David Rothkopf writes:

It would be a mistake to overreact to the decision by eight Senate Democrats to vote to end the government shutdown without real guarantees that Americans will be able to afford health care and maintain health insurance coverage.

Do not, for example, make plans to immediately move to Canada or any other country with a sane, stable healthcare system just because those Democrats were spineless, visionless, out of touch with the rank and file of the Democratic Party and clearly not up to the moment of crisis America faces.

Do not reject the Democratic Party or officially give up on participating in U.S. politics just because a bunch of clueless, cowardly, capitulating millionaires do not understand their jobs, the stakes of the fight they were involved in or the degree to which they played into Trump’s hands at precisely the moment of their greatest weakness.

And above all, do not, for one flickering second, attempt to justify or defend the lily-livered choice that did (and will do) so much damage to so many when it is so pathetically pusillanimous and damnably dangerous.

If, however, in response to the actions of Senators Cortez-Masto, Durbin, Fetterman, Hassan, Kaine, King, Rosen and Shaheen you are as angry and disappointed as you should be, then try to think constructively and take meaningful action to translate your fury and your disgust into steps that will ensure such political f-ck ups do not happen again in the future.

Central to such an approach is recognizing that, because for the foreseeable future the Democratic Party is the only viable opposition to a president and movement that pose an existential threat to American democracy, we need to focus not on changing parties but on changing the Democratic Party.

And we need to recognize that we can’t have a different Democratic Party until we have different Democrats leading it. [Continue reading…]