No Wonder We Have a Shutdown

Trump's abject ignorance and narcissism made this inevitable

With Donald Trump in the White House and congressional MAGA Republicans afraid to cross him, no one should be surprised that the federal government has shut down. Aided and abetted by MAGA Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (who sent his members out of town rather than stick around for a vote and risk swearing in the new Democratic representative…who would be 218^th vote for a discharge petition to release the Epstein files), Trump made no effort to keep the government open.

Trump cannot fathom that Democrats would resist his commands. In a belated meeting on Monday with congressional leaders that predictably went nowhere, Trump appeared clueless about how his own big, ugly bill would affect healthcare. (But he also does not seem to know what was going on in Portland.) It’s difficult to reason—let alone negotiate—with someone so willfully ignorant.

Operating in a narcissistic fantasy that he is beloved by voters and clueless about what is at stake, Trump naturally cannot imagine that Democrats would deny him their votes to take away healthcare from millions of Americans. Republicans have ceded their Article I powers and the Supreme Court has blessed his unilateral power grasp, so he naturally expects to keep undercutting congressional authorization deals with unilateral rescissions. Democrats’ insistence that he actually respect Congress’s power of the purse must flummox him. Whatever Trump believes, his hand is weak.

First, he is overwhelmingly unpopular. As The New Republic’s Greg Sargent recently recounted:

The new Quinnipiac poll has Trump’s approval at an abysmal 38 percent, while 54 percent disapprove. The new Associated Press poll has him at 39 percent approving to 60 percent disapproving. The new Gallup poll has him at 40 percent to 56 percent. Reuters has him at 41 percent, and the new Economist/YouGov poll has him at 39–56.

Those numbers are not just rotten; they are historically rotten for a president at this point in his term. Presidents who prevailed in shutdowns have not been so widely disliked.

The assumption that the side “causing” the shutdown is destined to lose is faulty when the president is underwater on every issue, the economy is in decline, and he seems obsessed with everything but the shutdown issues (e.g. attacking Jimmy Kimmel, invading another peaceful city, persecuting his enemies, and politicizing the military).

Moreover, the latest Navigator poll shows that by a 49 to 34 percent margin voters in battleground states say “Congress should let the government shut down to hold the line against funding cuts for healthcare programs and keeping tariffs in place,” rather than “keep the government open, even if it means funding cuts for healthcare programs and keeping tariffs in place.”

Meanwhile, a Morning Consult polls shows “45% of voters say they’d blame Republicans in Congress for a government shutdown, while only 32% say they’d blame Democrats in Congress.” In short, voters’ negative assessment of Trump is likely to color how they view the shutdown.

Second, Trump’s excuses are easily debunked and/or unintelligible. He ranted on Truth Social: “[Democrats] are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors [...] allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.” When he has no colorable argument to defend his conduct, Trump is reduced to such babbling.

Government healthcare has never and will not be available to undocumented people. And, needless to say, Democrats’ concerns (Medicaid cuts, subsidies for the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and an end to illegal rescissions) have nothing to do with any transgender issue. Getting other Republicans who face the voters next year to parrot these pathetic attacks may be difficult.

Third, Republicans are exceptionally vulnerable on the underlying issue at the heart of this.

The core of the MAGA agenda—taking away healthcare to pay for tax cuts for billionaires—is indefensible.

Even Republicans have tried to rebrand the “big, beautiful bill.” It remains a loser with voters. In August, Pew Research Center found it was 14 points underwater. KFF in late July found only 36% of adults held a favorable view while a jaw-dropping 63% has an unfavorable view. So long as the shutdown is about healthcare—and it is—Republicans are in deep trouble.

Fourth, Trump’s threat to conduct huge permanent layoffs during the shutdown has landed with a THUD. He has already unilaterally fired tens of thousands of workers (blessed by the MAGA majority on the Supreme Court by lifting stays on his executive power grabs). Even if Democrats managed to pass a “clean” continuing resolution, he would likely continue slashing away at the federal workforce and at vital government services.

Trump might well try to continue his lawless destruction of the federal government, but the shutdown would not make that any easier. Having abused his authority so frequently, his threats now ring hollow.

Suffice to say, government shutdowns are highly undesirable. They hurt government workers and the Americans who depend on “non-essential” services. However, ripping away healthcare from millions of Americans and facilitating Trump’s illegitimate confiscation of the power of the purse are even more destructive—and even more unpopular. It will be Democrats’ task over the ensuing days and weeks to lay out the stakes clearly to the American people. Do millions want to lose healthcare insurance? Do they want Trump to keep ripping up government no matter what Congress decides?

If Democrats do their job, Republicans may regret forcing through an agenda Americans detest and abdicating their role as the first branch of government.