyone in here bitching about Senators taking money, or both parties being the same, all the typical brain dead bullshit the keyboard politicos blather, did ANY of you contact your Senators and make your voice heard?
Don’t bother replying. We all know the answer.
Hey everyone we could have kept them from taking that fat check if we’d only followed this hero’s lead and written them a strongly-worded letter
No bit junkie you are helpless! Keep sitting in your room pounding away on your keyboard how helpless you are, how there’s nothing you can doooooo!
As opposed to pounding away on yours with false hope that it’s having an effect?
Yes, I did in fact call both of my senators. Neither was one of the eight, but I told them to strongly urge their colleagues not to make this deal.
Your cynical assumptions about what people did or did not do are pointless. Go do something yourself and quit making up shit to chastise others for.
Oh right, because you did, all the other lemmings did as well, right? Please, spare me your righteous indignation. You actually think ALL the people constantly complaining how the system is rigged there’s nothing that can be done, and all the BOTH SIDES SAME arguments seen in the majority of comments here, you think that these indicate lemmy is full of people who actively engage with their representatives? lol
Yep, because all the constituents magically knew that their elected representatives were making deals behind their backs.
Are you kidding? Are you telling me you had no idea they were holding votes constantly to reopen the government?? They held at least 14 votes my man. Each and every vote was the potential for “a deal”. Clearly you never reached out to your representatives at least once during those 14 votes.
Thanks for highlighting my point.
My senators are both Republicans so I’m pretty sure they’re happy for the distraction.
I’m sure the Republicans NEVER contact their Democratic representatives to complain or make their voices heard, so yeah, you shouldn’t contact your Republican representatives. Never make your voice heard, what’s the point right it’s useless we are all so powerless oh god I give up you are all right downvote me we have no power THEY WIN!!
They stopped responding or taking my calls, so I usually only contact them when they are directly involved in the outcome of a decision.
One of my senators is the pro vaccine medical doctor that was the deciding vote for RFK’s fitness hearing. I wrote to him telling him I knew he understood more than anyone else why it was important not to approve him. I guess he never got the message.
I’ve lost faith in Republicans, but I haven’t lost my faith. I haven’t given up and neither should you. If you’re cursed with life, what recourse do you have, but to live?
Then I owe you an apology. If you’re stuck in a gerrymandered district I hope the Democrats can one day push the Redistricting Reform Act forward that they’ve been attempting since 2019.
I contacted both of my no vote senators and told them to get their house in order or I will not be donating, progressive or not, to them.
