Maybe Democrats Learned a Lesson About Shutdowns

And in politics, popularity is not the only thing that matters. Intensity also matters, which is to say, "How much do voters actually care about this issue?" The number of Americans willing to say nice things about some proposal is inevitably smaller than the number of people who can be actually swayed by this issue to change their votes come November.

In the case of DACA, that number is probably pretty small indeed; outside of a hard core in each party's base, I doubt many Americans have very strong opinions on the matter, much less opinions strong enough to override issues they care about more. And shutting down the government over immigration effectively asks people to decide "What matters more to you: young immigrants who were brought here through no fault of their own, or your Social Security check?"

Human nature being what it is, no party should be surprised when shutdowns backfire. The question is whether Democrats and Republicans have both learned a lesson from the events of this weekend, or whether we are looking at more shutdowns in the future.

Republicans, after all, returned to shutdown tactics in 2013, even though they had earlier failed, which tells us that legislators don't always take the lessons of history to heart. When you care about an issue very much, it is extremely difficult to admit that there may be no political route to what you want.

Also, the shutdown this weekend represented a further escalation of the nasty game of tit-for-tat that has been eroding both political norms and legislative effectiveness over the last 30 years. One party breaks some norm, and then when Congress changes hands, the other party takes it further, until pretty soon, the norm disappears, and we are in a new, angrier state of "normal." Each party comes out of these episodes with a lengthening list of the prior violations by the other side, and a growing thirst for vengeance.

Until this weekend, Democrats could say that shutdowns were a peculiar form of Republican insanity. Now it appears that they are bipartisan, which is halfway to being normalized. Even more concerning than the normalization is what it suggests about our politics: Both parties have strong incentives to adopt extremist positions and obstructionist tactics, rather than try to find some middle ground.

On the other hand, both parties have now conclusively demonstrated that shutting down the government is not a way to get what they want.

And to Chuck Schumer's credit, he seems to have realized this fairly quickly. He didn't drag it out, as the previous shutdowns dragged out; he tried the tactic, realized it wasn't working, and pulled back before anyone outside of Washington really had time to notice.

Which leaves just a little hope that this episode may be less a sign of spreading disease than a sort of vaccination, a weakened dose that staves off a more serious sickness.

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