On Shutdown, We’ve All Lost

Terry H. Schwadron

Jan. 22, 2018

Let’s be clear here: There are no winners in this government shutdown.

Even if the parties agree today by pushing the next deadline out several days or two weeks, I fear that it will be déjà vu all over again, as Yogi would say.

As the shutdown drags on, mired in misleading, hyperbolic messages of blame, there is just an general inability to hear the other side. That we are in a government shutdown should be seen by all as an admission of failure, not a chance to beat up on the other guy. The whole discussion about not talking is making me as queasy as being on an out-of-control roller-coaster. This is not about problem-solving, it is about chest-beating.

Yes, Republicans, it would be better if Democrats did not hold up a vote on the temporary spending bill by an important immigration issue otherwise unrelated to spending. And yes, Democrats, it would be better if these guys would simply act instead of talking, stalling, moving the goalposts on fixing the Dreamers issue that the president himself created as a problem last September.

I totally concur with Democrats that once they demur, which they eventually will, the White House will pull the rug out from any agreement among senators on the key issues. Consistently, President Trump has shown that he will not stick with any statement he makes during the terrible processes of deal-making.

So, unfortunately, this showdown is not about Dreamers who face deportation from the only life they have known since childhood, it is not about children desperate for assurances about health insurance, it is not about military families getting their next paycheck (they will). Rather, this showdown is simply about a lack of trust.

I know something of negotiations, between management and unions, among warring business interests, among companies, in more personal settings too. Successful negotiation involves more than listening and more than compromise, it involves making the other party understand that its views matter, that there are people involved.

Through their behavior as well as their words, the President and the Republican leadership have persuaded Democrats that they will never get to tomorrow’s agenda. And along the way, they will demean and debase anyone who gets in their way of a right-wing agenda to cut legal immigration as well as illegal immigration, they will cut social services, they will rid the government of consumer and environmental protections and they will push federal responsibilities to states who can’t afford them. The White House playbook is to bulldoze over possible foes and questioners alike, to take away their humanity with demeaning insults, and cutting off all air in the room.

The agreement to fix the shutdown is remarkably easy: Just tell the truth. If Republicans are never going to approve a path to citizenship for Dreamers and other immigrants, they should simply say so and suffer the consequences. But it is disingenuous for the White House to call for Democrats to capitulate without some verifiable assurance of a vote on Dreamers and the rest. That’s right, trust, but verify . . . where have we heard that before?

Otherwise, what is the point of delaying a spending vote for a day or three, or four weeks, only to face the same things again?

For his part, the president is treating this as a monarch would, letting the commoners fight among themselves. But he is Trump, so everything comes with heated commentary, including the White House switchboard recording that tells callers that “Democrats are holding government funding — including funding for our troops and other national security priorities — hostage to an unrelated immigration debate.”

How is this helpful?

Trump called for an end to filibuster rules in the Senate, allowing Republicans to pass bills with 51 votes. Forget the fact that they did not even get 51 votes on this bill. What Trump really wants is one-party rule, a rubber-stamp legislature that merely okays whatever the White House proposes.

The dangers here of authoritarianism are more serious than the worst dysfunction of our democracy.

What smacks my forehead is the idea that this is dissension among the home team. In the eyes of the world, the country already has lost. We are an uncaring, selfish lot who cannot be trusted in a negotiation. What is the lesson that an Iran or Russia or China understands when Trump changes his mind every hour after a last-minute talk with a different advisor?

The President and Republican leadership had one issue before them — just one. They needed 60 votes, and having offended some in their own party, they needed 13 Democratic votes. How did they go get them? They didn’t, choosing instead to sneer and call names that only start with obstructionist and include new TV Trump ads that Democrats are “complicit” in any killings in the U.S. by illegal immigrants.

These White House and Republican leaders did not do their jobs on the question at hand. Therefore, we have a shutdown.

Perhaps Democrats did not have to demand an actual shutdown, but they needed something to acknowledge that their votes were needed. They got nothing but the back of the presidential hand.

We’ve all lost.

The Republicans have lost the specific vote, public support and respect. The Democrats have lost through a possible overplayed hand. The Dreamers, sick children, and everyone dependent on government services have lost a chance at certainty. The United States has lost in image around the world.

And it was all avoidable.

Sad.

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