Democrats Caved in the Shutdown Fight. Unions Let Them.
The government shutdown was a test showing where progressive forces are strong and where they’re weak. The results are in after last night’s Democratic capitulation to the GOP: most top union leaders are failing to meet the moment.
Countless Americans are rightfully incensed not only at the senators who voted to end the shutdown on Republicans’ terms but also at Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who let this capitulation happen. (Nathan Posner / Anadolu via Getty Images)
In a spectacular act of cowardice and idiocy last night, seven Democratic Party senators and one independent voted to end the shutdown on Republicans’ terms, squandering their momentum and leverage. Bernie Sanders laid out the likely consequences of this capitulation:
It raises health care premiums for over twenty million Americans by doubling, in some cases, tripling or quadrupling, and it paves the way for fifteen million people to be thrown off of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Studies show that some 50,000 Americans will die every year unnecessarily — and all that was done to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1 percent.
Countless Americans today are rightfully incensed not only at the senators who caved but also at Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who let this capitulation happen.
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