An excerpt from “Democrats are defying the conventional wisdom on government shutdowns: Democrats took a big gamble on the government shutdown — and polls suggest they have a surprisingly strong hand so far” by Zeeshan Aleem at MSNBC.com: “Political scientists and polling experts have pointed out that in previous government shutdowns (or near shutdowns) the party that tries to leverage the government’s closure for a policy win typically loses the battle of public opinion. But recent polling data suggests that Democrats are, at least for now, looking unusually strong in their quest to force Republicans to make concessions on health care policy…During past shutdowns or near-shutdowns, voters have typically blamed the party not in the White House — except for when Trump himself instigated a shutdown in late 2018. This time, the polls look different. A Washington Post pollconducted on Oct. 1, the first day of the shutdown, found that the Democrats were looking strikingly strong: 47% of U.S. adults blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress, while 30% blamed Democrats and 23% said they weren’t sure. Part of that margin was because the share of Democrats blaming Trump and Republicans (87%) was larger than that of Republicans blaming Democrats (67%). But political independents were also more than twice as likely to say Trump and Republicans were to blame for the shutdown than Democrats, 50% to 22%…To be clear, this survey was conducted on the very first day of the shutdown. If the shutdown extends for a long time and more government services shutter, it is possible that public sentiment will shift against Democrats. But that starting margin in that poll suggests Democrats have some room to breathe.”

Read “Democrats see a path to flipping the crime debate: Democrats say new polling gives them a roadmap to neutralizing one of Republicans’ advantages” by Lisa Kashinsky and Brakkton Booker at Politico. Kashinsky and Booker write that “Democrats are pushing their candidates to go on the offense on crime ahead of the 2026 midterms, seeing upside in what’s been one of their weakest electoral issues…A private polling memo that shows potential openings for the party to peel voters away from Republicans on one of their core issues is being distributed to House Democrats and their campaign committees, and was shared exclusively with POLITICO…The battleground-district survey from Global Strategy Group — commissioned by gun-safety advocacy group Giffords and House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership — offers a bleak assessment of Democrats’ starting point: 89 percent of the 1,200 likely voters surveyed want their Congress member to take steps to keep them safe, but only 38 percent trust Democrats over Republicans with that task…Voters also reported preferring Republicans to Democrats with preventing and reducing crime and cracking down on violent crime — gaps that grew among swing voters…But, in a hint of hope for the party looking to neutralize a weakness President Donald Trump will exploit next year, those voters swung toward Democrats in all four categories after hearing messaging acknowledging crime is a problem and showing steps the party has taken to increase safety. Specifically, pollsters cited cracking down on gun trafficking and strengthening firearm background checks. The persuasion effort included criticisms of GOP cuts to gun-violence prevention funding, the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back firearm regulations and Republicans’ ties to pro-gun groups…The double-digit swings gave Democrats a 2-point advantage when respondents were asked about crime reduction, 4 points on keeping people safe and 6 points on crime prevention. The shifts were even more pronounced among swing voters…” More here.

There is good news for Dems about 2025’s most important election, from “New poll shows Abigail Spanberger with a double-digit lead in Virginia’s governor race” by WTOP Staff at WTOP News: “The Washington Post/Schar School poll found Spanberger ahead of Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by 12 points among likely voters — 55% to 43%…Spanberger also holds a 13-point advantage among registered voters overall…This poll, conducted last week and surveying more than 1,000 registered voters in Virginia, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.” The article quotes Scott Clement, polling director for The Washington Post, who notes: “Spanberger is benefiting from a few things. One, most voters disapprove of President Trump’s job performance in Virginia and this is a really common pattern in Virginia the year after presidential election that tends to push back against the president, sort of an early warning sign of the midterms. Down to the actual voters. Voters have a lot of different concerns. But one of the big patterns helping Spanberger is she has a big lead among political independents, 27 percentage points. She’s also more popular than Winsome Earle-Sears personally. So she’s got a couple things at her back…It’s a wide lead and we’ve seen these races tighten sometimes in the final month, not always getting back to a full comeback. But it’s a significant lead. If it holds to election day, would be one of the larger victories for governor in Virginia…We asked people to rate how important Trump was in their vote for governor, and you had a big majority saying that it was at least fairly important in their vote. It was particularly important for people who disapprove of Trump, but also for people who approve. And we asked the same question eight years ago during the governor’s election, then and more people say that Trump is important to their vote today than they did eight years ago. So it seemed very high at the time. It’s even higher this time around.”

