The premise of a game of chicken is that in the end, someone always flinches. But here we are on Day 3 of the shutdown and neither side is. Instead the divisions are deepening. The Senate
votes at noon on a bill that would reopen the government and fund it for three weeks, but Democrats aren't jazzed about it. That's because they still don't have assurances that a fix for DACA, or at least a big vote on immigration, will come out of it. Vice President Mike Pence has said
there will be no immigration talks until the government reopens.
Today is really the first day
the shutdown's effects will be felt, as hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers stay home from their jobs.
Over the weekend, President Trump took
a hands-off approach to the crisis, preferring instead to speak through his favorite bullhorn: Twitter. He blamed the Democrats and said the Senate
should just exercise the "nuclear option," as in: no more 60 votes to end a filibuster. His reelection campaign released an ad accusing Democrats of being "
complicit in all murders" committed by undocumented immigrants.
So when this mess ends -- and it will end, right? -- who gets the blame? Going in to the shutdown, the conventional wisdom was the GOP, since it controls the White House and Congress. But a new CNN poll
offers several red flags for the Dems: More Americans think avoiding a shutdown is more important than continuing DACA, it found. What's more, the
Dems' advantage in the 2018 election is shrinking.
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