At first glance, the sudden collapse of the Democrats’ opposition to reopening the federal government without a deal on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies seems inexplicable.

Momentum appeared to be on their side. They’d done extraordinarily well in the off-off-year elections, winning not only the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections, but almost every other possible contest as well. They not only won, they did so by enormous margins. Here in Maine, for instance, the two referendum issues that polls had shown as close were blowouts in their favor.

So, it appeared that Democrats had no reason to cut a deal. The polls showed voters were on their side, election results had borne that out, and their base was clamoring for a fight.

It appeared they had everything to gain, little to lose, and then threw it all away for what was essentially the same deal that Republicans had offered weeks ago: a vague promise to hold a vote on extending the subsidies, along with a few other tweaks and funding extensions that might make a future shutdown less painful.

Why the sudden change of course, then?

Well, one answer is that although the elections went their way, it didn’t change the minds of President Donald Trump or congressional Republicans. Trump didn’t rush to Capitol Hill to sit down with Democratic leaders; Republican moderates didn’t suddenly begin to clamor for their leadership to cave.

Instead, after the elections, Maine 2nd District Congressman Jared Golden announced he wouldn’t run for reelection, abandoning the most Republican district held by a Democratic incumbent. That was curious, to say the least — both the decision and the timing.

There was also the issue of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. Democrats might have thought that the administration would back down from plans to pause SNAP payments, but it didn’t. Then, after a federal judge ruled the administration had to make the payments, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case — and Democrats could probably tell how that would (eventually) go.

There were a few other critical issues for them to consider, including federal employees missing another paycheck and continued travel issues as the holidays rapidly approached. Just as with the SNAP payments, these issues would get exponentially worse as the shutdown continued, with the damage harder to reverse after it ended.

So, hopefully all of that helps to explain the timing of the “deal” struck by moderate Democrats, over the objections of their own leadership.

Now, when considering the content, it’s easy to understand that many are shocked at what they received. The truth, however, is that historically, nobody has won major policy concessions as a result of a federal government shutdown.

Donald Trump didn’t get congressional approval of border wall funding in 2019. Democrats didn’t codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program after the 2018 shutdown. Conservative Republicans didn’t succeed in repealing the Affordable Care Act after the 2013 shutdown. Moreover, none of those things have been done by either party since.

So, Democratic leadership knew they’d never get a permanent extension of the subsidies as a result of the government shutdown. Why, then, pick this fight and get their base all excited, convincing them that victory was not only possible, but imminent?

Well, the answer may be that Democratic leadership never really wanted a permanent extension of the subsidies because then they’d have lost it as a political issue. They may have achieved what they really wanted: a temporary extension of the subsidies that keeps them active while keeping it alive as an issue. The agreement they struck does just that, and even a commitment to hold a separate vote on it is a political victory for Democrats, if not a literal one.

We’ve seen this happen with other issues. Both parties spend plenty of time talking about fixing immigration or Social Security, but never get close to a bipartisan deal to do so. That keeps the problems alive as campaign issues.

This fight over the Affordable Care Act subsidies shows that, far from being the sweeping solution Democrats portrayed it as, the Affordable Care Act was another patchwork fix. If either party were interested in fixing the big problems facing this country, they could do so, but they’d have to do it in a bipartisan way — and that would mean losing them as issues.

That’s why we see more pointless, performative fights in Congress than actual problem-solving — and it may be the real reason Jared Golden decided to call it quits.