Why, oh, why, do the Democrats always do this?

Another year, another falling for the ol' banana in the tailpipe via America's toothless pols.

So in case you (wisely) haven’t been paying attention this evening, it appears the government will finally reopen after seven Democratic senators (well, six and one independent) have caved.

On the bright side, our party achieves … nothing. Absolutely nothing. On the dark side, I feel like pouring acid punch into my eyeballs, then having the flesh-doted sockets be gorged out by 20 of the world’s sharpest-toothed piranhas. With tonight’s move, we not only mute the momentum gained in last week’s elections, we actually allow the GOP to cackle, “See! They could have ended this shutdown any time they wanted to!”

Sigh.

If you want a good cry, here, from the New York Times, is Dick Durbin offering a justification that feels like a soft fart drifting into the wind …

And I wanna be blunt here: As an American who loves this country, I hated the government lockout. H-a-t-e-d it. I hated seeing TSA agents working without pay. Hated seeing flights cancelled and dreams crushed. Every day sucked, and its conclusion would be (in normal circumstances) a good thing.

But it’s not.

The Democrats were fighting for real commitments on dealing with rising health care costs. With this cave, they receive nothing on that front. Literally nothing. In fact, it’s actually worse than nothing. Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat from New Hampshire, was asked whether this was a capitulation—and replied by clumsily explaining that now the Democrats will (oh, goodie!) write a health care law that will receive (gasp!) an actual vote.

That law will, without question, be immediately rejected by the GOP.

So what difference does it make?

What high-level Democrats seem to miss (time and time again) is the desire (no, need) for them to show us they’re willing to brawl. We all know Trump owns the White House, the Senate and Congress. We know our people don’t have much power. But this lockout—it was an actual implementation of collective oomph. The Dems were finally battling back. They were saying, “Enough is enough.” They were using what they had, and using it well. Hell, poll after poll blamed Trump for this whole fiasco.

Poll.

After.

Poll.

Tonight, after a really good friggin’ week or two, we are, once again, reminded that our party leaders are far too often soft little plush toys, willing to spew a few threats, but unable to land uppercuts when they’re called up.

They are people who always—and I mean always—fall for the banana in the tailpipe.