Yes, CNN gets pilloried by conservatives for their media bias. MSNBC is another outlet; its sole existence is to keep liberal blood pressures from skyrocketing. Yet, even some things you really can’t spin—and the anchors at both networks, along with the various panels they hosted over the weekend were quite adamant that the Democratic Party might have shot themselves in the foot with the shutdown.
On Friday, with no DACA deal reached, the government shut down. Since December, Democrats took the insane step of tying immigration to matters of the budget, unless DACA, FISA, and Children’s Health Insurance Program were tackled. FISA is going being renewed, as will protections for DACA recipients. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was created by a constitutionally questionable executive order from President Obama, grants these illegal aliens who entered this country as children with their families protections from deportation if they met the criterion. There is a consensus in Congress that this program should be resolved by the legislature. Even hard-liners like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said he was open to DACA protections as long as we overhaul our green card system, making it merit-based and adding language requirements. The point is DACA will be resolved and CHIP has a six-year funding provision. The Democrats are getting everything they want, but without immigration—they took us all hostage. They’re complaining with two loaves under their arms, but this isn’t like the debt ceiling negotiations or Obamacare repeal; two issues that you could easily place the blame on the GOP. That is to say the narrative stuck. It’s not sticking here.Voters seem to understand that this was avoidable, it was just the Democrats decided to torpedo everything. The Associated Press and The New York Times were the first to place blame on the Democrats for the shutdown, or at least they singled them out in their headlines Friday evening.
Over the weekend, CNN fact-checked Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) about the idiotic talking point that Republicans control everything, we still had a shutdown, and that they’re irresponsible people. CNN hosts Brianna Keilar and Wolf Blitzer pointed out to Durbin and Blumenthal when they tried to push that on air. To their credit, they didn’t let it marinate. In the Senate, you need 60 votes to move legislation. Republicans only have 51 Senators; the filibuster and cloture votes are areas where the minority can be very powerful.David Swerdlick of The Washington Post added that Democrats did this to show the GOP that they would take hostages as well over what they believe in, which is apparently putting the welfare and well-being of illegal aliens over American citizens. The GOP stood their ground on trying to get our spending habits under control and ridding ourselves of an unpopular government health care overhaul. Could the latter two have been handled better? Certainly. But getting spending under control and highlighting Obamacare’s flaws are not controversial positions. The blame fades, that’s not the case when a shutdown happens because Democrats care more about illegals—and by this shutdown, it’s apparent that they do.
CNN’s Dana Bash warned Democrats that they could be misreading their base. In their poll, when they asked Democrats what is more important, avoiding a shutdown or continuing DACA the split was 42/49 respectively. There’s not much difference there.
On MSNBC, Kasie Hunt’s panel, which included Politico’s Rachael Bade, noted that there’s an aura that Congressional Democrats are starting to feel that this isn’t like past shutdowns, where the ‘blame the GOP card’ worked. They’re worried they’re going to be blamed for the shutdown. Bade cited votes from the past legislative battles. Every Democrat, even those from red states that Trump won, stood united against the tax reform package and Obamacare repeal push. When it came to funding the government and immigration, Sens. Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Doug Jones (D-AL), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) all broke ranks and voted with Republicans. Bade said this is a sign that they’re worried.
It’s January. This could have waited until after we passed a motion to keep the government opened. Democrats were not interested. Leah already wrote that the Democratic voter advantage has dwindled from eighteen points to five. Maybe the Democratic Party was feeling a tad overconfident from their wins from bluish to deep-blue states of Virginia and New Jersey respectively this year.
If the media is fact-checking Democrats on their weak sauce shutdown talking points, you know it’s total crap. Panels say that this is a gamble and probably one the Democrats shouldn’t have taken. You know their usual narrative planting won’t take hold as successfully. Yes, CNN and MSNBC have had their moments in the pool of insanity, but over the weekend, they had some good segments calling Democrats on their crap. Folks, the Democratic position is so bad that even CNN decided to take a few shots at it. It looks like that audible Shutdown Chuck called on this ended with the Democrats getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage.