Opinion | Democrats Are Playing With Tea Party Fire

On Friday the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, committed the grave sin of accepting reality, and his party is now furious.Democrats were outmaneuvered by House Republicans on a measure to fund the government, and the only options for Democrats by late last week were to fold and vote for it or plunge into a government shutdown for which they were likely to pay a heavy political price.Mr.Schumer understood this and spared the country and his party from the damage.

It is dangerous territory for members of Congress to try to convince their base — or themselves — that they have more power than they do.At some point the bill comes due.The truth is that this funding fight was over the moment House Speaker Mike Johnson was able to pass the G.O.P.

bill without the help of the minority in the House.Still, some Democrats have deluded themselves into thinking the threat of shutdown provided some kind of leverage to rein in President Trump’s assault on the federal work force.

Others believed that if they showed Mr.Trump the party was willing to fight, they would be in a stronger position next time.

This is nonsense.Shutdowns are not resolved through a negotiated peace or compromise.They almost always end when one side has taken a brutal political beating long enough that it finally throws in the towel.

The party that forced the shutdown usually gets nothing but demoralization.As a Republican, I find the fiery backlash against Mr.Schumer amusing.

But it also offers startling echoes of the dysfunction that hampered years of G.O.P.control of Congress.

If Democrats don’t get a better grip on what is achievable, they will fall victim to the same infighting that has plagued congressional Republicans for more than a decade.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for...