No, This Is Not How To Negotiate With Authoritarians

Democrats Are Bringing Facts to a Fight For Power

Eight Democratic senators surrendered the most leverage they’ve had in months for essentially nothing yesterday.

What actually happened: After a 40-day shutdown, Democrats agreed to reopen the government in exchange for a promise of a vote, not passage, just a vote, on extending ACA subsidies. These subsidies keep healthcare affordable for 20+ million Americans and expire in December.

That’s it. That’s the deal. A promise to allow a vote on something Republicans will almost certainly kill.

Why This Reads As Strategic Malpractice

The leverage was real and growing:

• Air travel was collapsing

• 40 million Americans weren’t getting SNAP benefits

• Federal workers unpaid for 40 days

• Public pressure building on Republicans

And Democrats folded just as it was working.

The logic was backwards: They ended temporary, concentrated pain (the shutdown) by accepting permanent, widespread harm (doubled healthcare premiums for millions).

If you’re going to inflict a shutdown, cause real suffering to federal workers and vulnerable people, you damn well better win something concrete for it. Otherwise, you just hurt people for nothing.

The Pattern This Reveals

This isn’t an isolated mistake. It’s a pattern:

Democrats keep bringing facts to a power fight. You know the old saw, “don’t bring a knife to a gun fight?” The Democrats are doing the equivalent but bringing facts to a fight with a party for whom those facts are in no way relevant to their real agenda.

But Republicans aren’t playing that game. They know Democrats will blink first. And Democrats just proved them right. Meanwhile, the Democrats think that if they’re reasonable, if they demonstrate that people are suffering, if they make the moral case, Republicans will cave.

As Senator Chris Murphy said: “I think the voters were pretty clear on Tuesday night what they wanted Congress to do, and more specifically, what they wanted Democrats to do. And I’m really saddened that we didn’t listen to them.”

Democrats just won elections across the country, Virginia, New Jersey, local races, on a message of resistance. Voters said: “Fight back.” And within days, Democratic senators folded.

The Consequences

1. They destroyed future leverage

They just taught authoritarians that Democrats will always cave if you wait them out. Why would the party of authoritarianism ever make real concessions?

More importantly: This deal only funds government through January 30. They’ll be back in the same fight in 11 weeks, but with even less credibility.

2. They abandoned their constituents

Twenty million people are about to see their healthcare costs double. Federal workers just learned Democrats won’t actually fight for them. The pro-democracy movement just learned Democratic leadership can’t be counted on.

3. They misread the authoritarian threat

This isn’t normal politics where you compromise and live to fight another day. Authoritarians test boundaries. The president wanted to see if he could starve Americans (SNAP cuts), ground planes, and fire federal workers until Democrats surrendered.

And Democrats did surrender. Now he knows: he can inflict any amount of suffering and Democrats will fold to “end the pain.”

That’s not compassion. That’s enabling.

What Should Actually Happen

Immediate accountability:

1. Replace Democratic leadership: Rep. Ro Khanna: “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”

He’s right. The Democratic caucus should elect new leadership. Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re ineffective and frankly incompetent at the core task: wielding power against an authoritarian threat.

3. Make the December vote count: Republicans promised a vote on ACA subsidies. Fine. The pro-democracy movement needs to:

• Be truly nonpartisan and mobilize massive pressure on every senator regardless of party

• Make this vote as visible and politically costly as possible

• Target vulnerable authoritarian Congressmembers in their home districts

• Build coalitions: patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers all want stable ACA markets

If Democrats won’t use their leverage, movements have to create leverage for them.

Longer-term strategy:

4. Build independent power Stop waiting for elected leadership to save democracy. They won’t.

Build power outside both parties:

• Support labor unions (they know how to strike and win)

• Create mutual aid networks (demonstrate what actual solidarity looks like)

• Primary weak officials systematically

• Build grassroots infrastructure that can force elected leaders to fight

5. Change the theory of victory

The pro-democracy movement needs to internalize this: Leaders who claim to oppose authoritarianism are playing defense when we need to be on offense. In other nations around the world where strongman politicians takeover through elections they are extremely popular. One of the unusual advantages the pro-democracy movement in the U.S. has is the extreme unpopularity of the strongman in the White House. We need to act before those numbers start to shift as people become exhausted by the endless stream of Executive Orders, illegal actions, and disinformation.

The Democratic Party is trying to minimize harm when we need to build alternative power. You can’t vote your way out of authoritarianism if one party is authoritarian and the other won’t fight. Backing down puts civil society in a more difficult position.

The model isn’t “elect better members of the pro-democracy party and they’ll save us.” The model is “build enough independent power so that leaders of both parties have no choice but to fight or be replaced.” The huge mobilizations over the summer demonstrate that democracy promoters have the power to do this.

The Real Question

Here’s what this shutdown fight revealed: When tested, Democratic leadership chose the path of least resistance over using leverage to win.

That’s not a viable strategy against authoritarianism. Authoritarians don’t stop because you’re reasonable. They stop when you make the cost of continuing too high.

A group of Democrats just demonstrated they’re not willing to impose those costs, even when they have leverage.

So what’s the pro-democracy movement going to do about it?

You can be angry; you should be angry. But anger without organization is just venting.

The answer isn’t to plead with elected leadership to fight harder. They’ve shown you who they are. The answer is to build enough power that they have to fight or get out of the way.

Concrete next steps:

1. Organize around the December ACA vote - this is the test of whether the “promise” meant anything

2. Recruit primary challengers now - 2026 campaigns start today

3. Build strike funds - literal or metaphorical, movements need resources to sustain fights

4. Connect electoral and movement work - protests without electoral consequences don’t work; elections without movement power don’t work

5. Practice wielding power - win local fights to build capacity for bigger ones

This wasn’t just a bad deal. It was a diagnostic moment showing that Democratic leadership isn’t equipped for the fight ahead.

The pro-democracy movement has to be.