The longest shutdown in American history appears headed for a conclusion, after eight moderate-leaning members of the Senate Democratic Caucus broke ranks to cut a deal with Republicans on Sunday.

Much has yet to play out and votes still need to be held. But it looks as though enough Democrats have given up on demanding an extension of the enhanced Obamacare tax credits and have accepted much more modest concessions.

So how did this happen? What did we learn? And where do we go from here?

Here are some takeaways from the politics of it.

1. Democrats caved, full stop

The Democratic Party isn’t leaving this process with nothing. They got a couple of significant concessions.

One is a commitment to hold a Senate vote on extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies by next month — a vote that could apply real political pressure on Republicans. Democrats also got Republicans to agree to undo President Donald Trump’s attempts to lay off thousands of federal workers and to block any other such efforts through January.

But there’s no question Democrats are the ones who folded, and somewhat curiously so.

Virtually every poll showed them winning the blame game. They were fighting for something — an extension of the subsides — that those polls showed more than 7 in 10 Americans wanted. About half of Americans wanted Democrats to hold the line — something we just haven’t seen in recent shutdowns.

Democrats could seemingly have drawn this out and forced the is