"On first glance, Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, did not head into the government shutdown in a strong position. Years of watching shutdowns told us that the party that filibusters a plain-vanilla extension of funding in exchange for a policy demand—in this case, continuing certain COVID-era Obamacare subsidies—would take the public blame. On top of that, Democrats' messages were mixed."
"The strong, constitutional reason to refuse to fund President Donald Trump's executive branch without negotiation is that the White House repeatedly refused to spend congressionally appropriated funds. That's where the energy for a confrontation came from. But Democrats instead focused on a health care dispute, because they poll well on the issue, even though a disagreement over that kind of policy isn't typically grounds for a shutdown."
"Indeed, the government has been shut down, and let's hope they don't reopen the stupid thing late Friday night and force us to rewrite half of this newsletter. Beyond our analysis of that, we have some weird ones: the NFL halftime show. Dick Durbin and the Pope. The controversy over Ike Eisenhower's sword. This newsletter will get weirder until morale improves."
The government has been shut down. Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, entered the shutdown in a weak political position. Democrats filibustered a plain-vanilla funding extension to demand continuation of certain COVID-era Obamacare subsidies. Historically, the party that blocks routine funding typically takes public blame. Democratic messaging centered on health care because polling favors them on that issue, even though health policy disputes rarely trigger shutdowns. Preliminary polling on the first day of the shutdown showed significantly more Americans blaming President Trump and congressional Republicans, though many respondents expressed uncertainty. Several cultural and political oddities surfaced during the shutdown period.
Read at Slate Magazine
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