Back in September, when I reported an article on how Democrats should shut down the government, I kept hearing the same warning from veterans of the past: The President controls the bully pulpit. He controls, to some extent, which parts of the government remain open and which parts are closed. It is very difficult for the opposition to win a shutdown.
What makes it all the more remarkable is that the Democrats won this one. Polls have shown that the majority of voters blame the Republicans, not the Democrats, perhaps because President Donald Trump was occupying the East Wing of the White House rather than discussing and negotiating with the government. Trump’s approval rating has been falling — in CNN’s tracking, it was pushed back into the 30s the first time he took office. And last week, Democrats lost to Republicans in the polls and Trump blamed his party’s loss in part on the shutdown. Democrats were riding higher than they had been in months.
Then over the weekend, the senate Democrats broke the rands and negotiated an agreement to end the shutdown – if we are honest – very little.
The guts of the deal are this: Food assistance — both Snap and Wic — will get more money, and there are several other modest deals on spending levels elsewhere in the state. Federal workers-off Most of the government is funded only until the end of January. (So get ready: We can do this again in a few months.) At best, the solution does nothing to prolong the run-out of cheap tax cuts that the Democrats shut down the government in the first place. All it offers is a promise from Republicans to vote on tax bills in the future. Of the dozen or so House and Senate Democrats I spoke to, everyone expected that vote to fail.
To understand why the shutdown ended with such a whimper, you need to understand the extraordinary role that ACA funding played. Democrats say the shutdown was about funding, but most of them, it wasn’t. It was about Trump’s endorsement. It was about showing their base – and themselves – that they can fight back. It was about treating an unusual political moment.
Funding for the ACA is emerging as a necessary shutdown because it could keep the caucus sufficiently engaged. They put Democrats on the right side of public opinion – even self-identified voters wanted funding to be extended – and had the Senate Coalition together. You shut down the government with the democracy you have, not the democracy you want.
But the closure is built on a cracked foundation. There were Democrats in the Senate who did not want a shutdown at all. There were Democrats in the Senate who wanted a shutdown but thought it was strange to make their demand so narrow: was winning on health care premiums really winning the right fight? Did the Democrats really vote to support the government in turning to Authoritarianism as long as the health insurance boom is maintained?
And what if winning the health care battle was actually a political gift to Trump? Without a fix, the average health insurance premium for 20 million Americans will be higher. The premium shock will hit red states especially. Tony Fabrizio, Trump Fabrizio, Trump, released a survey of competitive House districts showing that allowing tax credits to expire could be detrimental to Republican efforts to hold the House. Why are Democrats fighting so hard to split their positive issue in 2026?
The political logic of the raging battle was over: If the Democrats got extended tax credits — if they “won” — they would be able to solve a major Republican election problem. If the Republiphans successfully allowed the tax credits to expire – if they “won” – they would be giving Democrats a cudgel with which to beat them at the polls.
This is why Seen compromises. Morally, it can be worth giving up a preferred edge to lower health insurance premiums. But the one-year extension solved the Republicans’ electoral problem without solving the policy problem. Why on earth do they do that?
In any case, Republicans weren’t interested in Schamer’s offer. Trul himself shows no desire for a deal. Instead of negotiating health care spending, Trump has been rehashing the pain the shutdown is causing. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or fired. The administration has been withholding food aid from Americans who need it most. Airports plunge into conflict as air traffic controllers go without pay.
More than anything else, this is what leads some Democrats in the Senate to cut the deal: Trump’s willingness to hurt people outweighs their willingness to see that people are hurt. I want to give them what they deserve in this: they hear from their districts and they see the problems that are rising, and they try to do what they see as a responsible, ethical thing. They do not believe that holding the exit will lead to Trump returning the subsidy. They feared that their Republican colleagues would, under pressure, do as Trump wanted and end the Filibuster. (Whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing is the subject of another column.) This, in the end, is what counts as the number of indicators the Senate does: They do not think that a prolonged shutdown will cause Trump. They just think it will cause more damage.
If I were in the Senate, I would not vote for this compromise. The shutdown is an opportunity for controversy, and the country has been starting to pay attention. If Trump wants to cancel flights out of gratitude rather than keep health care expensive, I don’t see why Democrats are standing in the way of his priorities. And I worry that the Democrats have just taught Trump that they will buckle under pressure. That’s the kind of lesson he remembers.
But it’s worth keeping this in perspective: the shutdown was a war of words, not a real war. Both parties were jostling for office, and the Democrats, if you look at the polls, finished better than they started. They raised their best issue – health care – and put a class of voters to plug higher premiums through Republican Rule. It’s not a win, but given how bad shutouts often go to the opposing team, it’s better than losing.
Ezra Klein is a columnist for the New York Times.
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