On the surface, the Senate battled this week over avoiding a cataclysmic debt default. Underneath it all, the clash was really about who controls a historically divided chamber.
A collapse in the U.S. credit rating was never really on the table, according to interviews with senators in both parties. Instead, rank-and-file members stepped back to let Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell make hard-charging moves in their ongoing one-upmanship. McConnell insisted Democrats take the hardest possible path to raising the debt limit, Schumer said he would simply not pursue it, and they settled on a short-term hike that both spun as a victory — until McConnell faced blowback from reliable allies who questioned whether he’d picked a fight only to back down from it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/08/debt-drama-power-struggle-schumer-mcconnell-515612