World of wonders: Congressional Democrats seem to have grown a spine

A man once appeared on “Fox and Friends,” the Fox News morning show, to offer his opinion about an impending government shutdown over one of America’s perennial budget battles. He had a very clear idea of the problem and how it should be solved. “Problems start from the top and they have to get solved from the top,” he told the hosts. “The president is the leader, and he’s got to get everybody in a room and he’s got to lead…I really think the pressure is on the president. “

The man was Donald Trump, the year was 2013 and he was speaking about President Barack Obama. 

That was then. After agreeing to meet with Democratic leaders to try to head off a looming shutdown, Trump decided it wasn’t worth his time. In a long Truth Social diatribe, he claimed that unless Democrats dropped a dozen demands they hadn’t actually made — “have dead people on the Medicaid roles [sic]” and “transgender operations for everybody” — he would not meet with them. 

According to POLITICO, Trump was actually asked by GOP congressional leadership not to meet with the Democratic leadership as he’d planned. This was probably a smart move on their part; the last thing they would have wanted is to let Trump be alone in a room with anyone. Scattered and undisciplined, it’s never clear which way he will go. 

On Friday, it was reported that Trump will meet with leaders of both parties on Monday afternoon. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both of New York, issued a statement about the meeting. “We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis,” they said. “Time is running out.”

The president has always believed that government shutdowns are beneficial to him. Republican elected officials, though, know better. They seem badly divided on strategy in the face of Democrats who, in a strange turn of events, appear to be united and unwilling to bend. The GOP doesn’t have much practice in dealing with such an unusual phenomenon. 

One side, led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, favors a clear, straightforward message: Democrats are refusing to sign onto a clean continuing resolution to fund the government for another seven weeks. In other words, they are being unreasonably obstructionist. But the other side, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, prefers screaming bloody murder that Democrats are angling to reverse laws to give undocumented immigrants government benefits. At this point, the two sides are just drowning each other out.

Nowhere is there talk of bipartisanship. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who also authored Project 2025, set that notion on fire when he promoted the highly controversial use of “pocket rescissions” to unilaterally claw back spending that had already been signed into law. He used the mechanism to cancel $5 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid, proving that a promise means nothing to this administration.

If that weren’t enough, Vought made his feelings about bipartisanship clear at July’s Christian Science Monitor breakfast. “The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan,” he said. “I actually think that over time, if we have a more partisan appropriations process — for a time — it will lead to more bipartisanship.”

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Vought’s comments echo those of anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, who famously said that Democrats “will only become acceptable once they are comfortable in their minority status. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate.” 

On Sept. 24, POLITICO reported that Vought was deploying another scare tactic against Democrats: The OMB was planning mass firings across government agencies in the event of a shutdown. These would not be temporary; the federal government’s workforce would be “permanently reduced.”

Fear of such an action colored the last shutdown standoff and was even expressed by Schumer. But that was back in the early days of the Department of Government Efficiency purges, and the party was still a bit shell-shocked. Today, nobody is cowed by threats of mass firings. The administration has been doing it for months — and they have turned out to be a resounding failure. NBC News reported on Sept. 24 that hundreds of federal employees whose jobs were cut by DOGE are being asked to return. 

It’s taken a while for Democrats to accept that threats, lies and reckless behavior are now the operating principles of the Republican Party. But they appear to understand it now. Democrats are demanding that Republicans restore health care cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including massive cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies that will soon hit millions of Americans, many of whom are GOP voters. Democrats know that Republicans are already feeling some heat for the legislation — and it could get worse. Going into next year’s midterms, they may have to face more angry constituents who are losing their health care amid a shrinking job market. 

With the GOP controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, pressure on Democrats to avert a shutdown will be tremendous. Based on past experience, one should never underestimate the willingness of some in the party to delude themselves into believing the GOP might operate in good faith. So far, Democrats are holding the line. After all, they have a base too, which is overcome with horror at what the administration and its supporters in Congress are doing to this country. 

Democrats may not win in the end, but the 263 million people in America who didn’t vote for this travesty deserve to have someone in Washington, D.C., fighting for them.