Like almost all progressives, I was infuriated and disheartened by Senate Democrats’ cave on the shutdown Sunday. The party won stunning election victories Tuesday — and its leaders responded with yet another preemptive surrender? (Chuck Schumer may have voted no, but he didn’t manage, and may not even have tried, to prevent defections.)
Yet while the immediate politics displayed Democratic tactical weakness, the larger story highlighted a different kind of weakness on the part of Donald Trump and MAGA as a whole — namely, their innate cruelty. They have a visceral dislike for policies that do anything to help the less fortunate, and can’t even bring themselves to be cynical, to help Americans temporarily while they consolidate power.
Consider the grounds on which the shutdown fight took place. Democrats made it about the enhanced subsidies that have kept premiums for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act fairly reasonable for millions of Americans — Americans who are now facing huge premium hikes that will create intense financial distress and force many to go uninsured.
Before the big cave, Democrats proposed a deal in which they would provide the votes to reopen the government in return for a one-year extension of those enhanced benefits. Republicans should have jumped at this deal. It’s true that Republicans are determined to destroy much of the social safety net. The One Big Beautiful Bill will impose savage cuts in Medicaid and food stamps. But these big cuts are set to happen after the midterm elections.
Drastically increasing health care costs at the beginning of 2026, causing millions to lose insurance, certainly looks like a massive political blunder. My guess is that it doesn’t reflect a considered strategy. Instead, Republicans just stumbled into this because nobody in a position of power within the party understood how the ACA works.
And polling suggests overwhelming public support for extending the enhanced subsidies: 74 percent overall, including half of Republicans.
So Republicans should have been eager for a chance to postpone the pain. Instead, by rejecting Democratic proposals, Republicans have placed the onus for soaring premiums squarely on themselves.
But the thought of doing something decent, even cynically and temporarily, doesn’t seem to have crossed Republican minds. John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, immediately declared the proposed deal a “nonstarter,” insisting that his party would only negotiate about healthcare after the government is reopened — which everyone understands means that Republicans will agree to nothing.
Why reject a deal that could have protected Republicans from their own mistakes? Part of the answer is sheer ignorance. Here was Trump’s response:
Substance aside, think about the idiocy of the timing here. The health insurance crisis is happening right now, as Americans open letters from their insurers and discover that they are facing huge increases — more than 100 percent on average, much more in many cases — in the cost of coverage beginning in just a few weeks. This is not exactly the time to propose immediately scrapping our existing health care system, replacing it with … something.
And a vague promise to deal with an immediate crisis by totally revamping healthcare is especially lacking in credibility coming from a man who has been promising, and failing, to deliver a superior alternative to Obamacare for around 9 years.
On the substance, Trump’s post makes it clear that after all this time he still has no idea how health care works. We’ve always known that he didn’t and doesn’t understand Obamacare, and why it’s hard to come up with a better system other than single-payer health insurance. But it’s now clear that he doesn’t even understand why healthcare relies on insurance, why we can’t pay medical expenses out of pocket. Hint: You never know if or when you’ll need extremely expensive treatment, but should the need arise, only the ultra-wealthy can come up with the necessary cash.
Oh, and it’s especially rich to see Trump take a break from boasting about his new gold-and-marble bathrooms to pretend to hate “money sucking Insurance Companies.”
Anyway, Trump’s vague ideas are, as Thune would say, a nonstarter. But why not punt, postponing the health affordability crisis by agreeing to a temporary extension of the ACA subsidies?
The answer, I believe, is that doing so would involve giving help to people who need it — and that’s something that, at a deep psychological level, MAGA can’t bring itself to do.
Going beyond government programs, most Americans are very unhappy about the state of the economy. They see high grocery prices and a very weak job market. Consumers’ assessment of the current state of the economy is worse now than it was at the peak of the 2021-22 inflation surge, or the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
The rational thing for Trump to do would be to say “I feel your pain,” while blaming the previous administration and promising that things will get better soon. But he can’t even fake empathy. Instead, he keeps insisting that things are great, in particular that “groceries are way down.”
This is factually false. More important from a political point of view, it contradicts what people — even Republican partisans — are seeing in their own lives. Here’s what Americans think about grocery inflation, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll.
Has there ever been a case in which “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” was an effective political strategy? Last Tuesday’s elections clearly showed that it isn’t working now. But Trump and his minions seem unable to try anything different.
MAGA can’t help being cruel. It can’t even pretend to care about other people’s suffering. And Democrats should take full advantage of this pathology.
Is Krugman Right About Everything? Anything?
Paul Krugman is right that Republicans (for the benefit of Republicans) should have taken the deal.
He fails to understand Trump offered something much better than a one-year extension. And that offer, IF it happens, will be extremely costly.
Trump hopped on a proposal to send free money to people instead of paying their insurance.
Now, that may happen and it may not. But Trump embraced it making it likely.
Trump Embraces Universal Basic Income
Trump on Truth Social: I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over. In other words, take from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people, and terminate, per Dollar spent, the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World, ObamaCare. Unrelated, we must still terminate the Filibuster!
Irony Abounds
That was not in the deal that just passed through the Senate. But Trump embraced it.
Sending money directly to the people is the start of Universal Basic Income (UBI).
Once UBI starts neither party will be able to stop it.
In return for a measly, $35 billion extension, Republicans offered UBI.
So, Ironically, for the sake of the deficit, $35 billion is a wonderful insurance policy against disaster.
Thus, Krugman should be pleased as punch with the development. So should Nate Silver and AOC.
