Democrats' Treachery Ends the Shutdown

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

12 Nov 2025

🖨️ Print Article

Democratic Party senators who voted to join with republicans and end the shutdown. (TheDailyBeast.com, Getty Images)

Voter support for the Democratic Party in the government shutdown showdown was irrelevant. The Senate capitulation was a cynical and inevitable endgame for a party devoted to the austerity race to the bottom.

In “The Shutdown and Neverending Hostility to the Welfare State,” written just two weeks ago, this columnist made the following statement. “If the Democratic Party can’t stand up to defend programs that feed poor people and pay for healthcare, then it literally has no reason to exist at all.” That essay presented a long list of infamous Democratic Party chicanery that chipped away at the already inadequate welfare state in this country. The democrats may talk a good game, but in the final analysis they will join with their duopoly partners in the Republican Party to practice the politics of austerity. Continuing the race to the bottom and increasing precarity for millions of people is a shared goal between them, and the recent political deal ending the government shutdown is a classic example of this dynamic.

During the shutdown most federal workers, some 2 million people, were furloughed without pay while air traffic controllers and others were required to keep working, despite not being paid. Federal government employees were not the only victims. As of November 1, Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP) food benefits ended for more than 40 million people and the Trump administration refused to use emergency funding that would have continued allocations. Federal courts ordered that SNAP be paid for but an appeal to the Supreme Court let Trump off the hook. When states stepped forward to say that they would fund SNAP, they were ordered not to do so. Bringing the pain and killing the beast of government was an important part of republican intransigence.

Democrats claimed they were using the filibuster to prevent the Trump administration from ending subsidies to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but on the 50th day of a shutdown of most governmental functions, eight Senate democrats joined republicans in making a deal which doesn’t include a commitment to continue funding the ACA subsidies they claimed to care about. Republicans in the Senate promised to hold a vote in January which they will probably win, while House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to commit to any decisions on the ACA subsidies.

The administration had been on the back foot, facing anger from furloughed workers, 24 million ACA enrollees suffering from “sticker shock” after seeing their health insurance premiums increase, their own low income voters who depend on SNAP, and a majority of the population, who wanted to see firm opposition to an agenda they did not want. Polls showed that Trump and the republicans were being blamed for the suffering, and the ultimate polling process, election results, confirmed that democrats were seen in a more favorable light. Democrats won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and most famously, a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member was elected mayor of New York City. In California a proposition passed giving the governor and legislature the ability to gerrymander and secure democratic congressional seats in response to Trump’s threats in republican states. Democratic voters made clear that they wanted their leadership to stay the course.

Of course they did not. Eight senators joined republicans in ending the government shutdown and the makeup of the group indicates that a deal was done first within the democrats’ caucus to help protect the prospects of the turncoats. None of the eight are running in 2026 and thus are less likely to escape voter’s wrath. Two are retiring and have nothing to fear at all, three run for reelection in 2028, and three don’t run again until 2030. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer had to have been involved in discussions but he voted no, in an obvious effort to escape blame for a plan that could not have moved forward without his approval.

The Democratic Party’s history is an indication that true opposition was never part of their plan in ending the shutdown. The election results ought to have emboldened them and given confidence that they could withstand any criticism for allowing the shutdown to continue. That logic would apply only if the democrats were a real opposition political party instead of a money laundering operation and a brand to be marketed at opportune moments. The party doesn’t work for the people, but instead for the democrats’ wing of the ruling class oligarchy. Helping people without jobs or SNAP benefits would be the very antithesis of their true mission. Contrary to what this columnist wrote earlier, the democrats do in fact have reasons to exist. The duopoly system needs equilibrium. It requires that the two parties play different roles at different times. At this juncture, democrats were required to go through the motions, to pretend they want to fight when they really don’t. One can only imagine the levels of cynical plotting among Senate democrats that resulted in the pretend fight. Leadership had to determine who would be hurt the least and figure out how Schumer might go about pretending to oppose what he had concocted.

The biggest question is about what democratic voters will do. This double cross was not the first. Will they continue to hang on to their discredited party even as they express disgust or will they walk away and disengage politically? Democratic Party leadership is counting on disgust with Trump to save them so that they can once again be a partner in duopoly deal-making.

Schumer is still the Senate Minority Leader and will remain so for as long as he wants the position. Any one of his members could call for a vote on his leadership. Even Bernie Sanders demurs when asked if Schumer’s time is up. Expecting any democrats to show courage and deviate from their political script is to be in denial about the realities of U.S. politics.

Holding the line on ACA subsidies was the least the democrats could have done. Popularly known as Obamacare, the ACA was not a left wing policy. Instead it was championed by the Heritage Foundation conservative thinktank and is a poor substitute for a national health care system. Medicaid cuts remain in effect which will cause 10 million people to lose coverage by 2034. SNAP has already been damaged by Trump’s “Big Beautiful” bill, with new requirements for work and for the states to pay for more of the program, putting their budgets under strain and endangering its very existence. Of course that is the point, to make the right wing fever dream of a shrunken government a reality, a process at work for many years with Bill Clinton’s welfare “reform” and Barack Obama’s own SNAP benefit cuts and his attempt at a “grand bargain” which was only prevented by republican intransigence and gridlock and not by any Democratic Party efforts.

The safety net is more and more ragged, impacting not just the poorest who depend on SNAP but also higher income people who rely on ACA subsidies for their health care. The decades-long counter revolution is paying off, as Trump would say, “bigly,” and it wouldn’t happen without buy-in from the Democratic Party.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.