The Democrats’ Shutdown Strategy Is Bad. Trump’s Is Worse

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Democrats' Government Shutdown Strategy: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, are gambling with government shutdown brinkmanship. But Trump’s plan for mass federal layoffs is proof he won’t negotiate in good faith, and the Democrats need to walk away.
Democrats' Shutdown Strategy: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., hold a news conference on the GOP reconciliation bill, at the Capitol in Washington, on Wednesday. Schumer and Jeffries are gambling with government shutdown brinkmanship. But Trump’s plan for mass federal layoffs is proof he won’t negotiate in good faith, and the Democrats should walk away. Credit: Associated Press

With little chance of passage for legislation to keep the federal government open before the new fiscal year begins on October 1, President Donald Trump instructed federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs—not temporary layoffs during a typical government shutdown, but permanent layoffs that would leave thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of American workers unemployed.  

The Washington Post asserted that “the directive increases pressure on congressional Democrats.” This is incorrect. The directive is intended to pressure congressional Democrats because they don’t want to see the civil service decimated, but it does the opposite. By eagerly compounding the negative consequences of a shutdown, Trump is complicating any attempt to pin a shutdown solely on Democrats.  

Meanwhile, Democrats are flying close to the political sun by making policy demands in exchange for keeping the government open, focusing on the looming expiration of enhanced levels of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Last week, Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor, “We want to keep the government open by engaging in bipartisan negotiations, where we can address some of the grave harms Donald Trump has caused to our healthcare system and help Americans with the cost of living.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also centered on health care, telling reporters on Wednesday, “Any agreement related to protecting the health care of the American people has to be ironclad and in legislation.” 

As I wrote earlier this month, every past attempt to use government shutdowns to extract policy concessions has failed, even when the policy demands are politically popular, because “shutdowns make people forget what you have to say. Public attention shifts to how shutdowns hurt average Americans and how one political party is willing to harm constituents to play political games. Once public opinion quickly turns, the shutdown agitators invariably realize the shutdown failed to provide negotiating leverage and eventually cave.” 

Democrats might take solace that Trump is blundering towards at least partial ownership of a shutdown, but they are still at high risk of owning a piece for themselves. 

My counsel to Democrats was and is to walk away from the negotiating table completely, because Republicans have already broken faith by clawing back money from the last bipartisan spending deal. With Trump and his budget director explicitly trashing the idea of a bipartisan appropriations process, Democrats have additional ground to say: Republicans want to keep the government open by themselves, so any shutdown is their problem to solve, not ours. If that means Republicans need to suspend or end the filibuster to do it, that’s also on them. Last week, Trump even said of the opposition party, “Don’t even bother dealing with them.” 

In a New York Times column, Nate Silver argued Democrats should swap tariffs for health care as the issue to link to keeping the government open, since Trump’s tariffs are demonstrably unpopular and could “drive a greater wedge between Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans.” I believe this still violates the cardinal rule about shutdown demands: No matter how popular the demand is in a vacuum, that popularity will be overwhelmed by the unpopularity of the shutdown.  

Silver expressed sympathy for my proposal but fretted, “The message—actually, we’re not negotiating, we’re refusing to negotiate; you have your majorities and all of this is your problem—would require a lot of discipline in practice, and Democrats aren’t very good at that.” I disagree! It’s a simple message succinctly articulated by Nate Silver!  

It doesn’t need detailed policy explanations. Reporters can’t probe for weaknesses by suggesting hypothetical compromises. Once Democrats say they’ve walked away from a table that Republicans never invited them to join, there’s essentially nothing left for them to discuss or do. Media attention will quickly shift away from the Democrats, as the focus turns to: So, what will Republicans do to address this crisis? 

To quibble with Silver’s summation of the message, “we’re refusing to negotiate” should be replaced with “Trump is refusing to negotiate.” Combined with Trump’s mass layoff plan, this gives Schumer and Jeffries an off-ramp from their current doomed-to-fail strategy. Democratic policies that poll well cannot bring Trump to heel because the president is a budding authoritarian who ignores polls. If you propose an idea that helps people, he will counter with one that harms them and dare you to escalate further.  

If it wasn’t clear that Trump and his Republican allies were not good-faith negotiating partners before, it should be now. Forgive the glib sports analogy, but you can’t win a game with someone playing an entirely different game. So, stop playing.  

Instead, the Democratic leaders can now say:  

We asked President Trump to work with us to prevent a spike in health care costs for working-class Americans. He responded by refusing to meet with us, telling other Republicans they shouldn’t bother with us, and threatening to add thousands of hard-working civil servants to the unemployment rolls. This is not a person with whom we can negotiate in good faith. While Democrats do not want a government shutdown, Republicans must find a way to use their majorities to keep the government open. We wish them good luck.  

Silver also said of my strategy, expressing skepticism, “The crisis atmosphere that Democrats are treating as a desirable feature of the shutdown might be exactly what Mr. Trump wants.” But I wouldn’t argue that Democrats should walk away to provoke a crisis. We are already drowning in crises—constitutional, legal, ethical, and economic—shutdown or no shutdown, whether we like it or not. They are crises of Trump’s making, and Democrats can do little about them save for winning control of Congress in 2026 and the presidency in 2028. For now, Democrats have no obligation to provide a tiny bucket of water to the MAGA gang of political arsonists.  

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Bill Scher is the politics editor of the Washington Monthly. He is the host of the history podcast When America Worked and the cohost of the bipartisan online show and podcast The DMZ. Bill is on Bluesky...