"But we do not live in ordinary times. And from the standpoint of wielding the leverage they have to bring a power-drunk, increasingly authoritarian White House to heel, it's hard to argue this shutdown was anything but a Democratic failure."

"But what's most perplexing about the decision of these eight caucusing Democrats to fold now is the timing.

According to the grisly political scoring of the shutdown blame game, the Democrats' position was strengthening, not weakening.

Polls consistently showed the public was disproportionately blaming the GOP and the White House for the impasse. Democrats got a strong vote of relative confidence in last week's off-year elections.

And it's hard to argue Republicans weren't starting to sweat, with Donald Trump starting to push every button on the dashboard in an attempt to shake something loose:

demanding the Senate abandon the filibuster and firing off cockamamie ideas about mailing out stimulus checks in lieu of restoring healthcare subsidies."

more at the thread link