I called up Jamel Bowie from over at the New York Times,

because after this weekend, I was mad.

Like, really mad.

And I wanted to talk to someone about it.

So, Jamel, now that it seems like the shutdown is ending, can you tell me what was the last six weeks about?

What was the last six weeks about? Yeah.

Late Sunday night, as you've probably heard, eight Senate Democrats decided to vote with Republicans

to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government. This, after sitting on their hands for six

weeks, in the hopes that Republicans would sign off on extending a bunch of health care tax credits

that expire at the end of the year.

In the end, Democrats compromised, but those ACA credits, they are still expiring.

And beyond a vague promise to hold a vote on them in December, Democrats did not get squat.

That's what really nodded at me. Hence the call to Jamel.

To step back a little bit, shutdowns as a political tactic have never been especially successful for the party that engages in them, which is the congressional minority party.

So were the Democrats destined to lose here?

So, yeah, that's where I'm going with this. I'm not sure that there is a world in which the majority, Republicans in Congress and President Trump, were going to

concede to Democrats, to lose face in that way. The fact that Democrats held on for 40 days

is actually, you know, I would not have expected that.

The problem is that senators themselves are portraying what they've done here as a cave.

Well, Joe, you have to go back to what the strategy was at the beginning of the shutdown.

Like this is Senator Angus King of Maine on MSNBC, explaining his vote. There were two goals, both of which I support. One was standing up to Donald Trump.

The other was getting some resolution on the ACA premium tax credit issue.

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