For the past 40 days, congressional Democrats mustered a remarkable display of unity and perseverance. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had finally decided to follow Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s dictum to know and use their power.

They settled on a message: No Democratic votes for a stopgap funding measure to keep the government open without Affordable Care Act subsidies. In the tradition of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, health care would be the hill they were willing to die on. Members of Congress — seemingly of all philosophies, persuasions and wings of the party — delivered that message in town halls, interviews, op-eds and on social media. The party’s base, which had been demoralized for over a year after former Vice President Kamala Harris’ narrow loss to Trump, was energized by the show of force and confident about their shutdown strategy. Polls showed the message was gaining traction; more American voters blamed the shutdown on President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans than on Democrats. More importantly, there were signs the administration was beginning to feel the heat.

And then all the momentum, all the messaging work over the past six weeks, came to a crashing halt on Sunday evening when eight Senate Democrats broke ranks to agree to a deal with Republican negotiators that would lead to the reopening of the federal government. In exchange for their votes, Democrats got literally none of what they had demanded, only unenforceable promises from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to hold a vote on Obamacare subsidies in December and what Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine called a “moratorium on mischief” from the Trump administration. After passing the Senate on Monday night with all Democrats — except for the eight negotiators — and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., opposed, the agreement is expected to reach the House on Wednesday.

The outcry from the party’s base was immediate. “[Sunday] morning, I was feeling great about my party,” said Julie Roginsky, a longtime Democratic strategist, television commentator and author of the Salty Politics online newsletter. “I felt like we’d finally gotten our footing after [going through] hell.”

Roginsky described the success of the “No Kings” protests, last week’s election results and Trump’s realization that the GOP was being held responsible for the shutdown as empowering. “And most importantly, I heard a Democratic leadership that convinced their own voters that Democrats felt it imperative to provide people with affordable and accessible health care, and that that was non-negotiable for them.”

Now, Roginsky is “thoroughly disgusted,” she said. “I don’t understand why they would subject people to hunger and to layoffs and to flight delays and to missed paychecks for the past 40 days, if only to get nothing out of it now.”

Among the eight Democrats, Kaine pointed to the pain the shutdown was causing his constituents, a large number of whom are federal workers in northern Virginia. Neither he nor any of the other senators involved in the deal are up for reelection in 2026; some, including Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, are retiring.

Schumer, who was the target of near-universal vitriol among Democrats in March when he backed down in a budget battle that threatened to evolve into a shutdown, was quick to announce his opposition to the deal and he voted against it Monday night.

The agreement reveals two things about the New York Democrat’s leadership in the Senate, both of which are devastating. Either Schumer no longer has effective control over own his caucus, or he has permitted the deal to progress with a wink and a nod behind the scenes — and with a strident disavowal for the bank of cameras he famously loves — while taking Democratic voters for fools.

The drumbeat within Democratic ranks — and even beyond them — is already beginning: Schumer must step down.