Nothing succeeds like success. The dirty little secret of political science is that there is almost no science in it. The profession runs entirely on folklore: whatever tactic that was seen as working in the last election will work in the next one and the next one.
You can’t run controlled experiments. The conventional wisdom prevails, always.
Headlines from The Hill newspaper this morning.
- One: Democrats’ confidence in shutdown strategy soars after election sweep
- Two: Democrats dig in on shutdown
- Three: Senate Dem divide emerges as progressives warn against ending shutdown
- Four: Hard-line Democrats lean in to ObamaCare fight after Tuesday sweep
From Politico,
- Five: Donald Trump enters his lame duck era
The idea that “shutdown” is an electoral winner for Democrats has taken hold, so the pressure will be to keep the shutdown going through November 2026, perhaps even through 2028.
It will take an exogenous event (deus ex machina) to break this logjam.
