Joe Klein : “Let’s keep this simple: shutdown politics is sandbox politics. For much of the public—those who live heavy lives and have more to think about than the tactical gullies rutted in the rules of Congressional procedure–shutdown politics is about politicians being stubborn, petty and stupid to little effect except human suffering. It is confirmation of the worst caricatures of right-wing populist democracy. It only works for nihilists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and would-be authoritarians like Donald Trump.”

“Democrats used to know this: If they are to be taken seriously, they must be the party that believes in the hard pull of governance, which is why their old symbol, now foolishly abandoned—the donkey, that working-class animal, the embodiment of stubborn effort—was

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