Here’s How Trump Loses the Shutdown
God help us but Gavin Newsom is the only Democrat who understands power.
People have been asking me to step away from the abyss and talk about positive action and the potential for how we get out of this mess. So that’s what I’m doing: This is my blueprint for winning the shutdown, pushing back against Trump, and re-establishing the liberal order if/when Democrats regain control of the federal government.
It’s a big, sweeping argument that sounds like West Wing politics, because it assumes two things:
Democratic politicians truly believe that this moment is uniquely dangerous.
If Democrats can’t win a shutdown fight when Republicans control the presidency, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court; when the economy is moving backwards; and when the president’s approval is persistently net -11, then they should just close up shop. Seriously. Resign your offices. Take up knitting. Shut the party down. Because this is the best political terrain you will ever see. You ought to be desperate to have this fight.
So this is me, being optimistic. LFG.
1. Shutdown Power
So far as I can tell, the Democratic ask on the shutdown negotiations boils down to:
Preserving ACA subsidies for low-income people that will keep health care premiums lower.
Undoing Republican cuts to Medicaid in order to preserve healthcare access, especially in poor, rural areas.
This is political malpractice.
Democrats have Trump over a barrel. The government is shut down. Real-world impacts from the last piece of Republican legislation will start crushing voters, soon. And the Democrats’ proposal is to . . . save Trump from the political costs of the shutdown by saving him from the political costs of his Big Beautiful Bill?
Don’t do these things that will make you unpopular, Mr. President, and then we’ll give you the votes you need to end the shutdown, which is also making you unpopular.
AYFKM?
Expiring ACA subsidies and Medicaid cuts are the two best things Democrats have going for them! Trump and Republicans did those things! Let voters experience them!
Here’s the thing: In a normal political moment, Democrats would be right to focus on policies that make people’s lives better. But this isn’t an ordinary moment. For the love of God, it was only four days ago that Trump put every flag officer in the U.S. armed forces into a room and told them that he plans on using their soldiers against American citizens. Even conservative judges understand that a desperately dangerous assault is being made on the underpinnings of liberal democracy.
Democrats are negotiating about policy when they should be negotiating about power.
The only compromises Democrats should accept in exchange for bailing out the Republican-controlled Congress are ones that would either (a) rebalance the structure of government, or (b) put limits on executive power.
If I were Chuck Schumer, my position would be: