This is how the government shutdown was always going to end.

For the past 30 years, the party that has forced federal agencies to close their doors in a funding fight has never actually achieved the policy outcome it was demanding. Republicans did not successfully pressure then-President Barack Obama to defund his signature health-care law when they shut down the government in 2013. President Donald Trump, during his first term, failed to persuade Senate Democrats to authorize his border wall in 2019.

And over the past two weeks, a pivotal faction of Democrats abandoned their hope that Republicans would agree to extend insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act anytime soon. So late last night, they provided the key votes to begin the process of reopening the government after what

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