Congress showed momentary signs of life in the nation’s longest government showdown, but the hope for a post-election compromise faded quickly, with frustrated senators apparently no closer to an escape plan.

Democrats, fresh from a sweep of coast-to-coast victories on Tuesday, scaled back their demands, offering a plan to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for one year in exchange for re-opening the government.

Within half an hour, Republicans called it dead on arrival and unserious.

Even so, senators stayed in Washington over the weekend for the first time in the 39-day shutdown after President Donald Trump chided lawmakers to “not leave town” until the spending impasse is resolved. It’s unclear if the parties’ leaders — Republican John Thune and Democrat Chuck Schumer — plan to hold substantive talks or if the Senate will hold any votes.

Still, it’s at least a symbolic departure from the laissez-faire approach lawmakers had taken up to now toward negotiating a deal to reopen the government. Trump, however, didn’t indicate he’d play a direct role in the talks, decamping on Friday to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and issuing directives to Republicans over social media.

Democrats say Trump himself must get involved in the negotiations and that Republicans must involve their members in crafting a spending bill to reopen the government, because it needs Democratic votes to pass.

“Families across this country told us on Tuesday that affordability is a huge issue for them, and want us to continue to press the Republicans,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, told reporters Friday. “They’ve just drawn a line in the sand and said little kids can go hungry, airplanes can slow down and people can just suck it up and pay double and triple their health care premiums.”

Republicans say they will only negotiate over an extension to the Affordable Care Act subsidies once Democrats vote to reopen the government.

“All they have to do is take yes for an answer. We’ve offered them a solution,” Thune said Friday. “The president’s willing to meet with them. I’m willing to give them the vote.”

The effects of a shutdown compound the longer it persists. Federal workers continue to go without pay and contingency funds — used as a stopgap to fund some benefits and pay military members — risk running dry. Backlogs for tax refunds, small business loans and other federal applications build up.

Lawmakers have pointed to pain points — ranging from airline chaos to delayed food aid that — could serve as inflection points to end the shutdown. So far, none of those developments have delivered any clarity to how or when the shutdown might end, inducing more uncertainty about what else needs to go wrong to heighten pressure on lawmakers to act.

Some 24 million Americans are buying Obamacare health coverage at prices multiple of what they paid last year, and even more have yet to receive their November food benefits, which remain mired in a legal battle.

Democrats’ victories on Tuesday only hardened the party’s resolve to stay in the shutdown fight, and federally mandated flight cancellations that went into effect on Friday stranded travelers in some of the nation’s biggest airport hubs.

Political process

The effects, largely contained to federal workers in the shutdown’s early weeks, are starting to be hit a broader swath of Americans. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered airlines to cut flight totals by 10% by Nov. 14, a move that could cause chaos for fliers over the travel-heavy Thanksgiving weekend. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Friday said that mandate could reach 20% if the situation worsens.

And the budgets of millions of low-income Americans are straining as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamp benefits, are delayed amid a legal battle about funding the payments during the shutdown. Many of those same households are also poised to pay much higher health care costs next year with ACA subsidies set to expire.

The shutdown consequences are costing the U.S. economy about $15 billion a week. And the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the shutdown will reduce annualized quarterly growth rate of real GDP by 1.5 percentage points by mid-November. Consumer sentiment hit a three-year low on Friday amid heightened anxiety about the shutdown, prices and the job market.

But polls show that Democrats, for now, have picked the winning side of the fight.

About three-quarters — 74% — of U.S. adults overall say the tax credits for ACA health coverage should be extended, according to a new poll from KFF Health. About 94% of respondents who identified as Democrats support renewing the subsidies, in addition to 50% of Republicans.

But voters are less decisive about which party deserves blame for the shutdown. About 52% of voters blame Trump and congressional Republicans for the impasse, while 42% say it’s Democrats’ fault, according to an NBC News poll.

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