I’ve never really been on the same page as Congressional Democrats when it comes to shutting down the government. In the spring, I thought they should pick a fight over Elon Musk and DOGE-related cuts, but they didn’t.
Then in September, I thought all their options were pretty bad. But that tariffs, not health care, would at least highlight President Trump’s unpopular handling of the economy and provide more of a pain point for Republicans — without offering a deal that could actually help the GOP in next year’s elections by extending popular health care subsidies.
Mind you, I didn’t expect Democrats to actually extract concessions from the GOP on tariffs. Rather, if Democrats held firm, Republicans would eventually have to pass a budget on their own by eliminating the filibuster — something that Democrats would rather be without anyway should they win a trifecta back in 2028.
And then once the shutdown began on Oct. 1, I disagreed with the conventional wisdom that Democrats were “winning” it. True, polls found that a slight plurality of voters blamed Republicans rather than Democrats. But those same polls showed that voters didn’t understand why there was a shutdown in the first place, and that Democrats’ message on health care wasn’t breaking through.
What Does Win Mean?
As with Krugman, Silver offers superficial analysis of what went down. Democrats had little means to fight DOGE cuts. They won and lost some battles in the courts.
The courts mostly sided with Trump and when the courts did, I think the courts made the correct rulings.
Silver disagrees with the assessment “Democrats were winning it.”
I suggest Democrats won it, to the extent it was winnable.
Democrats won in the court of public opinion. That’s not conjecture. It’s fact. Look no further than … How Bad an Evening Did Republicans Have in the November 4 Elections?
Democrats won 18 out 18 comparison measures in New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and California.
See the above link for discussion.
Question of the Day
Q: To what extent could Democrats win? A: To the extent they did.
They held on long enough for Republicans to get clobbered in November elections, long enough for Obamacare premiums to rise, long enough for Republicans to get most of the blame, long enough to see Trump try in the courts to kill SNAP benefits, and long enough for some air traffic jams to happen.
But the real bonus was long enough to see Trump respond with a UBI program that if started could be one of the biggest budget bloaters since Medicare.
Again, this might not happen, but Trump is in a vote-buying mood.
Krugman is so upset he cannot see the obvious. And he is upset for the alleged folding by the Democrats. This brings to mind a second question.
Q: What more could Democrats expect to win? A: Nothing
Since there was nothing more to gain, it was correct for Democrats to declare the war won and move on.
Those concerned about budget deficits defined “winning” as not giving Democrats anything.
I said (for different reasons than Krugman), Republicans should jump at the offer.
Flashback November 7, 2025 MishTalk Democrats Offer a One-Year Obamacare Extension Deal. Should Republicans Accept?
Decision Irony
“At some point, they’ve got to make a decision about whether or not they want to keep this going or they want to end it,” Thune said of Democrats.
Schumer’s offer reverses the setup.
How I see it: “At some point, Republicans have to make a decision about whether or not they want to hold out for 100 marbles or accept 98.”
Republicans would be crazy not to accept this offer. It’s just one year. And they can block further extensions easily.
What Happened Instead?
Please consider my November 10 post How to Judge the Shutdown Deal: Look at the Reaction of Gold and Bonds
We have a deal. It will increase the deficit more than anyone can foresee now.
What’s In the Deal?
Healthcare money goes straight to households via flexible spending accounts.
The bill ensures back pay for federal workers after the White House had earlier called into question whether the money was guaranteed.
Provisions reversed thousands of firings of federal workers initiated by the Trump administration since the shutdown
Provisions forbid additional firings at least through Jan. 31, when a new interim spending measure expires.
The deal passed the Senate 60-40 but no one can really say how the healthcare spending accounts work.
Flexible Spending Accounts = UBI Start
The direct cash to consumers is the start of Universal Basic Income (UBI). And now Republicans own that.
This mechanism once started will never end. Money handouts will go up and up and up.
Gold responded by jumping $80 and the a follow-up the next day. It went from $3974 to $4132 in the past few days.
Final Irony
MAGA brags about the win. Progressives moan about the loss.
The real picture is the reverse.
Democrats hit a potential grand slam if Trump follows up with his vote-buying UBI scheme. Even if not, firings didn’t just stop, they reversed. It’s the best possible outcome for Democrats.
This, we call “winning”.
Finally, Democrats are correct to not brag about this. They should continue to piss and moan to goad Trump into following through with UBI.
Addendum
I offer this reader comment, as is.
Reader: Why is Krugman upset? Because like me, they hate what Trump is doing to this country.
And like me, they absolutely deplore the thought that he had the gall to hold innocent children hostage on SNAP to get his way.
Grok: “Both parties’ spending addictions truly endanger children’s futures through $36 trillion debt—reform demands accountability, not partisan outrage.”
Addendum Two
A reader asked for links to Senator Cassidy’s Proposal
I provided discussion in a previous post. At least one Democrat senator was thrilled. But also look at Trump’s Truth Social post!
“Why not take the people who have higher healthcare premiums and just mail them a check and let them decide?” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
“Republicans are now talking about how they want to go after big insurance companies,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “If they’re serious, I’m all in.”
“Let’s just move beyond our trench line, and let’s actually think creatively,” said Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R., La.), the proponent of the leading idea, on the Senate floor Saturday. “And can we give just a little bit to find something which actually benefits the patient but may also get us out of this situation?”
Cassidy’s Proposal
Cassidy “Instead of paying insurance companies to manage our money, let’s trust Americans to manage their own care — with a pre-funded Federal Flexible Spending Account.”
I propose this would be the start of UBI. And Trump embraced it.
All that remains is whether it passes because Trump would sign the bill.
