News Summary

• Democratic elites and many activists are convinced the 47th president is engaged in an authoritarian power grab.
• But again and again, party strategists keep telling Democrats not to talk much about it, writes Julian Zelizer.
• Zelizer: Democrats chose to trigger the shutdown at the end of September because they were at a point of near-panic over Trump’s rapid construction of an imperial presidency.
• Democrats seized on their only leverage point: the need for Democratic votes to keep the government open, he says.