Democrats think they run against Republicans. Republicans think they run against Democrats. When swing voters existed as a significant segment of the electorate, that was at least partly true. In our age of polarization, there are too few swing voters to determine the outcome of most races. Elections are won by the party that most motivates its base.

When turnout is king, a party's biggest enemy isn't the other party. It's apathy. These days, each of the two parties runs against itself. Every race is an intra-party contest between novelty, which can generate excitement but also fear of the unknown, and establishmentarianism — the tendency of institutions to revert to their historical inertial center.

Establishmentarianism makes its strongest case when people feel good about their job, their finances, their communities and thus institutions like political parties and government. Americans haven't felt happy about the economy or much else for at least the past decade or two. Which is why every election, even the most recent off-off-year election, has been a change election. Unhappy voters tend to be more receptive to outside-the-box candidates, especially those who appear willing to fight hard to make things right.

The national leadership of the Democratic Party does not seem to recognize that Americans are feeling surly. If it does, it doesn't care. Or if it cares, it's unwilling to react accordingly and give the people what they want, as The Kinks once counseled: interesting, aggressive politicians out to kick Republican ass.

Considering the whupping they received by running boring establishment candidates against a charismatic outsider pugilist in 2016 and 2024, and the surprise landslide their charismatic outsider pugilist delivered them against boring establishment candidates in New York earlier this month, it's surprising the Democratic National Committee hasn't learned its lesson.

That U.S. Politics 101 remains unlearned is irrefutable in light of the events of the last week. After the longest government shutdown in history, Senate Democrats blinked and voted along with the Republicans to allow Obamacare tax credits to expire, heightening the possibility that the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces will begin to collapse next year, thus wiping out the only significant legislative accomplishment of the Democratic Party since Lyndon Johnson.

It is hard to overstate the perfidy of this internal stab in the back. Polls clearly showed that voters blamed the Republicans for cut-off SNAP benefits, airline delays and other headaches associated with the shutdown. President Donald Trump himself was worried. So it was quite the shock, even for those of us who follow politics enough to be cynical, when the seven Democrats, all sitting in safe seats, went full Vichy. It was as if the Allies in World War II had invaded Europe and fought all the way to Berlin only to knock on the hatch of Hitler's bunker in order to surrender.

Now Democratic leaders and their journalist mouthpieces are spinning their surrender into a win. Voters, they argue with a straight face, will hold Republicans responsible for their newfound inability to afford health insurance premiums. They'll credit Democrats for bringing up health care affordability as an issue. They fought Trump (sort of). They'll respect them for acting like adults and getting things back to normal — the "normal" in which Americans go bankrupt and die for the capital crime of not having enough money when they get sick.

Wrong.

Highly informed voters know or have sussed out what happened behind this seemingly inexplicable cave-in. Air traffic controllers were calling in sick, there were thousands of flight delays, and, with the Thanksgiving travel rush looming, the airline industry lobbying group Airlines for America called their pet senators to demand they pass a "clean continuing resolution" — i.e., Democratic surrender. Though Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer personally voted no, he orchestrated his Waterloo behind the scenes, either granting permission to the Sleazy Seven senators to vote Republican or outright ordering them to do so.

The real concern for Democratic Party bosses is, or ought to be, the 99%-plus of American voters who do not watch C-SPAN or understand the finer points of a discharge petition. Over the next few months and throughout the coming year leading into next year's midterm elections and beyond, they will watch their health care costs skyrocket. Because the ACA subsidizes economies of scale throughout the system, they will pay more to see a doctor even if their employer provides their medical coverage.

Democrats are right: Higher health care expenses will be an issue. But it won't help them. Voters will remember or find out that their pain happened because Democratic senators voted along with the Republicans. They will not care that Democrats "raised the issue" of health care. It will not matter to them that Democrats fought for about a month, repeatedly promising not to give up, before they decided to stop fighting.

Reasonably and logically and correctly, the average American voter will see that Democrats colluded with Republicans. Not necessarily that there are no differences between the two parties — clearly, there are stylistic differences, and who could imagine a Zohran Mamdani in the GOP? — but that there's no practical difference. Whether a Republican or a Democrat wins, your life doesn't change. Or it keeps getting suckier the same exact way.

Even if there is no practical difference between the two parties, you might still want to vote. After all, people tap their phones to vote for best singer or dancer when they watch a reality TV show. But that's easy. When there's very little at stake for you or yours, you might not be willing to make a big effort to register and vote. You might not be willing to drive through snow to the polls. Or go to the post office to get a stamp for your mail-in ballot. You'll be less motivated.

That's what happened in 2016 and 2024. Democratic voters weren't as motivated as the Republicans, who felt that Trump and Trumpism might change their lives for the better. Now, Democrats have even less reason to extract themselves from their sofas.

Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of the brand-new "What's Left: Radical Solutions for Radical Problems." He co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.

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