Shutdown: Are Democrats fighting the right battle?

“Even a Democratic victory in the Obamacare fight would probably be Pyrrhic, coming at the cost of a sacked and pillaged capital.”

(Image credit: Getty Images)

By The Week US

published 14 October 2025

Could Democrats’ “big gamble” actually pay off? asked Zeeshan Aleem in MSNBC.com. For five decades, voters “have typically blamed the party not in the White House” when Congress can’t agree on a spending package and the government shuts down. But this time feels different. A new Washington Post poll shows 47% of voters blame President Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, with only 30% blaming Democrats. That poll was taken two weeks ago as the shutdown began, but Democrats have certain “unusual advantages” in the ongoing battle for public opinion. There is Trump himself, who has governed as such a “wrecking ball” since January that many voters simply assume the shutdown is part of his anti-government crusade. Then there’s the fact that Democrats’ modest demand—that any bill to reopen the government must include an extension of enhanced health insurance subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans—is extremely popular, supported by 78% of voters, including 59% of Republicans. The political dynamic could easily flip, said Meredith Lee Hill in Politico. Some Republicans are “eyeing Oct. 15,” when active-duty military members will miss their first paycheck, as a “key pressure point.” But that prospect, and threats from Trump to cancel back pay for furloughed workers, have for now “only caused Democrats to dig in more.”

What are Democrats thinking? asked Matt Bai in The Washington Post. Extending the subsidies polls well as a stand-alone issue. But it’ll soon be “lost in the noise” of shutdown drama as Trump dials up the pain for Democratic voters. His White House budget director, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought, has already frozen $8 billion in funding for blue state clean-energy projects and some $20 billion for infrastructure projects. And Trump is openly vowing to “gut as many departments and eliminate as many jobs as he can” before the shutdown ends. “Even a Democratic victory in the Obamacare fight would probably be Pyrrhic, coming at the cost of a sacked and pillaged capital.”

This is “the right fight,” said Monica Potts in The New Republic. Some 1.6 million Americans will lose health insurance subsidies completely if they expire. Tens of millions more will see their premiums balloon, pushing overstretched households to the brink. Don’t believe me? Just ask Republican firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who this week tweeted that she supports extending the subsidies because without them “premiums will DOUBLE” for people in her Georgia district. In fact, the average annual premium for subsidized enrollees will more than double, from $888 to $1,904, and hardest hit will be working-class voters the Democrats lost in 2016, who are again shopping for “a party to fight for them.”

But “the times call for sterner measures,” said Chris Truax in The Hill. Four out of five Obamacare enrollees live in red states. So it’d be politically smart for Democrats to let the subsidies expire, force Trump supporters to experience the horror they voted for, and make the Republicans on next year’s midterm ballot “own the results.” Better yet, Democrats should raise the price for reopening the government to include a meaningful rollback of Trump’s autocratic project, said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark: requiring ICE agents to go unmasked, say, or closing the fake “emergency” loopholes Trump uses to consolidate power. Ordinarily, “making voters’ lives better” would be a ransom worth demanding for Democrats. “But this isn’t an ordinary moment.”