ALSO SEE: Angus King Broke Ranks to Help End the Government Shutdown. The Backlash Has Been Withering

Immediately after eight Democratic Senators made the decision to end the longest government shutdown in US history on their own California Governor Gavin Newsom posted a one word response on X, it said simply, “Pathetic.”

Each of the eight Democratic Senators stepped to the microphone in turn to defend their reasons. But their reasons missed the entire point. The reasoning can be debated ad nauseam, but their arguments were never the really at issue. As I said in a reply to Ezra Levin on BlueSky, the problem was not the veracity of their arguments, it was the arrogance they displayed in acting unilaterally. That in the end was the primary driver of the outrage.

What the ‘Pathetic Eight’ could not comprehend was that the effort to prevent a huge spike in healthcare premiums under the Affordable Care Act, (ACA), AKA, Obamacare was bigger, way bigger than them. Congressional Democrats tend to struggle with democracy and democratic process writ large. If the plane is headed to St. Louis and I force it to go to Chicago I am no longer a passenger, I become a hijacker. The fact that I think Chicago is a nicer city is irrelevant.

What the Pathetic Eight did was classic abuse of process. They were/are in positions of authority, yet they abandoned what had been a unified, cooperative effort by congressional Democrats and their base (us) to defend the ACA tax subsidies, and keep healthcare affordable.

The New Republic reported the “Real Reason” the Democratic senators broke ranks and caved was that they wanted to use the Obamacare issue as a campaign issue. That’s actually worse than abandonment of process, that approaches professional negligence.

Yes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, even though he voted no to the deal with Republicans was almost certainly involved with decision making process, if not personally responsible. Accordingly Schumer at the end of day bears equal if not greater culpability. He is the Democratic Senate Leader. His guidance is or should be a primary consideration for every Democratic Senator. Ultimately by design or default Schumer owns this capitulation just as surely as he owned the last one.

It was great to see a war break out over the absolutely unconscionable state of healthcare in America. There should be a war every day on this issue, until the right of Americans to access healthcare in the wealthiest nation on earth is guaranteed.

More to come on that.