Calling the resistance

Political activism could have a big effect on the politics of the shutdown. So far, it’s having almost no effect.

I’m a great admirer of the so-called Trump resistance. Over the past two years, it has had two huge accomplishments: helping defeat Obamacare repeal and helping defeat the Republican House majority. But I also think it’s a mistake to avoid criticizing organizations and movements you admire.

My column is a critique of the resistance — not of its tactics, which have generally been excellent, but of its strength. I think the shutdown shows that this country’s grassroots progressive movement is weaker than the country needs it to be.

Political activism has had virtually no effect on the politics of the shutdown. There have been no major protests that add to the political pressure on President Trump. There has been no organized effort to persuade federal workers to stay home from their (unpaid) jobs or to support any who do stay home.

I intend this column as friendly criticism. As I write in it, the resistance has been responsible for the most hopeful showing of political activism in decades. But if the country is going to make real progress against its biggest problems — inequality, climate change, assaults on democracy — the progressive grass-roots movement will need to be stronger than it now is.

It’s off to a good start, but it’s only a start. The movement will ultimately be stronger if people are honest about both its successes and its shortcomings.

Deal or no deal. Should the Democrats engage in serious negotiations with Trump over his new proposal for ending the shutdown? He has offered three years of legal protections for 700,000 so-called Dreamers and the restoration of the temporary protected status for 300,000 additional immigrants, in exchange for $5.7 billion in wall funding.

The editorial board of The Washington Post says, yes, the Democrats should engage with him. Doing so, the board acknowledges, would reward the president’s hostage-taking tactics and bring his proposed monument to xenophobia closer to becoming a reality. “But to refuse even to talk until the government reopens” — as congressional Democrats have — “does no favors to sidelined federal workers and contractors,” argues The Post.

Instead, the Post editorial writers conclude, Democrats should negotiate about how much wall funding will be provided, and the number and types of immigrants any deal would protect.

Writing in HuffPost, Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect says, no, the Democrats shouldn’t engage. Trump’s proposal betrays both a weak negotiating hand and a potential willingness to make bigger concessions. Republican lawmakers are nervous, he explains, and the public continues to blame Trump for the shutdown.

The proposal “shows that a new phase has begun, in which the president is willing to start bargaining. This was just his opening gambit,” Kuttner writes.

Vox’s Dara Lind and Li Zhou explain that the Supreme Court’s lack of action so far on the Dreamers’ case strengthens the Democrats’ hand. Without a ruling, the protections for Dreamers remain in place for now. As a result, Lind and Zhou write, “there’s less incentive for [Democrats] to agree to any compromise.”