The Eight Senators Who Failed our Coalition

Their job in this moment was to help us continue to win. Instead, they defaulted to the more comfortable job as Washington dealmakers.

Illustration by Abdelafatah Mukhtar

In a partisan rant at a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Donald Trump congratulated Speaker Mike Johnson for opening the government — even though Johnson was in his eighth week of a self-declared House recess. He also used the occasion to call the people he fired at the Veterans Administration “sick people” and “sadists.”

Americans saw the damage Trump inflicted on the nation during the shutdown. We saw him eagerly take food from the hungry, cause chaos in our skies, and threaten to pass laws that would make it impossible for Americans ever to vote him and his party out of office. Democrats saw much of this as a cruel attempt to avoid extending health care subsidies without which millions are now seeing their premiums double. Democrats opted to hold the line, despite the pain, to finally push Trump to keep his now ten-year-old promise to make care affordable.

Then eight Senators broke ranks and cut a deal.

A Shocking Deal

Senator Angus King, one of the gang of eight, argues that “there was zero chance of dealing with ACA issue as long as the shutdown continued.” Did he just now discover that Donald Trump and the GOP are cruel and don’t care about Americans? The chances of dealing with the Trump administration were no different last week than they were at the beginning of the shutdown. That eight Senators failed to understand this tells me they do not yet understand the seriousness of the threat. And after a decade of getting to know Donald Trump that is simply inexplicable.

Standing up for health care during the shutdown was standing for America, standing for voters, standing for a government that cares about its people. It was the great majority us condemning the MAGA crowd for their cruelty. And it was winning. (See results from last Tuesday’s elections.) The job of these eight Senators in this moment was to help us continue to win. Instead, they defaulted to the more comfortable job as Washington deal makers. That a choice that tells me they have been insiders for too long.

Incomprehensibly, they cut a deal that allows Ted Cruz and other January 6^th participants to get paid for their troubles by the taxpayers. The deal includes language that changes the law so Cruz et. al can sue the government for investigating their participation in the insurrection. It further undermines the rule of law. It is an insult to taxpayers. Did the eight Senators fail to read the bill? To have participated in its passage is unimaginable.

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For years now, Americans across the country have devoted our time and energy to build an enormous and diverse coalition. That work yielded the largest protests in our history, and this past week delivered both an unprecedented rebuke of MAGA rule and the first steps towards an America that once again works for the people. One of the first rules of building a coalition like this is nothing about you without you. That a group of eight Senators thought they could change the course of this coalition without so much as a conversation with us is the reason so many now feel betrayed.

Do the eight Senators think we are unmoved by the humanitarian price the Trump administration imposed upon us during the shutdown? We assuredly felt his cruelty more directly than those Senators did. Do they think we are naïve? We might very well decide that there is little left to gain and more to lose from holding the Republicans to account in this shutdown. But that decision does not belong to eight Senators.

Where Does that Leave Us?

Donald Trump has told the country we are at war. He says America’s cities are the field of battle, and he told our troops that they should prepare deploy. He is pushing to change election laws to lock in one party rule. Pretending any of this is politics as usual is dangerous and bordering on delusional. In an existential fight like this, our allies are still our allies, though angry with them we are.

There never has been a war where your allies don’t do something stupid or selfish or reckless. There has never been a war without setbacks, without accusations of betrayal. Lincoln got nothing from General McClelland except parades and a potential primary challenge. He eventually replaced him with Ulysses Grant. But not for a minute did Lincoln lose focus on the larger fight.

The source of legitimacy and strength in the Democratic Party is the commitment of its members to a government that works for the people. We err when we confuse the party with the handful of people who occupy important jobs in Washington. Democrats made Zorhan Mamdani ayor of New York, even without the support of the New York’s senior U.S. Senator, Chuck Schumer. Democrats elected two governors, and won statewide races in Georgia. And in California, they recognized that a national emergency required them to suspend their ban on gerrymandering.

None of these victories were the result of leadership from folks in Washington. We are the party. We have the power. Stop looking for it in the folks who work for us in Washington and, instead, let us put our confidence in each other.

Politically, the shutdown was a victory for Democrats, however it ended. Everyone knows that Donald Trump was willing, eager in fact, to starve Americans while he dined on gold trimmed plates. Everyone knows he chose to pay ICE and CPB thugs to attack our cities, while forcing American troops in Germany to get canned goods from a local food pantry. And everyone know that he had the Republicans in the U.S. House run and hide so they wouldn’t have to vote on releasing the Epstein files. During the shutdown, we won a big election and we welcomed millions more into our coalition.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Trump’s ICE/ CBP thugs posed for pictures at the well-known landmark known as the Bean while they mocked the victims of their illegal occupation. Talk about sick sadists.

Edwin Eisendrath hosts “It’s the Democracy, Stupid” on Lincoln Square and “The Big Picture” on WCPT820 AM/ Heartland Signal. You can follow him on BlueSky at eisendrath.net and Substack at “It’s the Democracy, Stupid.” Read the original column here.

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