Happy Halloween, everyone!
This morning, I’m here to share my latest Q&A column for paid subscribers. We’ll discuss:
Who’s winning the shutdown
My nightmare scenario for an absent government (something spooky for Halloween)
The legal implications of Trump’s maritime strikes
And more!
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Have a great weekend, everybody.
Q: I would like an update on who is “winning” the shutdown debate.
The day before the government shutdown started, I wrote that there are four different metrics by which to judge the result of the shutdown:
The short-term politics
The long-term politics
The short-term policy implications
The long-term policy implications
Let’s take them one by one and see who’s “winning” on each score:
Short-term politics
I have already written that the short-term politics of the shutdown have not gone as I expected. I thought, going into the funding fight, that Democrats would receive more blame than Republicans, because they were the party refusing to accept a “clean CR” (that is, a short-term government funding extension without any partisan add-ons).
Polling continues to show this not to be the case. Here, for example, are the results of a Washington Post/ABC poll released yesterday:
Since October 1, the percentage of Americans who blame Democrats for the shutdown more than President Trump and congressional Republicans has increased — but only by three percentage points. 45% of the country still blames Trump more, compared to 33% who blame Democrats more. (23% remain undecided.)
As I’ve noted, there are probably a range of factors that explain this — including the facts that Republicans control Congress and the White House (so voters not paying attention to the specific machinations might assume they are at fault), that Republicans have generally been the party in favor of shutting down and shrinking the government in the past (so voters might simply associate them with shutdowns or anything that slashes government programs), and that the main Democratic demand in the funding fight (extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies) is a popular one.
I would also point out that Republicans, largely thanks to President Trump, have been fairly unorganized in their shutdown messaging: while congressional Republicans have gone to great pains to point out the harms of the shutdown and tried to pin them on Democrats, Trump has appeared to enjoy the closures at times and (never one to like that idea that someone else might have more power than him) has muddied the suggestion that Democrats are the ones that need to step up and end this.
The most recent example of this came just last night, when Trump called on Senate Republicans to end the shutdown by eliminating the filibuster, a poor strategic move since it a) is unlikely to happen, and b) will only advance the notion that Republicans, as the party controlling government, are able to end the shutdown unilaterally (and therefore are the ons responsible for keeping it going).
In a podcast conversation I had this week, my friend
hypothesized that the shutdown-blame polling will shift after tomorrow, once more voters start paying attention to the fight due to SNAP benefits running dry. That’s possible, but for now, Democrats are winning the short-term political fight.The other questions come with other considerations, however.
Long-term politics