Also check out “Americans favor Republicans on key issues, but prefer Democrats to control next Congress” by Alex Tyson at Ipsos.com, who writes: “Americans trust the Republican Party over the Democratic Party to better handle issues like the economy, immigration and crime, according to a new Washington Post/Ipsos poll. And when it comes to the parties’ ideological positions, 54% describe the Democratic Party as “too liberal,” compared with a somewhat smaller share (49%) who describe the views of the Republican Party as “too conservative.”…Nonetheless, the survey finds that by a 53% to 42% margin, Americans would rather see the next Congress controlled by Democrats to “act as a check on Trump” rather than controlled by Republicans “to support Trump’s agenda.”…The poll also explores views of executive power and finds that 62% of Americans believe President Trump has “gone beyond his authority” since taking office.” Further,

• Just over half of Americans say the views of the Democratic Party are “too liberal” (54%), compared with a smaller share (31%) who describe the party’s views as “about right.” Relatively few (12%) describe the Democratic Party as “too conservative.”
• When it comes to the Republican Party, 37% view their issue positions as about right. Still, the most commonly held view among Americans is that the GOP’s positions are “too conservative” (49%). Just 10% say they are “too liberal.”
• A majority of Americans say Donald Trump has exceeded his authority as president and large shares say the Trump administration should follow federal court rulings. President Trump’s overall job ratings remain steady with 43% expressing approval.
  • Overall, 62% of Americans say Donald Trump has gone beyond his authority as president, while 36% say he has acted within his authority since taking office. In comparison, 34% say that former President Joe Biden went beyond his authority when he was president, while 63% say he acted within his authority.
  • With federal courts reviewing a number of cases involving the Trump administration, 87% of Americans say the administration should follow court rulings if they determine the administration has acted illegally. Just 11% of Americans think the administration should ignore such rulings.
  • About three-in-ten (31%) rate the state of the nation’s economy as excellent or good, while 68% rate it as not so good or poor. The percentage of Americans rating the economy positively is slightly higher than previous polling in April (26%) and February (26%).
  • A majority of Americans say it is a bad time (63%) to find a quality job in America today; far fewer (36%) say it is a good time to find a quality job.
  • Americans are largely critical of the impact of tariffs on prices. A majority (70%) think the Trump administration’s tariffs on imported goods are making prices go up. One in four say they are not making much difference (25%).
  • The public remains split on the impact of Trump’s economic policies more broadly. A plurality say Trump’s policies will put the economy on a weaker foundation (43%), compared with 31% who say his policies will put the economy on a stronger foundation. One in five (20%) say it is too soon to say.” Lots more here.

The following article, “The Democrats’ Class Gap Problem” by Ruy Teixeira, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

It’s not exactly news that Democrats have a yawning working-class hole in their coalition. Over time, they have shed both white and nonwhite working-class (noncollege) voters, while improving among college-educated voters—though it has varied by election which sector of the working class has contributed the most to Democratic losses. In 2024, it was nonwhite working-class voters. Given the policies and rhetoric of the Trump administration might it be possible that the pointer this election moves back to the white working class, leaving the Democrats’ class gap in support as large or larger than ever?

It might! In the latest New York Times/Siena poll, white college voters say they’ll vote Democratic in 2026 by 16 points (two-party vote), while white working-class voters favor the Republicans by 34 points. That makes for a 50-point class gap among whites, about doubling the analogous class gaps from 2024 and 2022 Congressional voting (28 and 24 points, respectively). The NYT/Siena poll shows a similarly-sized class gap in net Trump approval (approval minus disapproval) among whites—white college graduates lopsidedly disapprove of Trump, while the white working class lopsidedly approve.

Other data from the poll underscore this gap. On specific issues, white working-class voters approve of Trump’s handling of the economy by 25 points (compared to net 20 points disapproval among white college grads); on handling immigration, it’s net 27 points approval vs. net 24 points disapproval; on managing the federal government, it’s 28 points net approval vs. 24 points net disapproval; and on crime, it’s a whopping 33 points net approval among the white working class vs. 13 points net disapproval among white college voters.

Views on recent high profile policy issues are consistent with these ratings. By 40 points (69-29 percent), white working-class voters support “deporting immigrants living in the United States illegally back to their home countries”, while white college grads are split evenly. A similar gap can be seen on “the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.” White working-class voters support the move by 21 points (55-34 percent), while white college voters are opposed by 23 points (60-37 percent).

And white college grads are highly likely to think the Trump has “gone too far” in these and similar areas: 58 percent think his immigration enforcement actions have gone too far, 59 percent feel the same about sending National Guard troops into big cities and 57 think pressuring colleges and universities has gone too far. In contrast, just 34 percent, 37 percent and 28 percent of the white working class, respectively, think the president has gone too far in these areas (the rest think what he’s done is about right or, more commonly, that he hasn’t gone far enough).

Finally, here’s a result from the poll that crystallizes this chasm in attitudes between white working-class and college voters. Voters were given a choice between these two statements about Trump’s time in office so far: “Donald Trump is cleaning up chaos and disorder,” or “Donald Trump is creating chaos and disorder.” By 25 points (61-36 percent), white working-class voters think he’s getting rid of chaos and disorder, while white college-grad voters are almost exactly the reverse; by 27 points (63-36 percent) they think Trump is creating chaos and disorder. Interesting!

