All you need to know about shutdown day

The government shuts down at midnight Tuesday. That is, so long as Democrats stick with their plan (and they will). It's not a good plan, but it's one they believe they need to act upon. Polls show their base is out for blood, and their radicals are drawing it weekly, so smart politics are out the door.

It's not a winning fight. Democrats will lose, further empower the White House, destabilize the strongly Democratic-leaning Virginia governor's race, and, in the end, surrender. It's essentially the opposite of anything Sun Tzu or Machiavelli ever taught about battle, but here it is. This is the field they have chosen. Here's how it will all play out.

Surrender is inevitable. Democrats simply do not have any off-ramps from this fight. So what will they have gained?

Republicans have a majority in the House, which last week passed a “clean continuing resolution” that will fund the government without any meaningful policy changes or add-ons, then left town. The Senate requires seven Democrats to join Republicans to hit the 60-vote threshold, but Democrats weren't allowed to vote yes unless Republicans agreed to a $1 trillion bunch of their demands. Republicans did not, so here we are.

A shutdown puts the Office of Management and Budget squarely in charge of what’s funded and what isn’t. OMB Director Russ Vought, a veteran tactician and shrewd architect of small government, will very soon be in the driver’s seat. If Congress shuts down the government on his watch, he’s going to work to make some of the changes permanent.

Vought instructed agencies to send “[reduction in force] notices to all employees in programs, projects, or activities” that check all three of the following boxes: 1) They’re not paid for by mandatory spending. 2) They aren’t covered by the Big Beautiful Bill Act. 3) They aren’t in line with the president’s goals. And not for just the week, either, but until the program is reauthorized — at which point they can apply for their old job if they'd like.

That’s a whole lot of government. As usual, press reports are focused on scary things like air traffic control and Social Security, while Vought and the White House are focused on wasteful, and hitherto “untouchable,” entrenched Democratic bureaucracies.

These are the kinds of changes that won't be easily undone without Republicans giving in — or Democrats once again winning power. In effect, many are lasting changes — and wins Democrats didn't need to give the administration. Except they felt they needed to.

Why? Because their base wants a fight. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took a heavy blow for passing the triumphant GOP's first budget earlier this year. A Politico reporter who spoke with every serious Democrat Senate primary candidate across all open and targeted races could not find one who would endorse Schumer's leadership of the party. “Of the 19 who responded ... [11] said they would not support him and eight were noncommittal.”

All responders demanded that he fight the Grand Old Party to the mat. This time, he can't give in without first showing up for a fight.

Republicans are fine with this battle. Neither Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), nor President Donald Trump so much as took a meeting to hear Democrats' theatrical demands before Monday afternoon. That meeting went about as expected, for the above reasons: Democrats must fight, and Republicans aren’t afraid of losing.

One major Democrat focus is the expiring Obamacare tax credits, which don’t end until December. If Republicans are going to give this issue to them (and they likely will, because without it they’ll get pinned for rising health insurance premiums), it will be in exchange for a real win — not merely funding the government for 30 days. In fact, several Republicans are already working on this (though they don’t have leadership’s blessing yet).

Meanwhile, nearby Virginia has a governor's race in a little over a month. Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger is expected to win, but the trick to turning this once-conservative state blue was always the ever-rising population of federal employees and government-program-dependent refugees and immigrants most immediately and materially affected by a government shutdown.

The entire Virginia delegation voted for that shutdown. That could mean thousands of pink slips in the Democrat north. It's a long shot, but if Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) has a shot at changing the election’s outcome, this is her ticket.

Finally, surrender is inevitable. Democrats simply do not have any off-ramps from this fight. So what will they have gained?

They’ll have handed power to one of their ablest opponents, who used it to change the federal government; thrown a wild card into an otherwise safe race for the Virginia executive; and surrendered.

It’s understandable: Their base demands a hostage situation, even if leadership has neither hostages nor bullets. And so the outcome is determined.

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