On Oct. 1, as congressionally allocated funding for the federal government ran out amid a battle between the parties over current spending levels, the first government shutdown in nearly seven years set in. For more than three weeks, thousands of federal workers have been forced to either continue working or be furloughed, as the government lacks the approved funding to pay them. Vital constituent services and agencies are unsupported. Democrats in Congress have demanded an audience with President Donald Trump to negotiate a path forward that would rescue SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid cuts passed in his “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) earlier this year. Republicans have refused to negotiate while the government is shut down, demanding Democrats help pass a continuing resolution (C.R.) which would continue to fund the government at previously adopted levels. This column debates the ensuing government shutdown, arising from Democrats’ rejection of the Republican-backed C.R.
In favor:
Since the 2024 presidential and congressional elections, President Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Republican Party has secured a “mandate” from the American people. The day after his victory in the presidential election, Trump described the result as an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” In the wake of his disastrous imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico in March 2025, as well as his confrontational meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the previous month, Trump justified both controversial incidents on the basis that “[t]he American people have given us a mandate, a mandate like few people thought possible.” That same month, Trump’s Department of Justice stated that it would not cooperate with a D.C. District Court order to provide information related to the Trump administration’s unlawful deportation of irregular migrants to a Salvadoran prison, in line with the “mandate of the electorate.”
To describe an election victory with a popular vote share of 49.8% (a plurality, not a majority) as a mandate requires a very flimsy argument. However, I will acknowledge the following: Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Republicans took enough Senate seats to give the party a majority and the Republican Party held onto its slim majority in the House. If one’s definition of a mandate is control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, then the Republican Party has met this standard. Thus, the Republican Party should be able to use its mandate without needing to grovel for the support of Democrats.
This has clearly not been the case. Even with the votes of Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Angus King (I-ME), Republicans have been unable to pass the continuing resolution necessary to reopen the government in the Senate. To earn these votes would require congressional Republicans to come to the table with their opposition on two areas of funding: Medicaid (which provides health insurance to low-income individuals and rural hospitals) and SNAP (which assists low-income individuals with purchasing food). Both Medicaid and SNAP are disproportionately utilized by residents of red states, so even disregarding the supposed mandate that President Trump gave the GOP, the party bears at least some responsibility to mitigate the cuts to its constituents’ social safety nets.
Yet the Republican Party has remained steadfast in its mission to defund these programs. The OBBBA initiated a reduction of the Medicaid provider tax (which assists states with funding healthcare) by nearly half and slashed SNAP funding by $186 billion. Congressional Republicans have justified these cuts on the basis that these programs were being exploited by undocumented immigrants and the unemployed, despite the fact that undocumented immigrants were already ineligible for these benefits, while 92% of able-bodied Medicaid recipients are either employed, in school or caregiving. Opposition to the OBBBA in Congress was bipartisan; Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) joined all House Democrats in voting against the bill, arguing from the center that the Medicaid cuts would decimate healthcare access, while deficit hawk Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) voted against the bill from the right, citing the estimated $2.8 trillion increase to the national debt as a result of the bill. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) also joined all Senate Democrats in opposing the bill.
I am currently one of approximately 900,000 federal employees furloughed as a result of the ongoing government shutdown. I understand that this shutdown has left so many government workers, who have far more at stake than I do, without income. But I am also aware that this is a matter of dealing with a party that has habitually refused to adhere to political norms. Democrats must stop taking the high road every time the American people’s livelihoods are at stake, when Republicans refuse to do the same. Per a September 2025 poll, only 40% of Democrats have faith in their party’s congressional leadership. Senate Democrats are currently doing nothing to actively prevent this shutdown from ending. In this instance, the best way for Democratic leadership to regain the trust of its base is to simply continue doing nothing. If the Republican Party wants to pass its agenda, they are more than welcome to do so using their mandate.