When you think about it, this pattern of results makes a great deal of sense. Since Trump’s election, Democrats have spent their limited political capital on resisting Trump’s every move and denouncing them in the most histrionic terms—with the clear implication that anyone with mixed feelings or (worse) qualified support for some of his moves is enabling the destruction of democracy and the unleashing of evil upon the land. This is catnip for white college-grad voters, the one demographic among whom Democrats have made progress since the Obama years. But among white working-class voters, the Democrats’ perennial problem demographic, who strongly distrust the Democrats and feel that it’s about time someone did something about the problems Trump is addressing, this approach plays far less well.

Of course, Democrats since the election have been talking nonstop about the need to reach working-class voters. They’re not unaware their party is increasingly a vehicle for educated professionals, whose priorities are quite different and frequently opposed to those of vast sectors of the working class. They’re just not willing to do much about it except proclaim their deep affection for the working class and assure them they are on their side and are really, really concerned about the cost of living. Efforts to materially change the image of the party on difficult cultural issues have been assiduously avoided, save the occasional and tentative suggestion that perhaps those with unorthodox (or, heaven forfend, conservative) views should not be immediately drummed out of the party.

This is not adequate for closing the class gap and convincing working-class voters that they and the Democratic Party are on the same page. Not even close. A NYT/Ipsos poll found this disjuncture between Democratic priorities and personal priorities back in January:

A new poll from the Searchlight Institute shows little has changed since the NYT/Ipsos January poll. Three of the top four Democratic issue priorities are still seen as climate change, LGBTQ+ issues, and abortion (though climate change is now at the top, not abortion) and immigration and crime are at the bottom of the priority list.

Plus ça change plus c’est la même chose. The Democrats’ implicit white college-grad play might well work in the 2026 House elections, where their odds of taking enough seats to shift control look good. But it’s a lot less likely to work for the Senate, where Democrats need to pick up four seats and successfully defend all their incumbents including in Michigan (52 percent white working class among eligible voters according to States of Change estimates) and New Hampshire (55 percent). The Democrats’ target seats include must-have Maine (61 percent white working class), almost-certainly-needed Ohio (55 percent) and if-they-can’t-get-Texas Iowa (61 percent). Daunting!

Getting the love from white college voters may not be enough to scale this mountain. Or succeed in 2028 for that matter. The clock is ticking.

With the government shutdown now underway, Democrats need a strategy to fight and win. But first they need to define what victory looks like, as I explained at New York:

2025 has been excruciating for Democrats as they have been playing defense perpetually against a rapacious Trump administration and its lapdog Congress. So now they’re using the one legislative weapon at their disposal by denying Republicans the Senate votes to keep the federal government operating. The move is partially a reaction to grassroots Democratic fury over their unwillingness to take just this step in March when a previous stopgap spending bill expired. Polls currently show a plurality of rank-and-file Democrats favoring a shutdown. And that doesn’t take into account the particular zest for combativeness that is so evident among the donors and activists who tend to dominate intraparty politics, which is mirrored in the incessantly pugilistic language of Democratic politicians these days. I would be rich if I had a dollar for every Democratic public figure who has deplored “bringing a knife/pen/words to a gunfight” recently or has accused the party as a whole of lacking spine.

But now that they have taken on a high-stakes fight with a GOP that controls everything, led by a president who loves conflict and destruction, congressional Democrats and their supporters need to develop a clear understanding of what they can reasonably hope to accomplish. There are three basic outcomes on the table:

Democrats get everything they want

Democrats’ demands for keeping the government open — or, presumably, for reopening it — are clear. They united behind a counterproposal to the GOP’s “clean CR” measure to extend current spending authority until November 21. Democrats called for three major concessions: (1) extension of the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies enacted in 2021, which are due to expire at year’s end, affecting approximately 22 million policyholders who will otherwise face very large premium spikes; (2) repeal of major Medicaid cuts in the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Act; and (3) reversal of and future curbs on Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought’s efforts to rescind or cancel previously appropriated funds and to abolish congressionally authorized programs. Presumably they will also demand that Vought’s new threat to lay off huge numbers of furloughed federal employees be canceled or reversed.

To be clear, there is almost no chance Republicans will bend on the Medicaid cuts or Vought’s spending clawbacks. So total victory for Democrats is a chimera, and political leaders should find ways to let “the base” know that.

Democrats score a partial win, brokered by Trump

The policy concession Democrats might realistically hope to win, in part if not in whole, is the Obamacare-subsidy extension. The GOP left this extension out of the One Big Beautiful Act because hardcore conservatives hate Obamacare. However, many Republicans, including some in Donald Trump’s circle, fear the midterm repercussions of a premium spike that would hit a lot of middle-class voters in their own coalition. Owing to GOP divisions on the subject, this concession would almost certainly have to be imposed by Trump himself — and he won’t admit it’s a concession at all but simply a reflection of his own policy preferences. On the other hand, even if Trump goes in this direction, conservatives will fight hard to restrict eligibility for the premium subsidy, forcing Democrats to choose between half a loaf and none. Either way, Democrats could rightly claim to be doing whatever they could to protect the popular health-care benefits that Republicans continuously seek to deny or cut.

