The House Democrats who are enabling Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to continue the cruelty being unleashed on the border are not doing it in a vacuum. They're joined by a majority of Senate Democrats, who really should know better than to give McConnell a win.
Republicans in the House are arguing that the Senate border spending bill passed with such bipartisan support in the Senate that it has to be passed in the House, which is what those "moderate" Democrats want to do as well. The Senate bill does not include language to force the administration to meet basic humanitarian safety and health standards. But that bill passed 84-8, with just six Democratic senators voting no (the number probably would have been higher had the seven senators in Miami for the presidential debates been present). As it is, just Sens. Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Ed Markey (Massachusetts), Bob Menendez (New Jersey), Jeff Merkley (Oregon), Chris Van Hollen (Maryland), and Ron Wyden (Oregon) stood against McConnell.
The vote gives McConnell the ability to refuse to bring an amended bill from the House to the floor. The "Senate bill is the only game in town" he says. “It's time to quit playing games. Time to make law.” So far, he's refusing to even consider going to conference with the House to work out a compromise, and the large vote of support from Democrats bolsters his obstruction.
Maybe they just all want so much to get out of town for a long July Fourth weekend that they're willing to go along with what McConnell wants. Maybe they've all been in a bunker and haven't seen The Photo. Maybe they can blithely continue on in forced ignorance about the horrors at the border.
What they're doing is empowering Trump and McConnell even more. On this day. This day, when the conservative Supreme Court put its thumb on the scale of our elections and proved just how dangerous that power in McConnell’s and Trump's hands is. In this case, it is literally life or death.