All or Nothing: Why the Democrats Need to Win This Shutdown Fight

Read on Substack

This shutdown fight only ends well for Democrats if they get what they want.

Finally showing some backbone and putting up a fight for once is commendable, but Democrats can only come out on top at the end of this shutdown if they get what they are demanding.  If they don’t, or they only get a partial victory, it will be difficult to convince the American people the fight was worth it.

I’ve been critical of Democrats, that’s no secret, but to be clear, I am well aware Republicans deserve a heavy dose of blame for this shutdown fiasco.  The Republicans have systematically been stripping away the rights of Americans for months.  And the tactics they are using now to force Democrats’ hand in this shutdown fight—threatening to fire federal employees, failing to swear in a newly elected House member, refusing to even be in Washington—is shameful. 

The frustration I feel is that Democrats haven’t put up much of a fight prior to now, though I am grateful they are finally doing something.

Winning this fight will not be easy.  Republicans have the upper hand—they control the House, the Senate, and the White House.  Maybe that’ll change next year in the midterms, but also maybe not.  This fight should have started long ago, but Democrats have now backed themselves into a corner giving them limited leverage to emerge from this fight on top.  Ending this shutdown will also likely be the result of outside forces putting pressure on Congress, not necessarily anything Democrats or Republicans do independently.    

Some point to polls that showed at the start of this shutdown that Republicans will bear the brunt of the blame, but if you look at the polls, the reality is that most polls allot much blame to both parties.  In more recent polls, that blame is beginning to shift.

The Democrats’ demand for healthcare subsidies is a noble position, though the fact that these subsidies are expiring is largely the Democrats’ fault in the first place.  They voted to include a sunset date on the subsidies with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021 and again in the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.  All Republicans and one Democrat in the House voted against ARPA.  Zero Republicans in either chamber voted for the Inflation Reduction Act and Vice President Harris was the tiebreaking vote in the Senate.  The Democrats didn’t need to include that provision in the bill because they had the votes even without Republican support.  But they did.  And now those chickens have come home to roost.

I purchase my healthcare on the exchange, and I personally benefit from the subsidies.  This fight is also especially important for Republican-controlled states that have not expanded the Medicaid health plans for those who need it most.  But voters in those states are also some of the most staunchly supportive voters for Trump.  Will this be the moment they see the light and realize how much Trump is hurting them and that Democrats are justified in their opposition to the changes being proposed by the GOP?  I wouldn’t hold my breath for that. 

Democrats are fighting for the right things, but will they be successful?  When you look at the polls now, it’s through this frame—that Democrats are correct in demanding changes to the spending bill.

But if Democrats fight and lose, will the American people recognize that the fight was nonetheless worth it?  Or will we have lost more than we gained?

If Democrats are not successful in this fight, and many federal jobs are permanently eliminated in the interim, it won’t reflect well on them.  If that were to happen, I think the polls will tell a very different story after the shutdown is over.

This shutdown is also a conflict of two different approaches to speaking to the American people—Democrats are speaking to broader policies issues that many Americans don’t necessarily fully appreciate and will not fully appreciate until they are personally impacted, which could come on November 1^st when health insurance companies notify Americans how much their health coverage will cost next year. 

Republicans are approaching this fight as a culture war by framing this as a debate over immigration even if illegal immigrants aren’t eligible for federal healthcare programs.  That is a pesky fact Republicans can’t be bothered to acknowledge and the Americans they are pandering to don’t know any better.

There are also two issues here that I think are conflated in most Americans’ minds—voting on a continuing resolution and voting on a full spending bill.  As of today, two Democrats and one Independent (Senators Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Angus King of Maine, respectively) in the Senate joined all Republicans in voting for a continuing resolution.  Sixty votes are needed to pass, and this is what gives Democrats the leverage they don’t normally have in Congress—Republicans need Democrats to vote with them to approve funding.  As this shutdown drags on, I fully expect more Democrats to join their colleagues in voting for a stopgap measure, particularly if Republicans, as Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said, they are willing to work with Democrats on addressing their healthcare concerns.  Should we believe anything Republicans say?  No, but the longer this shutdown continues, the more damaging it becomes on many levels.

Anything short of a full win will be challenging for Democrats.  It’ll first be difficult to get a partial win and then if they do get that, to win over the American people—and get those votes come election time—they need to communicate that win effectively.  Traditionally, Democrats have not been very good at communications generally and even less so in communicating their successes.  I applaud the Dems for rolling out ads in battleground districts explaining their position on the shutdown.

I do hope the Democrats win this fight.  This shutdown has been and will continue to be a long and messy haul.  I suspect the government will reopen under an impasse (i.e., another CR with no or limited gains on the healthcare front by Democrats).  We’ll have another CR and kick the can down the road, perhaps again until the next fiscal year.  And with that, everyone loses.