gotchanewsdaily.com 
CNN
—
Washington Democrats finally have a first point of leverage against President Donald Trump – but it comes with a dilemma that could leave them looking even more hapless than they have so far in his second term.
The pressure point arises over a temporary government funding bill that could provide cover for the president’s anti-government purge and as Democratic voters pine for their lawmakers to show some fight.
Ahead of a critical Senate vote, Democratic leaders face a paradoxical choice: Should they shut down the government to try to save it? That gamble could come with a significant downside, as shuttered agencies and thousands of furloughed federal workers could be left even more vulnerable to the metaphorical chainsaw wielded by Elon Musk.
Democrats’ choices will play out against a backdrop of mounting frustration from progressives, whose despair after the 2024 election has turned to horror as Trump has turned Washington upside down in his first 50 days in office and set about fracturing the liberal world order that has prevailed for 80 years.
Democrats were widely mocked for their ineffectual protests that underscored their impotence during Trump’s joint address to Congress earlier this month, when some wore color-coordinated dress and others held up paddles bearing anti-Trump slogans.
Pennsylvania Democratic volunteer Bobbi Erickson wants her party’s leaders to be far more aggressive in taking on Trump. “We are watching the Constitution burn. We are watching the country that we love be systematically dismantled,” Erickson told CNN’s Eva McKend, whose recent trip to the commonwealth revealed extreme impatience among grassroots Democrats.
Back in Washington, party leaders have a chance to show some steel.
History shows that Republicans usually get the blame for the kind of partial government shutdown that will begin at midnight Friday unless the Senate approves new spending to keep it open.
But Trump and Musk, with their stunning moves to shred the federal machine, have scrambled political logic, leaving both parties gaming out novel calculations that have changed the politics of shutdown dramas.
The House of Representatives set up the one-two GOP punch by passing a bill to freeze spending at current levels until the end of September — while adjusting where money is allocated to prioritize Trump’s priorities, such as border enforcement. The House then promptly left town, leaving the mess for the Senate to sort out.
DOGE may win whatever happens
Democrats fear this stopgap bill will simply provide another six months for Trump and Musk to widen the Department of Government Efficiency’s plan to fire thousands of workers and close entire federal departments. But in theory, they can block it by refusing to give the GOP probably eight votes needed to reach a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The need for 60-vote thresholds for most bills is the only lever the Democrats can pull in the capital to slow or moderate Trump’s actions.
“I’m going to vote against what came over from the House Republicans to the Senate last night because I don’t want to give my vote to support what Trump and Musk are doing,” Delaware Sen. Chris Coons told “CNN News Central” Wednesday.
But if Democrats take this path, they’ll be closing down the government at the very time Trump is trying to destroy it.
Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday that he’d not yet decided how to vote. But he sees downsides to a shutdown that go beyond inflicting even more hardship on federal workers. “If it shuts down, what is Elon Musk going to allow to open back up? That’s a big concern of mine,” Kelly said. “How many more veterans is Elon, and this administration, going to fire? So, there’s not a good option here.”
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sought to break Democrats out of their unenviable political box on Wednesday, warning that the 60 votes needed to pass the funding bill do not yet exist. He called for a separate one-month extension with identical spending allocations as those currently in force to allow for bipartisan negotiations. “We should vote on that. I hope, I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday,” Schumer said on Wednesday.
But there’s no chance the GOP, basking in its monopoly on Washington power, will “join” with the minority party. So, it’s fair to ask whether Schumer is taking a stand for effect in the expectation that enough of his members will eventually vote to keep the government open — while allowing the bulk of his party to cast a symbolic but politically useful vote against Trump.
Republicans are relishing the spectacle after setting their trap.
“Chuck Schumer has a big decision to make. Is he going to pass the bill to keep the government open? Or is he going to be blamed for shutting it down,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News on Wednesday. The Louisiana Republican held his tiny majority together to pass the stopgap bill in a feat that demonstrated Trump’s huge influence. Johnson is obviously enjoying flinging exactly the same lines at Democrats as he and his GOP colleagues have faced for years in shutdown sagas.
‘I hate’ the bill
The next two days will be a deeply painful experience for Democrats. “I hate the House bill,” Sen. John Hickenlooper told CNN’s Manu Raju. The Colorado Democrat is leaning toward voting for the measure despite warning that it would give Trump more time to jam through the sweeping government cuts that are “exactly what we’ve been fighting against.”
The arguments for mounting a Senate blockade even at the risk of a government shutdown are mostly rooted in the opportunity for Democrats to show some resistance to the most disruptive first 100 days in modern presidential history.
A vote to stall the bill in the full knowledge that the government would be shuttered would represent a bet that despite their bullishness, Republicans would still pay a political price for a shutdown — as vital workers toil without pay, thousands more are furloughed and critical services such as airport security and public health risk being disrupted.
If they frustrate the Republican plan, the Democrats will at least be doing something that they can show their restless voters.
Democrats would also be hoping to put pressure on Johnson and to make him face a backlash for sending his members home. They’d hope either to gain some concessions that could slow the Trump juggernaut or to open fissures in the tiny GOP House majority that could be important in later, more critical fights.
As well as the possibility that they’d be inadvertently putting some government departments at risk, the party would be complicit in causing pain to the very federal workers it is trying to protect.
A shutdown could be yet another shock to an economy that is already showing signs of distress, as consumer demand ebbs and trauma widens over Trump’s trade wars.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman is one of the few Democrats to openly argue for passing the stopgap bill – after previously irking some grassroots members of his party by accommodating some of Trump’s policies and nominees.
“If you shut it down, you will impact and hurt millions and millions and millions of Americans, and you run the risk of slipping us into a recession or even all kinds of other things,” Fetterman told CNN’s Manu Raju on Wednesday. “Remember what you were voting for. You were voting to shut the government down, and that will absolutely punish millions, millions of Americans,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman’s attitude will look like an abdication to many Democrats who have been demanding tougher action from their representatives in Washington. But it also underscores one unpalatable fact the party is constantly forced to face: It lacks the power to make a real impact. The earliest that can change is the midterm elections in 2026, when Democrats hope historical precedents will hold firm and they’ll recapture the House and the power to check the incumbent president.
But their odds of overturning the GOP’s current 53-47 edge in the Senate are problematic, with only two Republican-held seats, in Maine and North Carolina, sure bets to be competitive, and with several incumbent Democrats looking vulnerable. The equation became even more daunting Wednesday when Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — a state that only narrowly went to Democrats in the 2024 presidential election — announced she will not run for reelection, opening a competitive race for her seat.
