So my social media feed is full of people who are furious with Chuck Schumer and some or all of the Senate Democrats because they agreed to negotiate with Senate Republicans to end the government shutdown. Yours may be, too.

I disagree with the vast majority of what I have been reading for one simple reason:  the entire debate is the Trolley Problem, a moral philosophy problem. If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s a fantastic explanation from The Good Place:

If you haven’t watched this series, you need to. It’s one of the best things that has ever been on broadcast TV.

And the Trolley Problem is the heart of the political problem of the government shutdown. Yes, it would have been possible for Senate Democrats to hold out forever. This would have led to everyone on the tracks dying:  both the people who rely on the ACA subsidies and the people who rely on SNAP benefits. This way the latter group definitely lives and there is still hope for the former.

There is also the possibility that Senate Democrats would have kept the pressure up and soon enough children or elderly people would have starved, or enough people would have died because they lost their access to healthcare that the GOP would have given in.

There is one huge problem with this:  it was never going to happen. The GOP was never going to give in on the ACA subsidies. And the Democrats who were part of the negotiations got that message loud and clear. The GOP has spent the last 15 years trying to kill the ACA. They’re not going to stop now.

The thing is that everyone in the GOP has lost their fucking minds. Every single elected Republican is a psychopath who relishes the pain of their imagined enemies. There is no way any sane, compassionate person could have withstood the GOP blood lust. I know everyone wants a revolution in the Democratic party these days, but math is still math.

And if your opponents are psychopaths willing to kill their own voters, out-psychopathing them is simply not an option.

Furthermore, not being monsters is a good thing. Saying that the other side is a bunch of psychotic monsters hellbent on killing their own voters and that the Dems won’t be those people is a good thing. There is no glory in making victims suffer in a battle that can’t be wholly won.

And it’s not like everything is over now. The CR only runs until January 30 and ACA subsidies will still (most likely) be unfunded. There’s another chance for more concessions. And if not there are mid-term elections next November and by then this Republican experiment might have run its course.

It totally sucks that someone is going to get hurt in this Trolley Problem. And in November we have to make sure the GOP can never take hostages—even their own voters—again.

This seems right: