THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

The federal government shut down on October 1.

It is now October 9.

The government is still shutdown.

No one knows when it will re-open. 

Or if that really matters.

The Republican Party controls the federal government.  It has majorities in the House and the Senate and Trump in the White House. Six of the nine Justices on the Supreme Court are Republican.  Three of them (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett) were appointed by Trump. Two (Roberts and Alito) were appointed by Bush the Younger and one (Clarence Thomas) by Bush the Elder.

The Republican Party these days has two, and only two, functions.

The first is to agree with and then echo whatever rants the president spits out at his incoherent rallies, press availabilities or made-for-TV cabinet meetings.  This obligation also applies to any posts he puts up on Truth Social, the social media platform Trump owns and controls and created after he was de-platformed in January 2021 for sponsoring an attempted (and violent) coup.

The second is to either absolutely shutter or gradually defund the government to the point where economic oligarchy, mass deportation and some version of national defense remains but everything else (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, the Department of Education, an apolitical Justice Department, FEMA, independent colleges and universities, the CDC, public media, civil rights, soft-power foreign aid in the form of USAID or Voice of America, and any federally funded programs or policies in so-called blue states) either ends or gradually evaporates.

The marriage of these two functions has turned the GOP into an authoritarian and anti-democratic bulwark.

In both the literal and figurative sense of that term.

Literally . . .

The GOP is now set up as a rampart against any institution or individual that might oppose Trump in any way whatsoever.

And figuratively . . . 

It supports and enacts policies that either gratify Trump's ego or empower its own historic goal of reducing government to what it was before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Earl Warren's Supreme Court, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

So long as that literal rampart and figurative gratification is preserved, Trump is more than willing to allow the reduction to proceed apace.  

He is also willing to do this regardless of the historic consequences to either the country or himself, both of which will be long term. In fact, the length of the term is probably the basis for his ennui. 

He is a creature of the immediate.  

His attention span is limited.  

So is his vocabulary. 

Addicted to TV and twitter, he does not read.  Addicted to insult, he does not argue. Addicted to lies, he does not perceive. Addicted to himself, he is disengaged from the real world. So long as his Cabinet and his media praise him, the former of which has been expressly designed to do so, the latter of which (like the GOP itself) has come to that condition gradually, he will not notice or not care about any decline, either to the country or himself. Indeed, it is how he lives with his abysmal approval numbers.

Into this world has now been parachuted  a government shut down.

The function of the government is to create law and to enforce it.  Shutdowns impede these activities but do not entirely stop them. Thousands of federal employees are furloughed but those deemed "essential" must work without pay. This includes the military and federal prosecutors. Congress cannot shutdown (and its Representatives and Senators are paid) but some staff are furloughed and others are deemed essential. Permanently funded entitlements (e.g., for Social Security, Medicare, VA benefits) are paid but some ancillary services (e.g., benefit verification requests, earnings records corrections) can be delayed.

Trump's response to all of this has been . . .

A bit of a yawn.

His OMB Director, Russell Voight (of Project 2025 fame), threatened mass lay-offs before the shutdown took effect. These, however, had more to do with the administration's claim that it was entitled to do so than any additional basis that would exist on account of a shutdown. Voight issued a memo telling agencies to "consider Reduction in Force notices" to federal employees for whom funding would not exist on October 1 and whose work "is not consistent with the President's priorities."  Ordinarily, the absence of funding would lead to furlough (and a return to work with back pay once the shutdown ended) and "the President's priorities" would be irrelevant. As of now, no Reduction in Force notices have been sent.

Beyond this threat, Trump's only other reaction to the shutdown has been to promise the military it will receive back pay and threaten non-military furloughed employees with the prospect they will not.  Since the promise is statutorily mandated and the threat requires new legislation before it can ever be implemented, both amount to idle chatter.  In the meantime, Trump's assault on the rule of law continues via the Comey prosecution, the Letitia James/Adam Schiff/John Bolten "investigations", the FBI's apparent acceptance of the bribe paid to ICE's Tom Homan, the militarized attacks on Democratic cities, and Pam Bondi's performative insults and deflections in the face of Senate inquiry about any of the above.

Which, of course, is why the shutdown is irrelevant to Trump.

For him, his Apprentice-like presidency is about creating non-existent realities, attacking enemies, and insulting opponents.

The shutdown stops none of this.

For the Democrats, however, a whole different set of objectives exist.

They actually believe in government.

And because they do, they are generally opposed to shutting it down.

This time around, however, things are different.

For two reasons.  

First, Trump's just signed Big Beautiful Bill ends, as of January 1, 2026, the Obamacare premium tax credits passed during the Biden Administration.  As a consequence, premiums for plans available under the Affordable Care Act are predicted to rise by as much as 75% in 2026.   And for those who actually receive the subsidies, their premiums will more than double.  As of now, four states have actually sent out notice increases and all are expected to follow.

The Democrats are united in believing the shutdown provides them with the leverage needed to force Congress and Trump to restore those credits.  In response, the GOP claims it will negotiate on all health care issues in the ordinary course but that, in the meantime, the continuing resolution already passed by the House should be accepted and the government should re-open.  

The Democrats are refusing this deal.

Because . . .

And this is the second reason this shutdown is different . . .

The Democrats do not believe Trump or the GOP will honor any promise to negotiate.

Trump's Big Beautiful Bill was passed by the House and Senate without a single Democratic vote.  There was no negotiation, not even the hint of it. In the House, where the majority controls what can be brought to the floor, the only difficulty the GOP encountered was from a handful of far-right members who thought the bill did not cut enough but who, as has now become the case on any close vote, ultimately bowed to Trump's insistence that it pass (and his threatened blowback if it didn't).  And in the Senate, the bill passed by a 51-50 vote (with Vance breaking the tie after three Republicans opposed it) because it was brought up under budget reconciliation procedures that are not subject to the filibuster rule. 

The only thing that could break this impasse is an issue the GOP thinks might imperil its hold on Congress in the 2026 mid-terms.

The Democrats think health care is that issue.

They also think they are on pretty solid ground in believing that neither Trump nor the Republicans in Congress will negotiate to restore premium tax credit support for Obamacare.

And so far . . .

The polls support them.

Sort of.

Brad Bannon is a Democratic consultant (full disclosure: he is a friend and was the pollster I hired in my runs for Congress in 1992 and 1994).  In an October 8 article in The Hill he wrote "A new national survey of adult Americans by CBS News and YouGov.com indicates that congressional Democrats have an edge in the showdown over the federal government shutdown . . . Four out of every ten  . . . people blame President Trump for the closure and three in ten adults fault Democrats . . . [O]ne out of every three spread the blame widely."

"Jobs and inflation," he continues, "are the major concerns on the public worry-list, and the mischief executive dropped the ball. Most Americans believe Trump's policies have hurt them financially. Nine months into Trump's second term, medical costs are still rising and Democrats have wisely framed this contest as an opportunity to keep these costs from growing even higher.  The Democrats have put Trump and his MAGA acolytes on the spot over a year before the midterms."

"The CBS survey illustrates," says Bannon, "each party's soft spots.  The public is most likely to fault Democrats for being weak and Republicans for being extreme. If the Democrats stand firm, they will prove to the public that they do have the strength of purpose to run the nation."  On the other hand, he notes, "The Republican insistence on tax breaks at all costs demonstrates . . . rigid attachment to a radical economic ideology which fattens the rich and starves middle class and poor Americans."

"The shutdown," he concludes, "is now in extra innings.  Democrats must stand up and be counted to win affordable care for all Americans.  Republicans have fought tooth and nail from the birth of the programs to kill off Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.  If Trump wins this budget battle, the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid are down for the count and the two other vital programs will be next on the MAGA hit list."

Elections are won in the middle.

Trump is more distrusted and more under-water than any other modern president. He also has a stronger base of diehards supporting him than any other modern president. Bannon's essential argument is that those in the middle, those who decide elections, are the key to the 2026 mid-terms.  

Bannon thinks those folks are worried about "jobs and inflation" but believe Democrats are "weak".

If he's right, shutdown was really the only available choice for Democrats.

As the party in the minority faced with an opposition that will not negotiate and does not compromise, and a president who, in addition to doing neither, is hell bent on preserving his authoritarian power play, the Democrats have limited options.  The courts are one of them and at the lower levels have been successful in temporarily stopping Trump's militarized attacks on Democratic cities, unilateral funding rescissions, and scattershot liquidation of the federal work force; the Supreme Court, however, has turned back many of those efforts and delayed others. In this environment, there is not much any opponent can do to demonstrate strength.

But there is one thing the Democrats can do

They can stop pretending the system is working.

The shutdown is a way, probably the only way at this point, to do so.

For Democrats, it is unnatural.

For decades they have been the party of "Yes, we can!"

Now they must be the party of . . .

"No, we won't!"