The Politics of the Government Shutdown May Not Be What They Seem....And May Abruptly Change
More than a month deep into the shutdown of the federal government which has endured far longer than I imagined possible, the President has taken the majority of the heat from the public and the Democrats' political advantage has been pretty durable ever since Trump literally accepted the blame in advance at the press conference with Schumer and Pelosi. And yet, Trump and the Congressional GOP are circling the wagons, still believing the other side will blink first. Are they right? I think there's a strong case to be made that they are.
Last week, there was some buzz coming from "anonymous Trump administration officials" that was advanced by conservative columnists suggesting that once the shutdown lasted more than 30 days, it just might be possible through an arcane interpretation of federal law for Trump and the GOP to get rolling on their long-standing dream of dismantling the federal workforce much the way Reagan did with the air traffic controllers during their 1981 strike. It's starting to look more likely that that talking point was a bluff now that 30 days have come and gone....and even if it could technically be deployed, the GOP is probably correctly assessing that the public response would be ruinous for them them if they terminated workers as if they were engaged in an illegal strike when they are still working and not collecting paychecks, particularly in the context of a shutdown that the public already blames Trump for.
Still, the weaponization of the federal workforce as a negotiating tool is a salient one for the GOP given that the Democrats are interested both in an effectively functioning government and in accommodating the federal workers who are a vital part of the party's electoral base. With a bit more tact, Trump seems well-positioned to flip the narrative on the Democrats, and we saw the first example of that this weekend with his "offer" to Democrats that, while comically cynical, nonetheless put the onus on Democrats to come up with a counteroffer. For the Democrats to refer to the deal as a "nonstarter" and reject the offer before it was even officially made seems a little tone-deaf.
Exhibit A for why Trump and the GOP have a competitive advantage in this fight came clear the day after Trump's offer was made, when Virginia Senator Mark Warner went on the Sunday morning shows giving Trump credit for taking a step in the right direction. It was no coincidence that Warner was the first Democrat to go off-script as his state has one of the highest numbers of federal workers in the country, and you can be sure he's hearing from them. With the Republicans fully invested in a poorly functioning federal government that reinforces their primary campaign narrative, they're aware they have some serious leverage over the other guys who represent federal employees and want the federal government to be competent. There's no urgency for Republicans to clean up this mess but there's considerable urgency for Democrats, so despite the polling disadvantage it's in the Republicans' interest to wait this out as long as possible.
Beyond that, the centerpiece of this shutdown battle up to this point has been "Trump's wall" with the Democrats not appearing to have a specific horse in the race. But any sort of deal that was ever to be reached over the wall involved Democrats getting what they wanted on DACA. Now there's majority support for "the Dreamers" among the public, but is that support intense enough to withstand a prolonged government shutdown? With DACA now at the forefront of the conversation right alongside Trump's wall, how long can Democrats maintain a posture of prioritizing rights for illegal immigrants over the paychecks of federal employees? Or everybody else impacted by the shutdown for that matter? This strikes me as the perfect formula for Trump to regain the upper-hand, particularly if he makes Democrats look increasingly intransigent in a negotiation where they're defending DACA above all other priorities. Keep in mind that when the Democrats shut down the government for a couple of days last year, they made the fight all about DACA and Schumer folded like an accordion when the shutdown began to be framed in terms of "illegal immigrants versus the military"....and I can easily imagine that narrative leading to a 90% surrender from Democrats again with this shutdown.
Trump and his closest handlers are not only true believers in their restrictionist immigration message, but they're also completely convinced it's political gold heading into 2020. I've always believed the GOP has the politics on their side here, and the last thing Democrats need is for their federal worker base to feel as though they come in second place to illegal immigrants as well. The successful campaign that Democrats ran nationally in the midterm showed me that Schumer and Pelosi get the pitfalls of immigration politics for the Democratic Party as they maintained radio silence on the issue and stayed laser-focused on "protecting people with pre-existing conditions" even as Trump and events steered the national conversation towards immigration. Unfortunately for them, they're no longer in a position where they can just ignore the elephant in the room, and they must engage with Trump on an issue that is in the epicenter of his political comfort zone and highly motivating to his base.
The long-term concern is that because Trump spends all day, every day obsessing loudly from his bully pulpit about immigration, he's forcing Democrats into a posture where they have to spend all day, every day responding loudly about immigration and thus looking increasingly detached to the concerns of the overwhelming majority of voters heading into Presidential election cycle. The short-term concern as it pertains to resolving this shutdown is that if it boils down to a war of attrition on how much Trump's base cares about building the wall versus how much the Democratic base (and independents) care about reinstituting DACA, my money's on Trump's base. Perhaps it's because of the immigrant-skeptical, yet ancestrally very Democratic, part of the country where I grew up, but I'm predisposed to a perspective that if the Democrats are talking about illegal immigration in whatever context, they're losing. We'll see if that hypothesis continues to hold.
