The politics of shutdowns

The government shutdown that never had to be ended mercifully early yesterday.

Sure Patriots fans missed the usual flyover at Gillette Stadium Sunday, but at least the troops serving overseas did not have to miss the game on Armed Forces TV — which suddenly found itself among the ranks of “essential” forms of communication.

All’s well that ends well, it seems, although Democrats surely had a sobering weekend as the consequences of their bout of political petulance became obvious.

It’s not that their cause — extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — isn’t a worthy one. It’s just that there was still time to avoid a crisis for the “Dreamers” without this pointless shutdown. Timing is important in politics and frankly the Democrats’ timing was dreadful.

Of course, that didn’t keep the likes of our own U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey from voting against the temporary funding deal. Guess they didn’t much care how long federal workers stayed home or how long our military went without pay. For some people grabbing the political issue will always be more important than the impact on real people.

Still it took a leap of faith on behalf of the leaders of both parties, but especially U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, to accept the premise that there could be a bipartisan deal on DACA and other thorny immigration issues over the next two weeks or so.

“If we learned anything during this process, it’s that a strategy to shut down the federal government over the issue of illegal immigration is something the American people did not understand,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday.

But Schumer was right about one thing when he said, “The bipartisan [congressional] group, in a very fine way, filled the glaring absence of the president in these talks.”

Trump’s continual shifting of the goal lines has been unhelpful from the start. Congressional leaders need to play out the critical role the Constitution has given them.