Reply #59: You're not only done, you're wrong

[onenote]

First, saying that the Democrats never "had to" vote on a funding bill, while technically correct, is about as logical as saying that the Democrats in Congress could all decide to get on planes and move to Maui for the rest of the year. They could do it, but there would be adverse political consequences.

And that's the problem with the "didn't have to vote theory" -- doing nothing was not a politically sustainable option. As the poll you cited points out, the overwhelming majority of the public expected Congress to do something -- fund with a timetable or fund without one. For the "Democrats" to do nothing would've required the Democratic leadership to ignore the will of a very sizable minority of the caucus (the 86 who voted for the bill). The leadership was not going to put those 86 members at risk politically.

Call the political factors that weighed in the process immoral if you like, but they are real and pretending that they don't exist and that the Democrats didn't, as a realistic matter rather than in the fantasy land in which politicians can do whatever they want notwithstanding the wishes of the electorate, have the option that you claim that they had.