The longest government shutdown in U.S. history just took place. For 43 days, the lives of countless people were thrown into chaos and uncertainty.
An estimated 670,000 federal employees were furloughed and another estimated 730,000 worked without pay. For close to two weeks, nearly 42 million Americans, or 1 in 8 people, had their food stamps cut off. Approximately 4,000 federal employees were given layoff notices. Basic services such as air travel were impacted as air traffic controllers and TSA agents were pressured to come to work without pay.
What was all this sacrifice about?
It occurred because Congress could not pass a budget bill that both the Republican and Democratic parties could agree on. On the one hand, the Republicans who have a majority in both houses of Congress lied openly, saying that Democrats wanted to fund health care for undocumented people. (While this is a total lie, the even bigger lie is that immigrants are a threat to native-born workers in the United States!) The Democrats on the other hand drew their line in the sand about the expiration of the subsidies for the 22 million people who depend on the Affordable Care Act (or ACA, often called Obamacare) for their health insurance. Without the subsidies, peoples’ premiums will more than double!
For Democrats, the chance to take on Trump at this time and over this issue couldn’t have come at a more politically advantageous moment for them.
In recent elections Democrats exceeded their expectations in both red states and blue states, getting a clear message that many people were fed up with the Trump agenda. At the same time, Trump couldn’t have made himself an easier target, with public displays of wealth and elitism like beginning construction on an opulent White House ballroom and his elaborate Great Gatsby themed Halloween party at the same time as millions of Americans went hungry from having the food stamps cut off. Lastly, public opinion was becoming more and more lopsided, as majorities of people polled blamed Trump and the Republicans rather than the Democrats for the government shutdown.
There was definitely a mood in the population to stand up to Trump’s attacks on healthcare, affordability and in his political agenda in general. The problem was that the desire among the Democratic Party officials to challenge Trump and his attacks on the working class wasn’t actually there.
Neither the Democratic Party nor the unions (which are almost exclusively aligned to the Democrats) ever proposed any mobilization of the population against the cutbacks. No mass rallies, no nationwide days of action, no walkout of airport workers, no strikes, nothing.
On November 12, the government shutdown came to an end after 43 days. Why?
Eight Democratic members of the Senate caved and agreed to approve the Republican budget without the Affordable Care Act subsidies, effectively ending the government shutdown and throwing away what leverage they had to fight against the cuts. What did they get out of coming to an agreement? What did the Democrats get out of putting the American population through the longest government shutdown in history? A non-binding promise for a vote on the ACA subsidies in December. There is nothing that even guarantees that that vote will ever take place.
Was this an aberration within the Democratic Party? A small group of defectors breaking off from the majority? Or was the situation more systematic?
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, one of the Democrats that caved in to the Republican demands, stated that she and the other Democratic senators who voted with Republicans were in communication with Democratic Party leadership including Chuck Schumer throughout the process. Dick Durbin, Schumer’s second in command in the Senate, is also one of the Democrats who decided to throw in the towel on fighting for the ACA subsidies. This capitulation vote wouldn’t have taken place without approval from the party leadership. This was not so much a break in discipline as much as sabotage by design from the top!
On top of this, it just so happens that the Democratic senators who caved took a third of all the airline industry’s lobbying money for last year.
The most recent capitation by the Democratic Party is not unique. In fact, it is only one example of the “rotating villain theory” that takes place within the party and among its supporters. This occurs when the Democratic Party apparatus signals support for a progressive policy that its voting base wants, but only when it doesn’t have a chance of going anywhere because of a certain number of elected officials within their own ranks who will almost definitely sabotage it. Today the villains are John Fetterman, Dick Durbin, Tim Kaine and all of the other centrist Democratic Senators who went along with the Republican proposal that will soon double or triple healthcare costs for millions of people. In 2021 the supposed villains were Joe Machin and Kyrsten Sinema, who destroyed the possibility of providing universal pre-K, four weeks of paid parental and medical leave, an extended child tax credit, free community college, a Medicaid expansion and more. In 2009 it was Joe Lieberman who defeated any possibility for a so-called public option – the closest that the United States has ever come to universal healthcare.
This dynamic conveniently allows the party to talk about progressive and popular policies without ever having to follow through on anything.
An opposition party to Trump that sincerely spoke to the American populations’ deep class anger could have easily won this fight, whether the line drawn was regarding the Affordable Healthcare Act subsidies or about any other issue. The problem is that the Democratic Party will never be that opposition party. In fact, they cannot be that opposition party because of how beholden they are to corporate interests.
The Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, represents class forces that are hostile to our interests. They can never be relied upon to defend our most basic class interests.
The truth is that there is an enormous offensive that is being waged on our lives and livelihoods as well as basic rights. Working people do need to fight, but we can only fight effectively when we rely on our forces. We will have real leverage only when we recognize the fact that we make this entire society function, and when we realize that when we’re organized, we have the capacity to shut down the flow of profits to those that benefit from these relentless attacks on our lives!
