So Why Exactly Did Democrats Cave on the Shutdown?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

42% : For the past 40-plus days, the Dems and the GOP have been in a Senate stalemate, where Democrats withheld support for a government funding bill in an attempt to include expanded Obamacare subsidies that helped more Americans afford health insurance.
41% : The president himself, who'd tried his damnedest to repeal and replace Obamacare during his first term, was never going to encourage Republicans to preserve the extended premiums.
26% : The Trump administration had made this a more brutal shutdown than any other in American history, illegally gutting SNAP benefits and retracting already-appropriated funds for blue states' clean-energy and Army Corps projects.
23% : And the nihilistic mode of governance Trump has mastered this round, doubling down on unpopular federal-troop mobilizations and unpopular tax cuts, meant he didn't care about the Americans suffering during the shutdown.

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