Why Another Government Shutdown Could Be Lurking Around The Corner

MANCHESTER, N.H. – The longest government shutdown ever may finally be over, but the Democratic Party is just beginning to reckon with angry voters who are sick and tired of seeing them lose to President Donald Trump. 

Their frustrations were particularly evident in New Hampshire, a state represented by two moderate Democrats in the Senate who helped cut a deal with Republicans that funded the government in return for essentially nothing. New Hampshirites who spoke to HuffPost this week said they felt demoralized by their surrender and called for new blood to carry the torch into the future. 

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“It’s like trying to root for a sports team that keeps getting whooped,” Becky Franks, a retired school principal from New Market, lamented on Wednesday. 

“I’m really pissed at [Sen. Jeanne] Shaheen and [Sen. Maggie] Hassan,” added Rosemary Stewart, a retired social worker in Merrimack, of her two senators. “They did what Democrats always do: they buckle, and they taught Trump that he could get away with it.”

The anger is clearly reminiscent of the disillusion Republicans faced during the Tea Party era a decade ago, though it’s too soon to tell what it will mean for the party’s electoral chances. As mad as voters may be with Democrats, they’re even more angry at Trump, a dynamic that helped the party notch big victories in Virginia and New Jersey earlier this month. However, in the short term, the ongoing discontent could lead to another government shutdown early next year. 

“The effects are not just on the poor. It’s going to raise everybody’s insurance across the board,” Anne Stowe, a retired teacher from New Market, said of the expiring health care protections. “I think we need to really fight for that. And if, in January, we have to say we need these, I think we should do another shutdown.”

The deal funding the government until Jan. 30 was backed by eight Senate Democrats and included a vote next month on extending enhanced subsidies for people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act. However, that vote is expected to fail due to Republican opposition to anything having to do with Obamacare. Trump and GOP lawmakers are instead pitching an alternative plan that would replace the subsidies with flexible spending accounts, which health care experts say could threaten to unravel Obamacare’s health insurance markets.

Democrats have vowed to keep fighting for the ACA subsidies, and a few lawmakers on either side of the shutdown debate have kept the door open to another fight in January. 

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“I guess my question is, what happens at the end of January? Are we going to sign on to another two or three-month temporary budget that does nothing on health care and does nothing on democracy?” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview with HuffPost.

Murphy, a progressive Democrat, argued against the deal negotiated by his moderate colleagues for weeks. He lost that fight in the Senate, but now he’s taking his message on the road in New Hampshire, an early presidential primary state. And he’s not the only one: Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), another potential presidential contender, is also holding a town hall here on Friday. 

“We could decide to continue to build leverage and hold the line in January,” Murphy said. “I just worry that we are entering into a pattern here where Republicans are able to get a small number of Democratic votes, and we end up getting very little to protect our democracy.”

Shaheen, who led the talks with Republicans, didn’t rule out a second shutdown either, telling HuffPost earlier this week “it’s certainly an option that I think everybody will consider.”

Denying government funding again would be a risky strategy for Democrats. Trump and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill now believe all they have to do is block funding to programs that support vulnerable Americans, such as federal food assistance, and wait out the Democrats as they succumb to the pressure.

Moreover, a significant portion of the Senate Democratic caucus is averse to the tactic of holding funding hostage writ large and would like to move on and pin the blame for high health care costs on Trump, who has been flailing to address affordability as voter concerns with the economy grow and his poll numbers crater.

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“We do need to stand up to him, but a shutdown, with all the pain it is bringing to the very people we want to help, is just not the place to do it,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, wrote in a op-ed published Thursday. “Will we be able to pass a bill next month extending the tax credits? It’s going to take some hard bargaining and is anything but a sure thing, but at least now there’s a chance where there was none before. And, in the meantime, the kids will be fed.”

As much as most Democrats would like to forget this whole episode as fast as possible and unite their party against Trump, they must first reassure skeptical voters that they are equipped to lead his opposition. Murphy sought to do so at a pair of public events on Wednesday, even though he wasn’t one of the Democratic senators who supported the deal. He got an earful anyway.

“Does the Senate Democratic caucus fundamentally underestimate the courage and capacity of the American people?” one Granite State resident named Jason asked Murphy at his town hall in Manchester, adding that he feels “like the party is failing” him.

Another woman told Murphy his party ought to make room for younger voices.

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“The message we’re hearing is that we shouldn’t speak ill of the Democratic Party because you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to throw the baby out, and maybe it’s time to get new baby.”

Other attendees who showed up to hear from Murphy at an event in Concord questioned their party’s strategy leading into the shutdown and decisions by leadership in the Senate, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Schumer opposed the deal but is getting the brunt of the blame for it anyway. Some Democrats believe he was involved in helping it come to fruition.

“That’s something that should have been thought out at the beginning,” Chris Roehrer, a retired corporate attorney from Hopkinton, told HuffPost. “To go on this long and then to cave is just lack of planning — or a lack of spine, I don’t know.”

Democrats were anything but united going into the shutdown. Shaheen and Hassan opposed their party’s strategy to deny funding over the ACA subsidies, requiring a last-minute intervention by their colleagues on the Senate floor, as HuffPost reported earlier this week.

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Murphy side-stepped repeated questions about Schumer’s fate on Wednesday — including from a Republican campaign tracker seeking to make trouble over the row — while calling for “firmer” leadership in the Senate. He argued that Democrats should adopt more nimble tactics and sharper messaging to counter Trump.

“We’ve got to be better,” Murphy said. “[Schumer’s] either got to, you know, he has an opportunity, and his leadership team has an opportunity, to sort of prove that we can repair from the damage that we have done to our cause.”

“Every single day, he is giving us more material to expose who he is,” he said, pivoting to Trump. “What is he spending all of his time on these days? Building a ballroom and trying to cover up for child sexual predation. So we need to keep the focus on him, on his corruption, on his massive transfer of wealth from the poor middle class to the rich, while at the same time trying to do some work to make our opposition more effective.”

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