It has become incredibly amusing to watch Democrats and the press freak out as the debt ceiling negotiations continue. The longer things play out, the more Democrats will have to lose when the final negotiations are done, and they are very aware of that fact.
The moment Joe Biden agreed to meet with Kevin McCarthy, the Democrats knew they had lost. Biden comes from a time where “We’ve got to do something” means actually doing something and not just grandstanding on it, and the Democrats of today know it. They just don’t want to get into the habit of tying cuts to the debt ceiling increase, and Biden giving in and negotiating does just that.
What’s more, the American public isn’t taking the Democrats’ side in thinking the Republicans are being too extreme. A poll from the Washington Post and ABC News shows that Americans are fairly evenly split, with Democrats only holding a slight advantage on the debt ceiling topic.
The Democrats’ hopes had been to portray the Republicans as extreme. As one Biden adviser told POLITICO just after the midterm elections, they wanted people to believe that “the gun is in Republicans’ hands” when it came to the economy. That’s why they didn’t do anything about the debt ceiling during the lame-duck session prior to the next Congress getting sworn in. But now, inasmuch as anyone is holding a gun to the economy, the American people are split on whether Democrats or Republicans should get the blame, or if they should just blame both sides.
The Democrats and the media have vastly underestimated the Republican caucus in the House. To them, it’s always been about finding people who would hold out against the “extreme MAGA Republicans” driving the caucus, but they fail to understand that, for the first time in a very long time, the Republicans are driving the narrative, as noted by Erick Erickson this morning.
They lost when he signed the last spending bill that drove the debt over the current ceiling!
The fact that the House and senate approved it is a minor bonus – but they could not have overridden his veto had he exercised that power!