Since Vought’s threatened mass layoffs are contingent on a closed federal government, it’s also possible Democrats could secure their reversal as part of a deal to reopen the government along with the traditional provision that furloughed employees receive back pay. Altogether, such an outcome really would represent a rare Democratic legislative victory.

Democrats walk away with only a messaging victory

If Trump and Republicans simply refuse to make concessions, pleasing the government-haters in their ranks and risking economic repercussions, Democratic resistance will likely melt away with time. All it would take is eight Senate Democrats to reopen the government. What the party could claim as a prize in any event is the opportunity to preview its midterm messaging with a major focus on health care and Trump’s contempt for laws and norms. Depending on the length of the shutdown and how it plays with the public, Democrats might also satisfy some of the incessant craving for “fighting Trump” while educating the rank and file on the limits of their powers of obstruction.

Ultimately, the most effective weapon Democrats possess is the opportunity to flip control of one or both congressional chambers in 2026. Having done what they could in 2025, they could essentially tell their base it’s its turn to take up the fight by mobilizing and persuading every vote possible. But if the rifts between Democratic politicians and their supporters are to be healed in anticipation of the midterms, leaders would be wise to keep rank-and-file expectations of what “winning the shutdown” looks like quite low. It’s one battle in a long war, and not an ounce of Democratic passion should be wasted in recriminations over how much “fight” and “spine” House and Senate Democrats exhibited.

The following stub of the article, “The Working Class Wants Policymakers To Reward Work and Listen to Their Values” by Aurelia Glass, David Madland and Karla Walter, is cross-posted from Americanprogressaction.org.

Research and events from the American Worker Project and others show that working-class families are struggling and want elected officials to focus on rewarding work while also representing their positions on other issues.

A transcript  excerpt from “Trump Is Failing and Unpopular—Brutal New Polls Confirm It,”  featuring  Greg Sargent’s interview at The New Republic with Lakshya Jain, a political data analyst and partner at Split Ticket, an organization devoted to mapping, modeling, and presenting electoral data through an approach driven by data science.” Note that the interview was conducted before the political fallout following Tuesday’s government shutdown and Quantico meeting:

What if we told you that Donald Trump is a really unpopular president? Would that surprise you? It’s certainly not something you hear much in the media. Yet in the last few days, five big national polls have come out showing Trump’s approval numbers in really terrible shape. This is even more visible on specific issues—on many of them, he’s polling in the thirties. He’s underwater on his supposedly strongest issue of immigration too.

And on top of that, a number of his most dramatic moments recently seem to have flopped for him—from the effort to fire comedian Jimmy Kimmel to the indictment of former FBI Director Jim Comey. Lakshya Jain, the co-founder of the data firm Split Ticket and head of political data at The Argument, has been making the case that Trump isn’t actually in such a strong position right now politically. So we’re going to talk about how the heck we can get this basic political fact—that Trump is very unpopular—more broadly understood. Lakshya, good to have you on.

Lakshya Jain: Hey, thanks for having me.

Sargent: So I’m just going to start with some numbers. The new Quinnipiac poll has Trump’s approval at an abysmal 38 percent, while 54 percent disapprove. The new Associated Press poll has him at 39 percent approving to 60 percent disapproving. The new Gallup poll has him at 40 percent to 56 percent. Reuters has him at 41 percent, and the new Economist/YouGov poll has him at 39–56. Lakshya, those numbers are bad. What’s your reading of these findings?

Jain: Oh, they’re horrible. And you know, this is as bad as I can remember it being for a first-year president, so to say. This is the second term, but it’s still the period in time at which the president’s approval ratings are generally at their highest. You know, Joe Biden ended his tenure extremely poorly in the court of public opinion, but it’s really important to remember that Biden was not this unpopular at this point in time in his first year. Trump is at levels that have only really been approached by Trump 1.0. That’s it.

That’s the only historical comparable. But Greg, what’s interesting to me, if I may, is that the disapproval this time is of a completely different nature, and I would argue a far more damaging nature than the first time around, because the first time around, it was centered around his abuse of the office, or so to say, people thinking he was unfit to lead the country. But people liked the economy. People really liked the economy under Trump. His economic numbers were consistently positive or break even the first time around. This time, what’s happening is people really hate Trump not for the abuse of office. They hate him for the economy.

Sargent: Well, let’s talk about some economic numbers, because if you drill down into these polls, they look even more gruesome for Trump. The Quinnipiac poll has Trump on the economy at 39 percent approving to 56 percent disapproving. On trade, he’s at 39 to 54. The AP poll has Trump on the economy at 37 to 62. On trade, 36 to 63.

So those numbers really bear out your point. And I think maybe what a lot of people haven’t really gotten their heads around, as well, is how bad the tariffs are for Trump. Can you talk about sort of how that stew has developed? He’s getting much more of what he wanted on the economy this time than he did last time, ironically enough, and that’s worse for him.

