Democrats are doing it again.
They’re forced to use conventional political tactics to battle the most unconventional president in history — repeating a scenario that keeps leading them to political disaster.
At first sight, in the third week of the government shutdown, things seem to be working out better than expected for the opposition party locked out of Washington power. They’ve made their key issue — looming health insurance premium hikes — a national story. They’ve opened divisions in the Republican Party. And contrary to stereotype, they didn’t immediately cave, showing supporters a backbone.
In classic shutdown politics, this might have laid a decisive trap for their Republican opponents, as the human cost of the showdown mounts to create a political imperative for the party in power to find an off-ramp.
But this is the nihilistic age of Trump.
The president doesn’t just move the goal posts; he rips up the entire pitch. So assumptions that governed previous shutdowns over 30 years of bitter partisanship in Washington may not apply.
The shutdown started three weeks ago when Senate Democrats refused to back a seven-week spending bill, using the end of government funding as leverage to try to force Republicans to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies and to push for a rollback of Medicaid cuts contained in Trump’s big domestic agenda law.
Republicans are willing to talk about extending the subsidies but won’t do so until Democrats back down and vote to reopen the government on their terms. “Anyone that thinks that tomorrow they’ll suddenly start negotiating, I think is smoking something that is illegal in many states,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, said at a CNN town hall on Wednesday night.
Shutdowns usually end when the political, human and economic pressure becomes so acute that one party has to quit.
A week ago, there was signs President Donald Trump might be tempted by the chance of a deal, and seemed less dialed into the Republican strategy of defiance. But he’s hardened his stance. He’s fired thousands of federal workers and is promising more will lose their jobs in a calculated show of spite to Democrats.
Democrats’ efforts to highlight their campaign is also difficult amid the kaleidoscope of chaos constantly stirred by a president who has — for now — made peace in Gaza; threatened to send troops to more US cities; and might have unleashed a regime-change campaign in Venezuela in a single week. In Washington, at least, the health care issue keeps getting drowned out.
And Trump’s willingness to ignore legal constraints and apparent belief that federal money is his own personal political slush fund opened the way to workarounds so he can pay service members and FBI agents while other furloughed federal workers go without wages. Trump plans to divert tariff revenues to keep nutrition assistance for pregnant women and mothers of young children from running out. By delaying the expiration of such funding, he may be able to defray political damage and set the stage for weeks more of shutdown.
It’s also unclear whether Trump — a billionaire who probably hasn’t lined up at a crowded airport security checkpoint in decades and who often seems to be looking out mostly for himself — is susceptible to the mounting tales of human anguish and inconvenience imposed by the shutdown. And he sure doesn’t feel the stigma of heading a government that is closed. Indeed, he’s used the opportunity to further eviscerate a federal machine devastating by his indiscriminate job cuts. He’s not destroying the town to save it. He’s destroying the town because he enjoys destroying the town.
Do Democrats need to reconsider their tactics?
To prevail in the shutdown, therefore, Democrats will need to find ways to reimpose the political pain that Trump has neutralized. Or can they hit on a political incentive for the president to tempt him into talking and a possible deal in a way that would undercut House Speaker Mike Johnson’s position?
But they will keep coming up against the same problem. This is a president who denied the result of a free and fair election, who declined to bow out of politics when he was convicted of a crime, and who seems to regard the Constitution as a list of rules to be flouted. With this track record, there’s no reason to believe that any pressure will force him to change his behavior.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at the CNN town hall that her party would not fall for the president’s intimidation.“We have to make sure we are expanding and continuing the fight … and not falling for the fine print, not falling for the tricks and not falling for the politics around this,” the New York lawmaker said.
Democrats must also consider whether the mounting consequences of the impasse, in terms of lost jobs, missed pay checks for federal workers, and economic and social fallout, can be justified by any feasible political result. Can they even expect a tangible result in a month that they could not get now if they were to sue for peace with Republicans?
The resolve of Senate Republicans seems to be hardening as the shutdown drags on. “I just don’t see what’s going to get us out of it, because what my Democratic colleagues are asking for, you know this, it’s just not realistic,” Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told CNN’s Manu Raju. “I think this will be the longest shutdown in the history of ever.” And the chances of Trump giving the Democrats a face-saving off-ramp seem slimmer now than a week ago.
Democratic leaders might also have expected more blowback to Johnson’s refusal to recall the House, but complaints that lawmakers are loafing off while citizens get hurt don’t yet seem to be cutting through. Early polling showed that most voters blamed Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, but more recent surveys suggest the politics have not yet turned disastrous for either party. In a CBS News poll earlier this month, 52% disapproved of Trump’s handling of the shutdown. The figures for congressional Republicans and Democrats on the issue were 52% and 49%, respectively. One problem for Democrats is that they are viewed so unfavorably by Americans there may be little confidence they can do anything right.
Still, the core Democratic argument in the shutdown is potent because it’s rooted in a concern millions of Americans share — rising health care costs and the seemingly endless premium spikes that batter consumers every year.
Proof that they are fighting on the right ground can be seen in the way many Republicans agree with their position — most notably pro-Trump Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley said Wednesday that he was facing no pressure from his constituents to end the shutdown. “The pressure is completely the opposite. People understand it’s over health care,” he said.
Democrats want to fight the bully
But while the shutdown is all about health care, it is not only about health care. This explains why winning a simple concession on ACA subsidies, for instance, may not be enough to declare a political victory, even if a comprehensive win may not be realistic.
For nearly 10 months, Democrats have been battered by Trump. Programs their voters hold dear have been destroyed. The democracy they cherish has come under severe assault. And a party that has been wandering the wilderness looking for purpose has been able to do almost nothing to stop it. The Democratic Party’s viability and the faith of its supporter cannot stand another fold in the shutdown.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine represents Virginia, which borders the capital and, along with Maryland, stands to suffer most from federal government firings and furloughs. But Kaine told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that his voters aren’t ready to give in.
“Donald Trump started to punish us the day he was inaugurated and it’s time to stand up and get the punishment to stop. I’m not hearing the message, ‘You’ve got to give into the bully.’ They are saying, ‘We’re tired of it. We are tiring of the layoffs, we’re tired of canceling economic development projects and having funds pulled back from the state. It’s time to draw the line and stop it.’”
Unless sentiments change among Kaine’s voters, it may be a while before Democratic senators feel unbearable pressure to call a halt. Like Trump, the political incentives to give up don’t yet outweigh those to keep going.
So Sen. Kennedy might be right. The shutdown may only have just begun. The next outside leverage point may be Thanksgiving, when the annual travel crush would be a nightmare amid airport security delays and air traffic control snarls caused by workers calling in sick after working weeks without a paycheck.
But the holiday is still six weeks away.
