Why Democrats keep flailing

It’s hard to see how the government shutdown and reopening is anything other than a defeat for the Democrats — a high-stakes confrontation that ended with their own goals unmet and their message muddled. If they didn’t have the leverage or were not willing to use it to prolong the shutdown, then why did they stage it at all?

The shutdown reinforced the image of the Democrats as feckless. They promise wonderful-sounding new programs — free child care, for example — but in fact preside over bloated bureaucracies and inept execution. If America has an affordability crisis, it tends to be in places Democrats govern, like New York, Illinois and California, which all feature high taxes, soaring housing costs and stagnant outcomes in basic areas like education and infrastructure.

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