Jain: He’s getting much more of what he wanted, and people are getting much more of what he wanted. That’s important to note. And they all hate it, because the thing is the American people elected Donald Trump because they felt that Joe Biden was at fault for inflation.

And they thought that, given Trump’s economy and given how they felt Biden was unfit to lead, Trump would do a better job stewarding the economy. But this time around, they think he’s been obsessed with things like the woke culture wars and about persecuting his political opponents, and not focused enough on issues that they care about.

You know, when people say, the American people don’t care about all these things that elites think they do. I mean, that goes both ways, right? Like, yes, the democratic championing of norms has not worked out for them. And that is true. That is unquestionably true. But it is also true that Trump trying to focus all of his efforts on, you know, prosecuting his political opponents and going after them is also seen poorly because people don’t care about that. They’re like, why are you focused on that? My bills are so high.

Read more here.

After watching the messaging coming out of Washington on the brink of the government shutdown, I offered a dissent to its narrowness at New York:

There is a well-worn point of view in progressive politics that ultimately the material interests of voters are all that matters. Cultural issues are “distractions,” would-be opiates of the masses. Concerns about the Constitution and the laws or the functioning of democracy are pointy-headed insider elitist hobbyhorses. What many “economic populists” took away from the 2024 elections is that Americans were happy to restore to power a convicted felon who contemptuously rejected any limitations on his power because they vaguely remembered the economy doing well during his first term and Democrats failed to offer them more money in their pockets. The lesson going forward was that a majority of voters were okay with a little fascism if it meant lower grocery and gasoline prices.

Donald Trump is now well on his way to breaking his campaign promises about living costs, and his party will likely pay a price for that in next year’s midterms. But he’s breaking a lot of other things as well, and Democrats are fundamentally divided as to whether their alarm over his wild power grabs and generally authoritarian demeanor is something they should prominently share with voters. It is not a theoretical issue, as it happens — it’s at the center of how Democrats should explain their position on the federal-government shutdown that began at midnight on September 30.

Democrats clearly do understand the need for unity during the shutdown crisis. Their divisions last time stopgap-spending authority ran out in March left them looking weak and completely ineffectual. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose caucus had the rare power to deny Republicans a stopgap bill via a filibuster, talked tough and then folded when a shutdown grew nigh, enraging Democratic activists and creating the appearance that Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries weren’t on the same page.

This time around they’re united going into the shutdown, with their position on what it would take to earn their votes to reopen the government contained in legislation that covers the waterfront of Democratic concerns. They are demanding an extension of Obamacare premium subsidies that expire at the end of the year (left out of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act because a critical mass of Republicans hate anything associated with Obamacare); the repeal of key Medicare cuts enacted in the OBBBA; the cancellation of arguably illegal clawbacks of already-appropriated federal funds via rescissions; and restraints on future executive-branch encroachment of congressional spending authority. So Democrats are in theory placing equal weight on popular government benefits Republicans are seeking to cut, and on the administration’s authoritarian conduct.

But if you look at the issues Democratic voices are emphasizing, it’s all about money, money, money. The Democratic National Committee’s talking points on the shutdown are 100 percent focused on health-care provisions:

“At midnight tonight, Donald Trump and Republicans will be solely responsible for the government shutdown because they are hellbent on making health care more expensive for working families. Trump would rather raise health care costs for more than 22 million Americans and keep disastrous Medicaid cuts as part of his billionaire-first budget than work with Democrats on a common-sense proposal that safeguards health care for working families.”

One reason for this focus is the knowledge that there is some congressional Republican support for extending the Obamacare subsidies to avoid big premium spikes as early as November for millions of largely middle-class beneficiaries. The clearest way to a deal to reopen the government would be a Trump-imposed compromise on the subsidies that Democrats could claim as a victory. A repeal of OBBBA-enacted Medicaid cuts, however, is not happening in a million years. But if (a) this is really all about the Obamacare subsidies, and (b) Republicans have their own incentives for a deal on them, and an emperor-king who might force them to swallow them, then why do Democrats need a government shutdown to make that happen? Why not just keep the government open and negotiate with Trump on their one realizable goal, knowing that if a deal doesn’t happen the president and his party will totally get blamed for the premium spikes?

The reason is pretty simple: The shutdown is not simply about health care. It’s about a congressional minority seizing on the one bit of leverage they have to address the issue that has it in an absolute panic: the complicity of congressional Republicans in Trump’s authoritarian power grabs. The radical position of the Trump administration is that the president’s 2024 “mandate” should give him plenary authority over the executive branch of the federal government, including funding levels for federal programs and the number and deployment of all federal employees. The chaotic DOGE raids on the “deep state,” Russell Vought’s spending freezes and clawbacks, and Vought’s future threats to conduct mass layoffs of federal employees in case of a government shutdown are all part of the plan to give Trump quasi-dictatorial powers. His allies in Congress may privately grumble about being reduced to a choir singing his everlasting praises, but they aren’t doing anything about it.