Last week, there was some buzz coming from "anonymous Trump administration officials" that was advanced by conservative columnists suggesting that once the shutdown lasted more than 30 days, it just might be possible through an arcane interpretation of federal law for Trump and the GOP to get rolling on their long-standing dream of dismantling the federal workforce much the way Reagan did with the air traffic controllers during their 1981 strike. It's starting to look more likely that that talking point was a bluff now that 30 days have come and gone....and even if it could technically be deployed, the GOP is probably correctly assessing that the public response would be ruinous for them them if they terminated workers as if they were engaged in an illegal strike when they are still working and not collecting paychecks, particularly in the context of a shutdown that the public already blames Trump for.
Still, the weaponization of the federal workforce as a negotiating tool is a salient one for the GOP given that the Democrats are interested both in an effectively functioning government and in accommodating the federal workers who are a vital part of the party's electoral base. With a bit more tact, Trump seems well-positioned to flip the narrative on the Democrats, and we saw the first example of that this weekend with his "offer" to Democrats that, while comically cynical, nonetheless put the onus on Democrats to come up with a counteroffer. For the Democrats to refer to the deal as a "nonstarter" and reject the offer before it was even officially made seems a little tone-deaf.
Exhibit A for why Trump and the GOP have a competitive advantage in this fight came clear the day after Trump's offer was made, when Virginia Senator Mark Warner went on the Sunday morning shows giving Trump credit for taking a step in the right direction. It was no coincidence that Warner was the first Democrat to go off-script as his state has one of the highest numbers of federal workers in the country, and you can be sure he's hearing from them. With the Republicans fully invested in a poorly functioning federal government that reinforces their primary campaign narrative, they're aware they have some serious leverage over the other guys who represent federal employees and want the federal government to be competent. There's no urgency for Republicans to clean up this mess but there's considerable urgency for Democrats, so despite the polling disadvantage it's in the Republicans' interest to wait this out as long as possible.
Beyond that, the centerpiece of this shutdown battle up to this point has been "Trump's wall" with the Democrats not appearing to have a specific horse in the race. But any sort of deal that was ever to be reached over the wall involved Democrats getting what they wanted on DACA. Now there's majority support for "the Dreamers" among the public, but is that support intense enough to withstand a prolonged government shutdown? With DACA now at the forefront of the conversation right alongside Trump's wall, how long can Democrats maintain a posture of prioritizing rights for illegal immigrants over the paychecks of federal employees? Or everybody else impacted by the shutdown for that matter? This strikes me as the perfect formula for Trump to regain the upper-hand, particularly if he makes Democrats look increasingly intransigent in a negotiation where they're defending DACA above all other priorities. Keep in mind that when the Democrats shut down the government for a couple of days last year, they made the fight all about DACA and Schumer folded like an accordion when the shutdown began to be framed in terms of "illegal immigrants versus the military"....and I can easily imagine that narrative leading to a 90% surrender from Democrats again with this shutdown.
Trump and his closest handlers are not only true believers in their restrictionist immigration message, but they're also completely convinced it's political gold heading into 2020. I've always believed the GOP has the politics on their side here, and the last thing Democrats need is for their federal worker base to feel as though they come in second place to illegal immigrants as well. The successful campaign that Democrats ran nationally in the midterm showed me that Schumer and Pelosi get the pitfalls of immigration politics for the Democratic Party as they maintained radio silence on the issue and stayed laser-focused on "protecting people with pre-existing conditions" even as Trump and events steered the national conversation towards immigration. Unfortunately for them, they're no longer in a position where they can just ignore the elephant in the room, and they must engage with Trump on an issue that is in the epicenter of his political comfort zone and highly motivating to his base.
The long-term concern is that because Trump spends all day, every day obsessing loudly from his bully pulpit about immigration, he's forcing Democrats into a posture where they have to spend all day, every day responding loudly about immigration and thus looking increasingly detached to the concerns of the overwhelming majority of voters heading into Presidential election cycle. The short-term concern as it pertains to resolving this shutdown is that if it boils down to a war of attrition on how much Trump's base cares about building the wall versus how much the Democratic base (and independents) care about reinstituting DACA, my money's on Trump's base. Perhaps it's because of the immigrant-skeptical, yet ancestrally very Democratic, part of the country where I grew up, but I'm predisposed to a perspective that if the Democrats are talking about illegal immigration in whatever context, they're losing. We'll see if that hypothesis continues to hold.
posted by Mark at 6:50 PM
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