Trump Is Demolishing Democrats

townhall.com

In the escalating drama of the 2025 government shutdown, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: President Trump is refusing to allow Democrats to wedge the country into humiliation, inaction, or moral collapse. Recent events make clear that Democrats didn’t merely stumble into this shutdown — they *planned* it. As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer recently admitted, “we prepared for this,” using health care subsidies and ideological bargaining chips as a cudgel. Meanwhile, Trump has struck back, refusing to let his political opponents have the sole power to define the stakes.

That refusal crystallized when the President directed Secretary Pete Hegseth to use “all available funds” to ensure the troops get paid on October 15th — regardless of whether Congress passes a full funding bill. This move does more than just protect the paychecks of our brave men and women in uniform: it robs the Democrats of the ability to stand on a battlefield of their own choosing. No longer can they openly defend withholding pay from the military.

Public opinion throughout this shutdown has leaned toward assigning responsibility — and it’s not falling cleanly on Republicans, but the shifting center is revealing the vulnerability of the Democratic position. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 67 percent of Americans assign “a fair amount” of blame to Republicans, while 63 percent say the same about Democrats —and another 63 percent say Trump shares the blame. A Washington Post poll of 1,010 Americans taken around October 1 showed 47 percent blaming Trump and Republicans, and 30 percent blaming Democrats for the shutdown. A CBS News/YouGov survey conducted October 1–3 found that Americans broadly don’t see the shutdown as worth it —many believe both sides are mishandling it. And a New York Times/Siena poll showed 65 percent of registered voters were against a shutdown entirely, even if Democrats didn’t get their demands.

In short, though many blame both sides, the President’s tactical move to protect military pay derails the Democrats’ attempt to define the terms. The optics flip: the President is acting, while Democrats are left defending abstention, delay, and brinksmanship.

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From the start, the Democrats’ demands were never purely about legislative compromise. They were about leverage — and leverage that required crisis. As Schumer put it, they “planned” this shutdown around health care and subsidy demands. They constructed a scenario where they could appear magnanimous if Republicans conceded, or victorious if they held firm. But that strategy exposes profound contradictions. They had to defend not paying our troops if the shutdown dragged on — a losing moral position. They implicitly defend lawlessness, pretending that crime can be ignored or subordinated to political theater. They insist on prioritizing illegal immigrants’ health care over that of American citizens — a provocative posture in a time of domestic strain. They are willing to inflict economic and social harm on everyday Americans to uphold their ideological demands.

Even before the shutdown, the public mood was firmly against it. Republicans overwhelmingly opposed it, independents leaned against it, and even half of Democrats didn’t want it. The Democratic leadership, however, forged ahead. They bet that Americans would blame Trump, that chaos would produce political advantage, and that the press would carry their water. But Trump’s decision to fund the troops undercuts their entire calculus. When the military cannot be held hostage, the moral balance shifts. The contrast is stark — one side taking care of those who defend our nation, the other side complaining that doing so undermines their leverage.

Every day, Donald Trump demonstrates what Democrats have forgotten: governing is more than policy posturing — it demands a willingness to fight for Americans, to draw lines, and to refuse to be cornered. He wakes up each morning with a mission: protect the people, defend the institutions, and repel ideological extremism. When Democrats try to make the military a bargaining chip, he pays them anyway. When they try to frame a shutdown as unavoidable, he exposes their choice. When they whisper the language of chaos, he speaks the language of order.

We often talk about leadership as vision — but it’s also about clarity. Trump has recast this narrative: Democrats are now on defense, scrambling to justify their own precedents, while he is inserting moral purpose into the vacuum. The Left’s idea of governing has become one long performance — a politics of protest rather than of protection, of symbolism over substance. Trump, by contrast, acts.

At this juncture, we must ask: do Democrats genuinely not understand how much they’ve hurt themselves — or do they just not care? Their ideology is laced with nihilism: the idea that collapse is leverage, that chaos is a pathway to power. But Americans don’t reward nihilism. They recoil from it. They don’t reward parties that defund the institutions they rely on, or deny pay to those who defend their freedom. They don’t reward leaders who pretend that border enforcement, crime, and public safety don’t matter. They don’t reward those who think political pain is more useful than public service.

The Democrats’ playbook has been exposed: they intended this shutdown, they hoped to weaponize suffering, and they ordained crisis. But Trump is smashing that playbook. He’s pushing back. He’s framing Democrats as the extremists — not himself.

If voters are wise — and many are — they’ll see the contrast for what it is: Democrats, reckless and radical, willing to collapse governance for advantage; Trump, resolute and patriotic, defending America in a moment when others would surrender or stall. In this showdown, Trump isn’t just demolishing Democrats politically. He’s doing it morally, strategically, and rhetorically — one decisive move at a time.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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