Democrats can and should point out the material costs to Americans of the GOP’s reverse–Robin Hood economic agenda, which is a tale as old as time. But they shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking voters are too stupid or narrow-minded to understand the threat being posed to their own right of self-government by a trifecta regime bent on consolidating all power in a corrupt, hateful, and egomaniacal old man. One reason parties controlling the White House generally do poorly in midterm elections is that a significant segment of the electorate instinctively wants to place a curb on power-hungry presidents. If there was ever an opportunity to evoke this healthy impulse, Democrats have it right now, and they should be loud and proud about it.

There will be plenty of confusion in the coming days about what the Republican shutdown means to the daily lives of Americans. GOP ‘splainers and spin-meisters will surely try to shift the blame from themselves, even though they control all branches of the federal government. The Politico staff helps to set things straight with their article, “Government shutdown 2025: A guide to what’s still open, what’s closed and what’s fuzzy.” An excerpt: “The government shutdown that began Wednesday is set to furlough food inspectors, park rangers and millions of other federal workers in Washington and across the nation. Some are only heading to their offices for a few hours to “undertake orderly shutdown activities.” The federal courts and some government agencies like the IRS have enough money to run with for a short time, burning through their reserves of taxpayer funds until the hourglass drains their cash completely. But others have already shuttered for everyone not deemed “essential” by their agencies….The Commerce Department, an agency key to promoting U.S. exports and enforcing trade policy, is retaining about 20 percent of its staff, with furloughs affecting a range of sectors including weather, climate, and law enforcement programs…The shutdown also pauses most enforcement inspections and regulatory work conducted by EPA, slowing the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal a suite of climate rules. New air and water permitting gets waylaid as well, which, if the shutdown continues for a significant period, could hit companies looking to expand their facilities.”

“While Social Security checks, mail, student loan bills and funds for Ukraine will still be delivered,” The Politico staff notes, “millions of workers are set to suffer financial hardship — at least among those who still have jobs after months of deep staffing cuts and a deferred resignation program…Last week, the Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to develop plansfor firing employees if a shutdown happened…Federal workers traditionally get back pay when shutdowns end, but contractors and others whose businesses depend on the federal government won’t. Overall, the economic consequences of a shutdown will rest on how long the standoff lasts…The Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, is keeping park roads, lookouts, trails and open-air memorials open during the shutdown, according to the agency’s latest contingency plan. But it’s also furloughing 64 percent of NPS staff while the funding impasse persists…The FAA is by far the Transportation Department’s largest division and on a normal day houses more than 80 percent of the agency’s employees. A quarter of them are expected to be furloughed…More than a million people serving in the U.S. military are now working without pay.” (Wondering how the military brass that flew across 10 time zones for yesterday’s scolding feel about this)…Elective surgeries and procedures in military medical and dental facilities get postponed…A shutdown plan released Monday said the IRS would be able to use special funding that Democrats enacted in 2022 to avoid furloughing any of its almost 75,000 employees for the first five business days after a funding lapse. What happens if a shutdown stretches beyond that isn’t clear yet…

The Politico staff writers note further, that “the Department of Health and Human Services is furloughing some 40 percent of its employees just a few months after weathering particularly deep staffing cuts under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr…The National Institutes of Health — the planet’s biggest public funder of biomedical research — is furloughing three-quarters of its staff…Roughly two-thirds of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s staff are being furloughed. Coordination with state and local health departments on opioid overdose prevention, HIV prevention, and diabetes prevention has ceased, according to the agency’s plans. And while staff can continue to gather data about rates of infectious diseases, analysis of that information is on hold…Kennedy, who has said he wants to shrink the CDC, may also use the standoff in Congress to permanently boot employees that don’t go along with the Trump administration’s directives…The Department of Veteran Affairs is not being hit like many other agencies due to appropriations already awarded by Congress. Benefits checks will continue to be processed, and medical appointments at VA health centers won’t be interrupted…But officials are shuttering several support phone services, including the GI Bill Hotline, until the funding impasse is resolved. Regional VA benefits offices will be closed, and public affairs outreach efforts will end. Career counseling and transition assistance programs are also halted…Burials will continue at veterans cemeteries, but department workers will not permanently place headstones or maintain the grounds at those sites…….Agriculture Department food safety inspectors, stationed at the nation’s meat and poultry slaughterhouses, will remain on the job — without a paycheck. The FDA, which oversees approximately 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, will have to triage its preventative food safety work…Corporate America has been eagerly waiting for work to gear up at both the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Trump — the agencies in charge of overseeing stock, futures and some cryptocurrency trading. Now, the agencies are operating with skeleton crews…According to a contingency plan compiled in mid-September by the Department of Homeland Security, less than 900 of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s around 2,500 personnel are exempt from furloughs.” Read more here.

