Jim points to a tweet from Chuck Schumer that reads, “Republicans control the Senate, the House, and the White House,” and then suggests that:

the entire messaging effort of Chuck Schumer is to hope Americans forget that the filibuster exists, and convince Americans that the 53 Republican senators aren’t reopening the government just because they’re mean.

I’d quibble slightly with the word “entire.” Schumer is, indeed, doing what Jim describes. But, elsewhere, he’s also saying this:

And this:

This makes no sense. If Republicans “own this shutdown” because they “control the Senate, the House, and the White House,” then why would they need to “come to the table” to “sit down and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government”? Those two things cannot simultaneously be true. Either the Democrats are using the leverage they have to shut down the government so that Republicans can’t “[take] health care away from you,” or the Democrats are helpless bystanders watching the Republicans keep Washington D.C. closed just to be mean. But they can’t be both.

That, despite this contradiction, Schumer and his party are routinely offering both messages at the same time suggests that they’re somewhat uncomfortable with the role that they’re playing. When Republicans shut down the government — and they’ve done that a lot in the last 15 years — the party tends to divide into two camps. One of those camps contains the figures who favor the shutdown and won’t shut up about their demands. The other camp contains the figures who oppose the shutdown and consider it to be pointless or unwinnable. Certainly, this yields mixed messaging. But that mixed messaging comes from the party as an institution, not from each one of its members. Irrespective of the merits, one can easily comprehend fights such as those. On the one hand there is Ted Cruz, who thinks that the Republicans should shut down the government to try to defund Obamacare. On the other hand, there is John McCain, who does not. Simple. Pick a side.

But Chuck Schumer? How is anyone supposed to have the slightest clue what he’s talking about? In effect, Schumer’s message is, “The Republicans did this, and can end it at any moment; but also the Democrats did this, and we won’t give in until we get what we want; and also the Democrats are using the filibuster to fight for what’s right, and, if they were decent, the Republicans would take that tool away from us.” That is absolute nonsense — and I suspect that it goes some way to explaining why nobody seems to care much about any of it.