Apparently the political contributors on MSNBC

[drray23]

still are analyzing the current situation as if it were business as usual. Both democratic strategic consultants were arguing that no matter what, we democrats can not really shut down the government because we will be blamed for it, regardless of the stakes. Their data point was what happened to the GOP when they did that to stop the passage of the ACA and the subsequent debacle at the polls. I think the situation is not even comparable.

Millions of people are expected to lose their healthcare, unable to afford the average 75% increase in costs for ACA coverage if the subsidies are eliminated.

So, according to them, no matter what democrats do, it's doomed to fail. We do not fight and we will be seen as feckless and deplete the vote on our side, if we stand strong, we will be blamed for the shutdown after a few weeks, where we apparently will give up, and the republicans won't.

This is exactly what the GOP is counting on. I think we should not submit in advance. This time, there is a movement that is starting to emerge and we need to keep pushing back. I would submit that the remedy is not to give up, it is to hold firm and drastically ramp up the information campaign to make it clear which it is critical.