Very very true

I think in retrospect it probably wasn’t even the best for ensuring real accountability then!

Indeed!

Too briefly!

This piece gets at what I was trying to say.
goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/open-wide?...

That's fair - I meant I more that I understand the impulse than to defend this particular view of the situation here. (I also saw some reporting that there are dems who are eager for more pain bc it gives them greater bargaining power, and I find that particularly repulsive.)

Do you mean he's giving them too much credit for caving bc they cared about the harms?

Agree. But I don't think there's any "natural" way to balance the incalculably harm from losing SNAP funding / other shutdown-related harms & harms that will happen bc Dems lost whatever negotiating leverage they could have used (esp bc that leverage is quite unclear, at least from what I've seen).