The last time Senate Democrats found themselves taking the blame for a government shutdown, they quickly caved and raced to reopen federal agencies in 2018, as their more moderate members demanded a fast resolution after only three days.
This shutdown could be different.
The Democrats from red states who decried the shutdown strategy as a foolish miscalculation and pressed for an immediate reversal in the showdown with President Trump seven years ago are long gone.
The ideological makeup of the party has shifted to the left, and Democrats are now bracing for an extended confrontation with the White House and congressional Republicans, despite the clear political risks. The same dynamic is at play in the G.O.P., which has lurched to the right under Mr. Trump and no longer sees room for compromise.
Democrats believe they have a powerful message on health care, with some Americans set to face soaring premiums unless Republicans agree to extend federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. They shrugged off Mr. Trump’s threat to engage in the wholesale firing of federal workers, saying he would do so regardless of the status of government funding.
And Democrats do not see much benefit in providing the votes for a temporary spending extension, since Mr. Trump and his budget czar, Russell T. Vought, have already demonstrated that they are willing to spend federal dollars — or not spend them, as the case may be — however they want, no matter what Congress says.
They have so far done so with little pushback from Senate Republicans.
“How could we negotiate a bipartisan agreement and then have the president unilaterally through impoundment, or the Republican Party through rescissions and the president unilaterally through pocket rescissions, undo it all without any input,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, asked as he explained Democratic resistance.
As they stared down the prospect of political backlash from Congress shuttering federal agencies, Democrats seemed resigned to a messaging battle that they could well lose, or at best fight to a draw. But agreeing to keep the government open without getting something in return appeared to be unacceptable to most of them. Democrats also said privately that a surrender would sap them of any leverage in big fights to come, if they walked away with nothing.
It was a stark departure from January 2018, when Democrats blocked a government spending measure and demanded permanent protection for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children — the so-called Dreamers.
Democrats believed widespread public sympathy for the plight of the Dreamers would be enough to protect them from a shutdown backlash. But they quickly discovered that they were mistaken, as the government shuttered for the weekend and criticism of their stance began to pour in.
The blowback was particularly dangerous for 10 Senate Democrats facing re-election that fall in states carried by Mr. Trump in 2016. Back then, Democrats still held seats in North Dakota, Indiana, West Virginia, Missouri, Montana and Florida, and the clash with the White House threatened the already difficult re-election prospects of those incumbents. They searched for a quick way out, and bipartisan negotiations were initiated without the participation of party leaders.
“Should we have ever shut down the government?” Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, asked at the time. “Absolutely not.”
By the time Monday rolled around then, Democrats were running for cover, and settled for a promise from Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and then-majority leader, that the Senate would at some point hold a full debate and vote on the future of the Dreamers program.
That debate occurred about a month later, and three separate proposals to resolve the fate of the immigrants failed.
This time around, the ideological dynamic has changed for both parties. The red-state seats held by Democrats in 2018 are now mostly filled by Republicans, significantly reducing the pressure for Democrats to capitulate. Now, the heaviest pressure is coming from Democratic voters and activists who want the party to hold firm against Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans.
Mr. Schumer, who outraged the left in March when he agreed to extend spending through Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown, and saw his approval rating plunge as a result, is under particular scrutiny, and would face a torrent of attacks should he relent with little to show for it.
As a shutdown became a near certainty on Tuesday night, Mr. Schumer put it this way: “The strategy is: The American people are demanding it.”
The makeup of Senate Republicans has changed as well. Gone are many of the deal-makers, such as Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, who worked with Democrats from conservative-leaning states to try to find a negotiated resolution to the 2018 shutdown, and on other issues.
They have been replaced by more conservative Republicans with little appetite for giving ground to the Democrats, particularly when they believe they have them in a tight spot and can do political damage by painting their counterparts as responsible for shutting down much of the government.
It is a change of fortune for Republicans, who in the past have borne much of the blame for shutdowns, and became known, in the words of one former leader, as “the shutdown party.”
If there is a push from Democrats to end a shutdown, it is likely to come from members of the Appropriations Committee who want the chance to finish up annual spending bills and get the government funded the traditional way.
Democrats believe that the politics of the shutdown could eventually bend in their favor when people begin to see their health insurance premiums spike after Republicans refused demands to extend the Obamacare subsidies.
“This is a very damaging issue for Republicans,” Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii and a member of the party’s leadership, said Tuesday. “If we were terribly cynical, we would just let them stew in it. But we want to solve it, because we care in our bones about the people we represent.”
The ultimate political repercussions will be determined by how the shutdown plays out and how long it lasts, among other factors. The consequences can be unpredictable, but veterans of past shutdowns say that few winners emerge as public dissatisfaction sets in.
“It doesn’t serve anybody well to do these things,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the longtime Republican senator from South Carolina.
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
Carl Hulse is the chief Washington correspondent for The Times, primarily writing about Congress and national political races and issues. He has nearly four decades of experience reporting in the nation’s capital.
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