The Inevitable Republican Collapse That Will End the Shutdown

[Laelth]

1. Key point from the essay:

On policy, the Republicans will end up either about where they were when they started this fight, or worse off. Politically, they’ll be in a far weaker place, having seen their public support collapse. Along both dimensions, they are faring worse than they did even in 1995-6, when Bill Clinton accepted some of their key demands, and when their approval ratings didn’t sink as low as the latest polls suggest they’re sinking now.

I had a smug, right-wing friend tell me that Obama and the Democrats would not fare well through this shut-down. He said, "This ain't 1995, and Obama is no Billy Jeff." Indeed. Obama is better, and the results for Republicans, this time, will be even worse.

Republicans have never been good at predicting the future. If they were, they wouldn't be Republicans.

-Laelth