I’ve said this before, but here’s a little inside baseball from a former Republican: Back in my GOP days, we Republicans would privately laugh at how Democrats would never go to the mat to win. We always knew Democrats wouldn’t fight to the death politically.

Last night proved Republicans right again.

I mean, he's wrong factually. I mean, from a rhetorical sense, this has a certain appeal. Because it's not the politician's death that they would be fighting to. SNAP benefits and other shutdown consequences cause real world deaths of (mostly) marginalized and poor people.

So if you're the "Let 'em die!" party, you're more than happy to fight to the death - because your party isn't really committed to using the power of government to keep people from dying prematurely.

But if you're the party for whom it is important to use the power of government to prevent premature death, you're not going to keep fighting "to the death." Because you aren't willing to see that happen.

Of course, in the last several shutdowns, the Democrats did go to the mat to win. They held their ground and the GOP were the ones who wouldn't fight to the death, politically. That's why Obamacare stayed in place, and why Trump didn't get his first term border wall funding.

Democrats are just smart enough not to fight to the death if it's a losing fight. If you're in a losing fight, you choose "live to fight another day" rather than "fight to the death." Which, again, the GOP also did in 2013 and 2018-2019 as well....