Copyright New York Magazine
Nearly three weeks into the current federal-government shutdown, Democrats have made it clear that their principal — and, perhaps, their sole — demand for cooperating to end it is a commitment to move some sort of bipartisan extension of the Obamacare premium subsidies due to expire at the end of the year. They may be willing to accept a half-a-loaf, like an ironclad commitment for a vote on a specific measure, or a Trump commitment to back some sort of remedy for an impending health insurance price spike that worries Republicans too. At this point, however, Republicans continue to confidently predict unconditional surrender by Democrats. That’s the mantra regularly repeated by shutdown managers Mike Johnson and John Thune in Congress, and by White House spokespersons as well. This weekend Trump economic advisor Kevin Hasset made a very specific prediction about how and when Democrats would cave, per CNBC: Hassett said on CNBC that he has heard from the Senate that Democrats thought it would be “bad optics” to vote to reopen the government before this weekend’s massive nationwide “No Kings” protests against President Donald Trump. “Now there’s a shot that this week, things will come together, and very quickly,” Hassett said. “The moderate Democrats will move forward and get us an open government, at which point we could negotiate whatever policies they want to negotiate with regular order.” There are two very questionable assumptions Hassett articulated in his happy talk about an end to the shutdown. The first is that “Democratic moderates” will split with the rest of their party (presumably in the Senate, where a Democratic filibuster is the obstacle to a reopening vote) to give Trump and the GOP exactly what they want. It’s true that three Democratic senators (John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Angus King) have from the get-go voted for the Republican measure funding the government at current levels until November 21. But it’s also true that not a single Democrat has joined then in nine subsequent Senate votes. In March, when ten Democrats did “cave” and vote to keep the government open, they were led across the line by Chuck Schumer, whose standing among grassroots Democrats took a severe pounding he is unlikely ever to forget. And that leads to Hassett’s second dubious assumption: that a Democratic surrender is strictly a matter of time, and was postponed very temporarily by the need to stand strong prior to this weekend’s massive No Kings rallies. Now it’s true congressional Democrats are looking for an “off ramp” to end the shutdown and move on to preparations for next year’s midterm elections. Punchbowl News suggests they may conclude a symbolic political victory over Republicans will be enough even absent any legislative concessions over Obamacare subsidies: We’ve written about how Nov. 1, the start of open enrollment for health insurance, could be a moment for Senate Democrats to declare “victory” and allow the government to reopen. Last week, top Democrats pushed back on this theory, saying Nov. 1 will only increase the pressure on Republicans to accede to their health care demands. But now, there’s a sense within the Senate Democratic Caucus that this deadline is in fact their off-ramp to end the shutdown. Democrats can argue it’s no longer feasible for Congress to address the expiring Obamacare subsidies legislatively. The goal here would be to make Republicans own the soaring premium hikes and health-care coverage losses that millions of Americans would experience. If Democrats are willing to accept a political victory without a policy win, this is a critical moment for Schumer to figure out what this looks like — and how he shields himself from inevitable criticism from the left. The single biggest problem with this scenario is that Republicans from Trump on down to individual GOP members of Congress appear uninterested in any truce that isn’t a total, abject, humiliating defeat for Democrats. Here is an illustrative “peace” offering from House Freedom Caucus warrior Chip Roy: Translation: we’ll let you kill Obamacare subsidies if you let us undermine Obamacare itself with health care “reforms” that bring back discrimination against people who are poor or sick. Meanwhile, in myriad ways the Trump administration continues to demonize any and all political opposition to its plans. Aside from selective federal prosecution of various Trump enemies, the White House and its many echoing voices now regularly treat the Democratic Party as an ongoing criminal conspiracy that needs to be rooted out by law enforcement and even suppressed by armed deployments of military force. The same congressional leaders who are confidently predicting total victory in the shutdown impasse spent much of last week describing the peaceful and highly patriotic No Kings rallies as “hate America” and “pro-Hamas” events. Trump himself showed his utter contempt for opposition with a scatological video on Truth Social that broke toxic new ground for presidential shitposting. So it’s hard to image Republicans allowing Democrats any sort of moral victory or even a face-saving gesture to end the government shutdown. And faced with what is increasingly a challenge to their basic legitimacy, Democrats aren’t going to budge. They may have very limited power to get in the way of Trump 2.0’s audacious agenda, but they won’t give up the one weapon they do possess (the ability to block government funding) if a stand-down is interpreted by the people running the country as a fresh blank check to turn America into a one-party state.