Against:
On Sept. 30, 2025, for the first of what has since been 12 times (at time of writing), the U.S. Senate voted down a continuing resolution which would have extended 2025 federal funding levels into November, keeping the government open. The failure to approve a budget allowed the expiration of major federal appropriations hours later in what has since become the second-longest government shutdown on record, in hot pursuit of the record set during the first Trump presidency. As a result, approximately 900,000 federal employees have been sent home or forced to work without pay, while most federal sites and venues have been closed to the public, and government contract workers, and especially government-contracted small businesses, may never be paid back guaranteed sums. Meanwhile, air traffic controllers are working without pay, a phenomenon that helped force an end to the previous shutdown due to large-scale absenteeism. Congress has, in short, forced countless Americans to act as pawns in a stalemated chess match, where one side insists on dogmatic loyalty to the rules, and the other insists on checkers.
Democrats have insisted that Republicans roll back spending cuts made by a party-line Republican bill earlier this year that threatens expiring healthcare subsidies, Medicaid and SNAP (formerly called food stamps), while Republicans have refused to negotiate until their preferred appropriations bill has been passed without amendment. While the Republican position seems to defy reason—lacking political leverage, but demanding Democrats renounce their obstruction rights from the minority—history offers a moral precedent for Democrats to shift gears.
In 2023, Republicans found themselves in a slightly more powerful position than Democrats today when GOP hardliners demanded their party use its House majority to bring government operations to a halt in exchange for policy changes. Instead, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with then-President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats and advanced a bipartisan bill to keep the government funded. The payment to prevent hundreds of thousands of Americans from losing compensation for their jobs was his own office: backed by Democrats, right-wing House members turned on McCarthy and removed him from the speakership. Rather than allow the government to go unfunded and see hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, McCarthy abandoned the public opinion opportunities for leverage and took the risk of alienating House Republicans he had worked desperately to win over to become speaker months earlier.
Democrats could reasonably argue that Republicans should either be able to act unilaterally, given their presidency-House-Senate trifecta, or come to the negotiating table. But this forces all those affected into a hostage-like role within a political impasse, at a time when American political dialogue is only becoming more toxic. While Democrats have accused Trump of behaving like an “authoritarian,” claiming their exercise of political might from the legislative minority evident here is needed to bring him into check, he has only instead sought to take more aggressive, unilateral actions. Trump has publicly promoted the Project 2025 role of his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought, over which “Democrat programs” to unilaterally cancel, threatening mass layoffs, program eliminations and more. In short, if their intent in maintaining the shutdown was to force Republicans into a more democratic method of business, it seems to have backfired dramatically.
Democratic voters across the country have voiced their opposition to the policies and governing style of the current administration in “No Kings” protests, while faith in establishment Democratic leaders has plummeted against the backdrop of perceived inaction. The current shutdown offers Democratic leaders the opportunity to loudly continue to be inactive: refusing to make concessions demanded by the other party, despite the fact that November saw them swept out of power en masse. What is clear is that the public is not with Democratic leadership. The livelihoods of 900,000 Americans should not be regarded as expendable political capital to change this. Democrats must accept that while they have the ability to do harm, they lack the leverage to force benevolence.
Negotiating with the majority party on its own terms offers Democrats the best route to secure as many of their policy goals as they can. As for the rest, they must make the cynical yet inevitable decision to accept the will of the public, and the elected majority, and allow welfare cuts, basking only in the solace that those who will suffer most are those who voted most enthusiastically for the administration that chose this path for them: red state residents. It is a cruel and despicable proposition that one could accept this in stride, but Democrats simply have no choice but to allow voters to face the results of their chosen path. However, Democratic leaders, in all, must remove furloughed workers from the table, reopen the government and attempt to beat Republicans in their preferred match of checkers.
Qualifier:
On the Other Hand is a recurring column in The Hoot, which seeks to promote critical approaches to the issues of our time and respectful dialogue. The arguments made here should not be taken as the views of The Hoot and its staff, or even as those of the writers, unless explicitly stated. In this column, Jack wrote in favor of the ongoing government shutdown resulting from Democrats’ rejection of a Republican-led budget measure, while Stephen wrote against. They decline to state their personal views.
