For those keeping score at home, this is the current state of our politics: The Democrats shut down the government, rejecting a continuing resolution that was so clean that even the New York Times had to admit as much. Having done this, the Democrats then pretended that they had done no such thing, while simultaneously insisting that the Republicans were responsible for the impending expiration of extravagant healthcare subsidies that were passed as a “temporary measure” on a Democrats-only party-line vote that had been made possible by Donald Trump’s sabotage of the 2021 Georgia runoff, in the hope that those subsidies would soften the ill effects of a law that, rather famously, was also passed on a Democrats-only party-line vote. Having won big in the off-year elections that occurred in the meantime, the Democrats then pivoted to admitting that they shut down the government – at which point, President Trump, who I’m supposed to believe is a once-in-a-generation “fighter,” suggested that the Republicans should respond by . . . abolishing the filibuster.
It’s enough to drive one to drink.