As regards the other big Tuesday story, The Administration’s Quantico meeting hectoring military brass, photographs of the audience’s steely silence explains the reception. If you want a short synopsis, however, check out “Trump and Hegseth spark alarm about domestic use of military: At an unprecedented gathering of the nation’s top military brass, Trump and Hegseth spoke of using force in America” by Blaise Malley at Salon. An excerpt: “President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered remarks that have stirred intense reactions from political commentators, military experts and activists…Speaking to an audience of hundreds of senior military leaders at Quantico, Virginia, both men outlined their vision for a radically redefined U.S. military, emphasizing “lethality” and “warrior ethos” while promoting controversial shifts in military culture…Historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on authoritarianism at the University of Toronto, interpreted the event as an ominous signal that Trump and Hegseth are more focused on domestic enemies and ideological battles than real-world military strategy…“The ‘war fighting’ and ‘lethality’ they plan is inside their own country and comes from conflicts inside their own minds,” Snyder wrote on social media…Marquette University political scientist Risa Brooks, who specializes in civilian-military relations, echoed that concern, warning that the speeches reflected an effort to realign the military with a partisan political agenda. “This is not about enforcing standards,” she said, “it’s about inculcating a particular value system within the officer corps.”…Brooks described the speech as more than simply “performative,” arguing that its intent was serious: to reshape military leadership in line with the administration’s values…“The ultimate aim,” she noted on BluSky, “is that people will no longer expect the military to serve the public at large, but that its goal and purpose is to advance the interest of one faction or party.” More here.

The following article, “The Poverty Wages of Democratic Resistance,’ by Ruy Teixeira, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Welp, Trump is pretty unpopular and his ratings are very poor on a number of key issues, including the economy and inflation. But Democrats as a party don’t seem to be benefiting. Far from it, as illustrated by these data showing which party has a better plan on various issues from a just-released Reuters/Ipsos poll:

As Democrats clutch their tattered garments about them and mutter angrily that this is all the thanks they get for their noble resistance to the evil Trump, one might venture the suggestion that it is time to try a different approach.

Nah. Time for more of the same. The #Resistance is surely just about to break through if Democrats are sufficiently militant. Hence the gathering momentum for forcing a government shutdown to extract concessions from the GOP. One slight problem: it won’t work. The concessions will not be forthcoming, Democrats will be forced to back down and they will be blamed for the negative effects of the shutdown. But at least they’ll be resisting and doing something.

This is as dumb as it sounds. Much the same could be said about Democrats’ urge to turn it up to 11 on each and every move by Trump and his administration. Is there a person in this country today who does not already know Democrats hate Trump and think everything he does is terrible?

I don’t think so which suggests that continuing to inform voters of this fact can only have limited effectiveness, especially in convincing them that Democrats are a superior alternative to Trump’s party. Take the issue of immigration. Democrats have not stinted in their intense criticism of the actions of ICE agents, including comparing their actions to that of a “modern-day Gestapo.” And it is true that many of these actions have not been popular with the public.

Yet as noted above Republicans are still widely preferred on handling immigration—especially among working-class voters. It would appear that Democrats’ fusillade of criticism of ICE is not convincing voters Democrats have better ideas on how to handle immigration challenges. And why should it? The Democrats’ utter disaster on immigration policy under the Biden administration will not be so easily forgotten.

Josh Barro makes the relevant points:

For too long, Mr. Biden and his team asserted they couldn’t stop the surge without new legislation. That proved false: In 2024, having failed to get an immigration bill through Congress, Mr. Biden finally took executive actions to curb abuse of the asylum system and slow the flow of migrants across the southern border. When Mr. Trump took office, illegal border crossings slowed to a trickle. In other words, the problem had been fixable all along; Mr. Biden simply did not fix it until much too late.

Barro acknowledges that some Democratic commentators and policy shops are (finally) grappling with the need to fix a flat-out broken asylum system and other dysfunctional aspects of the immigration regime Democrats presided over. But there is a notable lack of appetite for dealing with the flash point of deportations/ICE other than denouncing the Trump administration. This is no small omission and indeed undercuts any attempt to portray Democrats as truly reformed on the issue of immigration.

[Democratic immigration policy] won’t work without a robust and credible commitment to enforcement, including interior enforcement (emphasis added). That’s because you can make whatever rules you want about who is supposed to immigrate and how, but if you continue to allow millions of people to come live in the United States in contravention of those rules, the immigration situation on the ground will not match what is written in policy.

The mental block that Democrats have here relates to an instinct about deportations: a feeling that it’s presumptively improper to remove an unauthorized immigrant who has settled in our country if that migrant hasn’t committed a crime unrelated to immigration. These people have been here a long time, the idea goes. They’re not causing trouble.

But if we build a system where people very often get to stay here simply because they made it in—the system that prevailed during most of Mr. Biden’s term—then we don’t really have an immigration policy, and voters won’t have any reason to believe us when we say our new policy will produce different results about who comes here.

Liberals also note, accurately, that there are negative economic consequences to a stepped-up program of interior enforcement that doesn’t focus narrowly on criminals…But these near-term economic costs need to be weighed against the way that stepped-up interior enforcement makes any future immigration policy more credible and more effective by sending migrants the message that they need a valid visa to stay in the United States.

