The shutdown of the federal government that began October 1, now the second-longest in history, has also been called the “most bizarre” and the “weirdest.” What makes this fight so unusual is that it is simultaneously the least angry of the five major shutdowns since 1990 and also the hardest to resolve.
Previous shutdowns were fought over specific grievances: Republican pressure against new taxes in 1990, then for spending cuts in 1995–96 and again in 2013; Democratic resistance to Donald Trump’s border wall in 2018–19. At 35 days, that latter shutdown holds the record for the longest—for now.
These specific grievances were never the whole story, but they enabled each side to explain itself and offered an exit when the time came to resolve the dispute. For example, the 2018–19 shutdown ended when Trump dropped his demand for a $5 billion appropriation for his wall.
The present shutdown was also triggered by a single issue: the COVID-era tax credits that subsidize health-insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act, which Democrats want to extend before they expire at the end of the year. Yet a compromise over the stated cause will barely address the real issue at the center of this fight.
That real issue is Trump’s challenge to Congress’s constitutional taxing and spending powers. The president has refused to spend funds that Congress appropriated, and he is raising revenues that Congress never approved. Just today, for example, the Pentagon announced a so-called gift of $130 million from an unnamed Trump supporter to fund military pay during the shutdown. Raising funds from plutocrat allies in defiance of the legislature is something that the authors of the Constitution might have cited as a death spasm of republics. It follows Trump’s plan to pay for a new ballroom by extracting $300 million or more from donors who surely expect something in return.
Trump is also raising about $30 billion a month in tariff revenues, again without a vote in Congress. He plans to spend those revenues on grants to his favored constituents, once more without a vote. The Supreme Court has given Trump at least temporary permission for some of his recent moves. Republicans who control the House and the Senate have largely acquiesced to his abuses. But the president’s underlying view is abundantly clear from his words, deeds, and petty deepfake videos mocking Democratic leaders: Trump does not respect Congress.
This government shutdown, then, should be understood as a protest against Trump’s bid to tax and spend without Congress’s consent. But how do the president’s opponents make a budget deal when the president does not regard anything that comes out of Congress as binding? Any concessions will mean little when they are so likely to be abandoned on a whim.
The president’s allies in Congress seem keen to help him sideline lawmakers by keeping the House of Representatives closed through this fight. The Senate has remained in session, but the House has met on only 42 days since July 3. Trump’s opponents accuse House Speaker Mike Johnson of keeping the lights off to protect the president from procedures to release materials from the Jeffrey Epstein sex-abuse case. Although Johnson denies this, he has yet to offer another convincing excuse for extending the House’s summer vacation through the fall. Just as Trump devalues the work of Congress, Johnson is reinforcing the House’s irrelevance.
Which brings us back to the larger predicament faced by congressional Democrats. They are trying to negotiate with a president who does not accept Congress’s constitutional role—or his own constitutional limits.
Democrats chose ACA subsidies—which benefit mostly Republican areas of the country—as their battlefield because they believed that ground to be uniquely favorable to them. So far, that instinct has proved correct. Polls unanimously report that Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats for this shutdown.
Trump and the Senate Republicans may soon have to hand the Democrats a victory on ACA subsidies. But that “win” will not change what actually sent Democrats into this battle. Trump rejects constitutional limits on his power. His party in Congress will heed his desires even if it means defying the Constitution and disempowering themselves. These threats are bigger than health subsidies—bigger, even, than this shutdown. Every day, Trump comes to work to advance his bid for an American autocracy. That effort will continue, even after this weird shutdown finally ends.
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