Will Democrats blink once again in a shutdown standoff?

Is it time for another government shutdown showdown already? We went through the last one only five months ago, and then another just a few months before that. Each time this came back around, the best Congress could do was to vote for a continuing resolution to keep the government running at the same funding levels for a few more months. “Resolution” is a curious word in this context — because there never is one for what has become a dreaded, tiresome ritual. 

This time around, the parameters of the debate are a little different than they were in March, when Democrats and Republicans finally agreed to extend the budget until Sept. 30. Once again, what Republicans are proposing is so odious that Democrats cannot be seen to have voted for it, lest their own voters turn on them. Even after the GOP barely managed to pass the Big Beautiful Catastrophe, which slashed taxes for the wealthy and safety net programs for everyone else, and added hundreds of billions to President Donald Trump’s federal police apparatus, they are coming back for more.

Republicans have a tiny majority in the House, which means they cannot lose more than a handful of votes, or they would have to try to peel off a few Democrats. This has happened in the past, when the far-right Freedom Caucus has held out for even more draconian cuts, and it has, at times, given Democrats some leverage. But with the decline of the Freedom Caucus’ clout during Trump’s second term, Republicans have mostly stuck together. 

The Republican Senate majority, meanwhile, has to contend with the filibuster, so Democrats could, in theory, force a shutdown all by themselves. Last March, that’s what Democratic voters were clamoring for when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rounded up votes to defeat the filibuster, infuriating the base and many of his own senators. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker  even called him out for it during his epic 24-hour speech on the Senate floor. 

The question is whether these same dynamics will play out this time. Will Democrats put up a bit of a fuss before allowing the budget to pass with little resistance, or will they once more kick the can down the road? There’s already talk of an extension to November or December, mainly because there are only 14 legislative days to get anything accomplished. POLITICO reports that Republicans, who do not want another continuing resolution, are “livid their own leaders don’t have a better plan.” 

Senate Democrats are another story. They have apparently been negotiating with Republicans over the past few months to try to hammer out some kind of compromise — and they have gotten nowhere. 

How could they? Republicans are not acting in good faith. Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has pulled the trigger on his plot to usurp the power of the purse from Congress. The president, he has asserted, has the power to cancel congressionally-approved spending by using a “pocket rescission,” which would see the administration refusing to spend money on programs it doesn’t support. Since the funds expire at the end of each fiscal year, Congress would not be able to do anything about it.

This action is unprecedented, and it would effectively grant the president absolute monarchical power.

Under those circumstances, why should Democrats sign on to a deal with the Republicans when Trump will simply refuse to honor it? Any compromise struck with the president is not worth the paper it’s printed on. 

The consensus is that, like last time, Democrats will end up caving in the end. In his latest column titled “Democrats Flinched During the Last Spending Showdown. They Should Do It Again,” POLITICO Magazine’s Jonathan Martin quoted a Democratic staffer:

“You’ll probably just have to eventually fold and get nothing out of it,” the aide said, warning the scenario posed huge risks for the party: “Are we going to let the base dictate legislative strategy and just shut down the government so we can say, ‘Okay, at least we fought,’ and then two weeks later, we reopen it and get nothing in return, and in the interim do harm to actual people?”

This appears to be the attitude of Democratic leadership. Schumer and House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries sent one of their strongly worded letters to the GOP leadership, which asked:

1. What is your proposal to fund the government in a bipartisan manner and avoid unnecessary harm to the American people?

2. Are there any plans to address the looming healthcare crisis caused by Republican policies, including the so-called “One Big Beautiful Law”?

3. Has the President or any member of the Trump Administration indicated to either of you that the Office of Management and Budget will submit another rescissions package?

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As journalist Brian Beutler pointed out, “The leaders make no demands. The closest they come is to request a meeting, in the hope of getting answers to these questions. Not to establish conditions for Democratic votes, just to see how uncompromising Republicans intend to be. This is, if anything, a weaker posture than they adopted in March, before folding and igniting an enormous grassroots backlash.”

Beutler argued that Republicans always make maximal demands in these stand-offs, and over the years, they have repeatedly managed to get Democrats to back down. (In fact, if the Freedom Caucus extremists hadn’t refused to take yes for an answer, many times the GOP could have gotten almost everything they wanted.) “All it took to establish a new, unwritten rule that Republicans would use governing deadlines to extort Democrats was for then-Speaker John Boehner to walk to the mics and make an arbitrary demand: A dollar in spending cuts for every dollar increase in the borrowing cap,” Beutler wrote. In the Senate, then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would follow up with the threat of a filibuster, and Democrats would end up capitulating. 

By failing to use these same tactics, Democrats have gotten nothing. Their demands have not been met because they don’t ask for, let alone demand, anything. Instead, they quiz Republicans about bipartisanship, which is meaningless in this environment. 

But their biggest failing is this: They fail to use the moment to define the real parameters of the debate on their own turf. 

Beutler recommended taking this line with the GOP:

“As you know President Trump is engaged in a wide variety of illegal activity, including his seizure of Congress’s spending and tariff authority, his abuse of other emergency authorities, and his deployment of masked, secret police throughout the country. We of course can not vote to fund the continuation of this lawlessness. Should you need Democratic votes to renew funding for the government, we will insist upon amending the appropriations to include measures defunding these historic abuses of power.”

They could use the same tone and demand the reinstitution of all the funding for their proverbial “kitchen table issues.” 

Democrats have voters too — and they need to see their leaders in Washington making some “good trouble” for Republicans, even if it’s risky. Dangerous, unprecedented times call for bold action.

Instead of worrying obsessively about offending some swing voter a year from now, perhaps they should, as Ed Kilgore writes in New York magazine, “begin thinking of the federal government not as turf to be defended to the last ditch but as territory occupied by a proto-fascist regime and take some pride in interrupting its operations until normalcy returns.” Why make it easy for them?