The need to make a credible enforcement threat does not require Democrats to endorse specific enforcement practices of the Trump administration…Democrats are right…to call for a more effectively targeted approach. But that more targeted approach still needs to contemplate that being in the country without authorization is reason enough to deport someone (emphasis added).

Yup, this will be a hard one for Democrats to surrender on. But surrender they must. Otherwise, why should voters take them seriously?

Much the same is true of the crime issue. Democrats are more than happy to call out Trump actions like putting the National Guard in Washington DC (not needed, everything’s great!) and his threats to do the same in other cities. Again, specific actions by Trump are not necessarily popular but the Democrats’ furious denunciations are doing nothing to rehabilitate their image on public safety, as witnessed by the data above. Far more important is Democrats’ association with horrific crimes like the Charlotte, NC, knife murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train by a deranged individual who should no way have been on that train. If Democrats cannot be trusted to keep psychotic criminals off the street, why would/should voters trust Democrats over Republicans to handle public safety? It does not compute.

Basically, Democrats have two choices: they can be a loyal soldier in the #Resistance or they can be a different kind of Democrat, with emphasis on the “different.” Leaning into the former makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to be the latter. Democrats’ revealed preference at this point is to stick with the #Resistance and pursue various subterfuges to avoid the need to truly change their positions—even if the return on that strategy continues to be meager. Marc Novicoff in The Atlantic points out:

[E]ven the elected Democrats most insistent on the need for change seem focused on adjustments to the party’s communication style, rather than to its substantive positions. One school of thought holds that Democrats can woo cross-pressured voters without having to compromise on policy at all, as long as they switch up their vocabulary…A related theory of rhetorical moderation is about emphasis, not word choice. Because Democrats are much closer to the median voter on bread-and-butter material issues than Republicans are, perhaps they just need to talk more about their popular economic ideas and less about their unpopular social-issue positions…

For Democrats to appeal to cultural conservatives, some of them probably have to actually be more culturally conservative than what the party has offered in recent years, and not just adopt a different affect or ignore social issues entirely. Or they could simply cross their fingers and hope voters spontaneously adopt new perceptions about the party. That strategy offends no one and incurs little risk. That’s why it’s unlikely to work.

Damon Linker boils the challenge down to its uncomfortable essence:

The only sure way to defeat Trumpism is to defeat it at the ballot box. But the only way to defeat it at the ballot box is for opponents of right-wing populism to improve their showing in elections. And the only way for opponents of right-wing populism to improve their showing in elections is for them to stop driving voters who want tougher policies on crime and immigration, along with less embrace of the progressive outlook on race and gender, into the arms of the Trumpified Republican Party…

There really is only one option [for Democratic success]…promising to give the voters some of what Trump is offering them, but with greater restraint, competence, and humanity.

This cannot be done through the #Resistance playbook. It’s really that simple. Will Democrats wake up to this fact or continue drawing their poverty-level political wages? We shall see as 2026 and, more threateningly, 2028 loom ahead.

In his latest opinion essay at The New York Times, Thomas B. Edsall reports on the Republican’s efforts to control America’s media. An excerpt:

While the Trump administration continues to attack free speech, criminalize adversaries and attempt to crush liberal foundations, conservative billionaires have acquired Paramount and CBS, stand in line to own Warner Bros. Discovery and are positioned to extend right-wing control of social media platforms well beyond Elon Musk’s X.

Larry Ellison, the multibillionaire who founded Oracle — together with his son David — is building a media empire rivaling that of Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan. This gives the Ellisons extraordinary power to shape the nation’s politics and culture, just as the Murdochs have for decades through Fox News, News Corp, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post.

After winning approval from the Federal Communications Commission, Skydance Media, founded by David Ellison with financial support from his father, acquired Paramount for $8 billion on Aug. 7. The deal gave him command of one of the four major networks and one of the five major Hollywood studios, as well as of Comedy Central and Showtime.

On June 18, President Trump endorsed the Skydance acquisitionwhile it was pending before the commission, telling White House reporters: “Ellison is great. He’ll do a great job with it.”

…Two conservative companies, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group, own, operate or provide services to 386 television stations, far more than any of their competitors. Nexstar has entered into an agreement to acquire Tegna, which, if approved by regulators, would push the total number of stations controlled by Sinclair and Nexstar to 450.

Nexstar currently reaches 70 percent of U.S. households, and that will rise to 80 percent if it wins approval of its purchase of Tegna’s 64 stations. Sinclair’s stations reach 58 to 66 percent of U.S. households, depending on the measure used.

At least two political science papers have reported that after Sinclair buys a television station and sets programming policy, the Republican share of the local vote rises by 3 to 5 percentage points. One is “Small Screen, Big Echo? Political Persuasion of Local TV News: Evidence From Sinclair” by Antonela Miho of the Paris School of Economics; the other is “How Does Local TV News Change Viewers’ Attitudes? The Case of Sinclair Broadcasting” by Matthew Levendusky of the University of Pennsylvania.

Read the entire essay here.