The

The Back in September, when I was reporting out my piece on whether Democrats should shut down the government, on why they should

shut down the government. I kept hearing the same warning from veterans of past shutdown

fights. The president controls a bully pulpit. He controls, to some degree at least,

which parts of the government stay open and which parts close down. It is very, very, very hard for the opposition party to win a shutdown.

Which makes it somewhat remarkable that Democrats, Democrats were winning this one.

Poll showed most voters blamed Republicans, not Democrats, for the shutdown.

Maybe because instead of negotiating with the Democrats like other presidents would have,

President Trump was bulldozing the east wing of the White House to build a ballroom and throwing

great Gatsby parties at Mar-a-Lago while he canceled food assistance for hungry families.

Trump's approval rating has been falling as polling going down. In CNN's tracking poll, he dipped into the 30s for the first time since he took office again in this term.

And last week, Democrats absolutely wrecked Republicans in the elections.

And you could really argue whether or not the shutdown was part of that, but you know who thought it was part of it?

Donald J. Trump. And so Democrats, as of a few days ago, were riding higher than they have been in

months. They were winning. And then, over the weekend, a group of Senate Democrats broke ranks

and negotiated a deal to end the shutdown in return for, if we're being honest, very, very little.

The guts of the shutdown deal are this.

Food assistants, both SNAP and WIC, the Women, Infants and Children program,

they get a bit more funding.

Then if you look at other parts of the appropriations process,

there are some other modest concessions on spending levels

elsewhere in the government. You have a deal for laid off federal workers to be rehired, for

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