What the Government Shutdown Is Really All About

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Early in the week, as the government funding deadline approached, word got out that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer was floating a new plan^[2] with his members to cut short a shutdown: a week- or 10-day-long bill to keep the government open so discussions could continue. This didn’t go over well, with progressive Democrats both inside and outside^[3] Congress loudly shooting the idea down. They had been nervous about Schumer’s resolve ever since he caved^[4] at the most recent funding battle in March, and they interpreted this as a sign he was wobbling. Within a few hours, Schumer got the message and publicly rejected^[5] the backup plan.

The shutdown would go on, with no clear plan of how it would end.

So why did Senate Democrats repeatedly block a bill to fund the government, sending it into shutdown? You may read a lot about demands they have on health care policy—extending certain funds, reversing certain cuts, and so on. Although they certainly do want these things, they’re not likely to get them by shutting down the government, and they know that. Health care is just the issue that polls best^[6] for them, and the issue they plan to run on in 2026.

The real reason they took the fight this far is that congressional Democrats are under unholy pressure from their anxious base to do something, and this is the one thing they can do. So they’ve done it.

Think of all the damage that Donald Trump has done since January to things that Democrats care about, and all of the nothing that’s been done about it. What has Trump used congressional funding from the government to do this year? I don’t have 10,000 words, so let’s sort by recency.

He has ordered^[7] the congressionally funded Department of Justice to prosecute his political enemies. He’s used the congressionally funded Treasury to bail out his friend^[8] in Argentina. He’s used the congressionally funded Department of Defense to send troops to Democratic cities as “training grounds^[9]” for warfighting. The congressionally funded Department of Health and Human Services is in thrall to anti-vax pablum and is telling pregnant women not to take the one pain-relief medication they can. His congressionally funded Office of Management and Budget works day in and day out to make employment unpleasant for federal workers and regularly refuses to spend congressionally appropriated funds^[10]. He’s used congressional funds to make a joke of Congress, and Republican lawmakers are laughing along with him.

What can Democrats do to prevent their worst nightmares from actualization, at least until the midterm elections? They can sue, and have been suing, but are repeatedly finding^[12] that the Supreme Court^[13] is all aboard^[14] the Trump train. Mass protest as a means of raising awareness of Trump’s abuse of power is still the most effective remedy for it. But the president’s approval rating, while not good, is frozen^[15] in a place that won’t force the administration to change its behavior. Democrats could raise as much hell as they wanted against Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” but that legislation needed just 50 Senate votes to pass.

A bill to fund the government, though, needs 60 votes to break a Senate filibuster. Republicans have only 53—and one of them, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, doesn’t generally vote for government funding bills. Withholding 8 votes for the funding bill was the one concrete, numerical thing Senate Democrats could do to meet the pressure from irate Democratic voters—and outside groups that receive their donations from irate Democratic voters—to let out a scream.

The Democratic base will brook nothing less. This year, for the first time in recent memory, polls have shown^[16] that Democratic voters disapprove of Democratic congressional leaders’ job performance. Going along with this Republican funding bill, even though it was a relatively neutral extension of current funding levels into November, could have made that dip irreversible.

Now that the scream has been let out, how do Democrats find their way back to reopening the government? Much of that depends on which party—Trump and Republicans, or Democrats—the public places the onus to end this^[21]. Or OMB chief Russ Vought’s hyped destruction of the federal workforce^[22] could spook enough Senate Democrats into breaking ranks with Schumer.

There is a world, though, where the government reopens without the help of Democrats. Should the shutdown go on long enough, Republicans could always take up Trump’s long-standing suggestion to gut the legislative filibuster, using the “nuclear option” to require only a simple majority, instead of 60 votes, to advance funding bills. Some Democrats believe that this would redound to their benefit in the long run, since the Democratic agenda hinges more on passing legislation than the Republicans’ does. I personally don’t think those Democrats have internalized how long the next three-plus years would be. But we may all find that out together.^[23]

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