Democrats stare down political risks of a government shutdown

Vice President JD Vance said Monday that Democrats are no better than hostage takers holding a metaphorical gun to the American public as the country approaches a government shutdown. This is a sharp turn for Democrats from the days that they were in power.

On the first day of the 2013 government shutdown, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, had a message for Republicans who refused to fund the government unless Congress defunded Obamacare: Hostage-taking would not work.

“As we said a thousand times, we are happy to discuss how to fund the government, but not with a gun to our heads,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “You are not going to get us to give in to extortion,” he continued. “You are not going to take, as hostage, millions of innocent Americans and succeed in getting us to do something you want, and we don’t, and they don’t.

Twelve years later, Schumer and Democrats, now in the minority, are staring down another government shutdown — but one of their own making. In the Senate, Democrats are withholding support for a measure to keep the government funded at current levels unless Republicans extend subsidies that help some Americans pay for health care through the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire at year’s end, among other demands.

For the first time, Democrats are poised to oppose funding the government. Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries left a White House meeting with President Donald Trump and top GOP leaders without an agreement on the path forward.

“I think we’re headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” Vice President JD Vance said on the White House driveway after the meeting. When Congress averted a shutdown in March, Schumer and nine other Democrats voted with Republicans to extend funding until the end of the fiscal year.

At the time, he argued that a shutdown would empower the Trump administration and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency to continue radically reshaping the federal government

“Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have wide-ranging authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff members with no promise they would ever be rehired,” Schumer wrote in the New York Times, explaining his vote.

Now, the Senate minority leader has reversed himself, but denying that the pivot is due to political pressure — instead arguing that the deal cut in the spring hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from pushing out federal workers.

And while certain polls have shown the American public blaming Republicans more for past shutdowns, whether or not the GOP held the White House, this time may be different.

The Democrats are betting that the American public sides with them when a government shutdown happens, no matter who is in power. If their bet doesn’t come to fruition, they may have further damaged their brand at a time when their brand needs to be improving.