After 43 days, the federal government has reopened, ending a historically long shutdown that is only rivaled by the 35-day shutdown during President Donald Trump’s first term. Eight members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate voted for the Republican-backed appropriations bill, just enough votes for the legislation to pass 60–40, still mostly on party lines.
If there was a way for the Republicans to win a government shutdown fight that even a majority of the public perceived as their fault, this was it. The worst part? Everyone knew this would be the outcome. Most importantly, Republicans knew that eventually Democrats would cave in to pressure, and leak just enough votes to let them pass the legislation practically without giving in on a single point. (Yes, they extended some benefits for a few more months, but there were no real concessions; plus there was the “vote” on healthcare.) Time and time again, Democrats prove themselves incapable of picking fights and actually standing their ground.
It would be naive to say that concern over layoffs of federal employees at the beginning of the shutdown, air traffic safety, and SNAP benefits wasn’t warranted, but it would be equally ignorant to think that Democrats in Congress weren’t already aware of these potential issues before entering this battle. Trump and his administration made it abundantly clear that the second a shutdown started, they would start layoffs and cutting programs. One week into the shutdown, Trump was threatening to cut specifically what he described as “Democratic programs,” a process that Russell Vought, his Office of Management and Budget Director and lead author of Project 2025 (which you may vaguely remember from the 2024 election), had already started preparing before the shutdown even began. Even if Democrats didn’t know the breadth of damage that the Trump administration was prepared to do before they began their filibuster, they were certainly aware a week in.
In terms of message, the media has consistently described the Democratic Party as being “in the wilderness” for more than a year now, but I think this gives the party too little credit for deciding its own agenda. Democrats might not hold any power in the federal government right now, but they certainly hold power in numerous state governments and are coming out of a win in nearly every competitive statewide election on Nov. 5. Yes, it’s an off year which usually draws more engaged voters—like Democrats in the wake of a Trump administration—and yes, elections often swing to the opposing party after a presidential election, but I think it’s incredibly generous to say that Democrats have no guide on what they should center their message on. In fact, I’d argue they’re well aware of what they should be focusing on, and what most of their candidates in 2025 ran on: affordability. Soaring healthcare costs is, of course, also important and ought to be focused on, but cutting the Affordable Care Act is a cornerstone of Republican politics under Trump. Yes, tax credits from the Affordable Care Act are expiring at the end of the year, and will have terrible consequences for many if Congress does let them expire, but quite frankly, the Democrats were never going to win on this specific issue. One of the defectors, Senator Angus King of Maine, said in a news conference that there was no evidence that Republicans were going to change their mind on this issue if the Democrats held firm, so why did they think it would change if they immediately gave in? Again, this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try, but perhaps this shouldn’t have been the hill to die on for the shutdown—especially if they weren’t even prepared to die on it.
It seems likely that healthcare will be a critical issue going into the 2026 midterms, especially after the tax credits likely expire, but it’s unclear to me why they thought the Republicans might concede on this issue now, in 2025, without significant public pressure. The “No Kings” protests did continue through the shutdown, but they failed to provide one singular policy message that might have impacted negotiations over the shutdown, even while showing the extent to which Trump has continued to lose popularity, giving a clear visual for his 37% approval rating.
Returning to SNAP: Yes, halting SNAP was bad, and I can understand why some senators may have convinced themselves it was in the best interest of their constituents to at least try to reverse what Trump had done during the shutdown. But this logic seems flawed for several reasons, chief among them being why do they believe that Trump, and by proxy his Republican lackeys, will keep to their word? Maybe they will hold a vote that you want held, but that doesn’t mean they’ll even consider passing it. Maybe Trump will decide to withhold SNAP benefits again. And maybe he won’t. There is no evidence to suggest that Republicans will follow through with any assurances they’ve given, since they haven’t so far, and I find it fascinating that the eight senators who flipped to pass the appropriations bill convinced themselves that the Republicans would follow through on their promises.
It’s difficult to see the result of the shutdown as a win for SNAP, even if the Democrats allegedly secured funding for the next year—as it was already appropriated to be—when earlier this year, Republicans made 20–30% cuts to the program over the next 10 years as well as further restricting eligibility to the program in their “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Even if Trump agrees to reverse what he’s done during the shutdown, these cuts and restrictions were still passed into law. Perhaps with this new focus on SNAP and affordability, Democrats could have demanded that this be reversed, or more funding go toward SNAP. For all these senators knew, the Supreme Court could’ve been on the verge of ordering that Trump could not withhold SNAP benefits. They made it 40 days, they could have waited a bit longer. For better or worse, we can only speculate.
If anything good came out of this shutdown, perhaps it was the unity among the Democratic Party in the wake of the battle—not inspired by the Democrats’ 40-day holdout, but rather unified in outrage over the capitulation. More likely? The events of the last two months will be entirely forgotten by the 2026 midterms in favor of whatever outrageous thing Trump has done most recently—maybe the Epstein files will stick instead.
Peyton De Winter is a member of the class of 2027 and can be reached at pdewinter@wesleyan.edu.
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