This is the longest shutdown in the history of the federal government. Both sides have dug in, because both sides see political gain from continuing it. And they both fear reprisals from their respective bases if they “give in" and end it.

While the road seems impassable, there’s an obvious path out of this shutdown. It involves both sides accepting deals they’ve previously said they would reject, and it also involves something far more despised by our lawmakers: a real floor debate.

A deal is worthwhile because a protracted government shutdown is bad, and not only if you're a liberal.

To be sure, shutdowns themselves are not disasters to be avoided at all costs. The current one is only a partial shutdown. And the media will always exaggerate the damage both in terms of real-world consequences and political consequences. Finally, government shutdowns should matter less than they do, because the government should be smaller.

All that said, when a sizable portion of the U.S. workforce is furloughed without pay, and when millions of Americans may lose access to benefits or tax refunds on which they’ve come to rely (for better and for worse), that hurts the economy and it hurts people. Ending this shutdown, even at a price, is a worthy undertaking.

Our path out starts with a deal:

Democrats stop blocking unrelated legislation in the Senate and Republicans allow each of the remaining individual appropriations bills to move one at a time. Let Pelosi pass a given appropriations bill, and then the Senate take it up. Repeat.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats will stop blocking other legislation (Last week, they blocked a Syria sanctions bill). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., may consider this a needless cave to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. McConnell sees that the public doesn’t blame Senate Republicans for the shutdown, and so he sees no downside to allowing it to continue.

We plead that McConnell, in a bout of public spiritedness, take the deal: consider individual appropriations bills in exchange for getting Congress back up and running. On all appropriations bills but one, action should be quick.

When we get to the Homeland Security spending bill, McConnell should take the real bold step: include $5 billion in wall funding, and allow Democrats to introduce an amendment to defund it. Then have a floor debate with a floor vote. If Democratic leaders were telling the truth in the Oval Office last month, the defund amendment would pass. We suspect Democrats are wrong, and the defund amendment will fail. Heck, maybe the debate will even persuade lawmakers one way or another. More radically, allow multiple floor amendments, and maybe a compromise on wall funding will organically emerge.

At this point, if we are correct, a DHS bill with majority support in the Senate would include significant wall funding. Democrats would be foolish to shut down Homeland Security to block one particular means of border security that the president had run on and won, and which won in a fair floor debate.

If needed to budge the House, offer one other immigration provision to the Democrats, such as some sort of DACA provision, providing relief to immigrants who entered illegally as minors.

We know nobody would be happy with this deal. But if our lawmakers have any public spirit, they’ll take it up.