The government shutdown that began Wednesday might have been one of the most anticlimactic developments yet: President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans were never going to negotiate, and Democrats had just about every incentive to obstruct.
And fueling that Democratic motive is a furious base, begging their leaders to mount a more visible and inspiring opposition to Trump. They already think Democrats blew it once when they provided the votes to pass a Republican spending bill back in March to avoid one shutdown. Caving again would be unforgivable.
The truth, however, is that Democrats, both in and outside of Congress, actually have tried to resist and obstruct the Trump administration’s second-term agenda. But they haven’t been flashy or high-profile.
Broadly, this resistance relies on the procedural powers the minority party can use in either chamber, such as:
Lawmakers also get the bully pulpit of committee hearings and confirmations to garner attention and sway public opinion.
These are limited tools, and nothing like what they could do with a majority. And they don’t represent the totality of opposition tools available.
How Democrats have been resisting Trump — without resorting to a shutdown
Because Republicans control both the executive and legislative branches, they can basically accomplish most of what they want to do. In response, Democrats have basically adopted a strategy of delaying — setting up procedural roadblocks to stymie Trump’s agenda and slow down Congress’s day-to-day work.
That’s looked like:
The other main tool Democrats have is to force a spotlight on specific unpopular people or policies during committee hearings, when they have time to speak and cameras capturing everything — though it’s harder to judge if this path has been effective.
In the House, they’ve also tried to force unpopular votes that require individual members to go on the record — most recently over the release of the so-called Epstein Files. That party-line procedural vote failed in July. This is another reason Speaker Mike Johnson has not brought back the House this week: to prevent another unpopular vote on the Epstein Files by not having to swear-in a newly elected member of Congress who would provide the final vote needed to force the House to take up the issue.
Democrats previously tried to force a vote on canceling the national emergency Trump created to justify his tariffs on Mexico, China, and Canada before the last averted shutdown. They tried to use a provision in National Emergencies Act to force it — but the Republican majority was able to delay it until next year.
Still, this all misses what is, for Democratic leadership, an inconvenient truth: The most effective resistance is happening outside of Congress. The courts, and Democratic lawsuits in particular, have been able to go toe-to-toe with various aspects of the Trump agenda, blocking, reversing, or simply delaying many of the administration’s moves.
“The legal strategy is, for the most part, working,” Karen A. Tramontano, a Democratic lawyer and the co-founder of the firm Blue Star Strategies reflected in a recent analysis. By Blue Star’s count, 384 lawsuits have been filed against the administration since Trump’s inauguration, resulting in 130 orders stopping the White House, and another 148 lawsuits are still in the works.
Remember: Democratic leaders — and Democrats in Congress — are really unpopular
Underlying this shutdown, and some of the sense among congressional Democrats that they couldn’t avoid it, is a harsh reality: Their voters are furious with their responses to Trump (or seeming lack thereof) this year. Democrats routinely say they are dissatisfied and disillusioned with their party and its leaders, calling it “weak,” “tepid,” and “ineffective.”
That’s happening even as Democrats deploy under-the-radar, symbolic tactics in Congress and legal strategy outside of the legislative branch to resist Trump while they are out of power and in the minority.
The result of this disconnect is a situation in which party leaders feel bound to obstruct.
But whatever Democratic supporters may feel about the party’s performance during Trump’s second-term so far — and how this shutdown plays out — the truth is the same. Congressional Democrats have done much of what they can to obstruct Trump, but there’s only so much that can be done when you lack the most important thing in politics: a majority of the vote.
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