Posted on 10/25/2025 6:45:21 AM PDT by MtnClimber
We have no idea how the government shutdown, now in its fourth week and the second longest in history, will end, or how. But what is increasingly clear is how badly Democrats miscalculated on this one.
Consider three bits of news from this week:
First, the shutdown isn’t hurting Republicans.
In fact, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that President Donald Trump’s approval rating has ticked up by two points to 42% since the shutdown started. Other polls find it unchanged. The Real Clear Politics average shows Trump’s disapproval at 52%, which is down a point from the day before the shutdown started.
That same Reuters poll showed that the public is mostly split on who deserves blame for this shutdown, which is in stark contrast to past shutdowns, during which the Republicans were overwhelmingly blamed.
Second, the GOP isn’t cowering in fear. “I don’t know what there is to negotiate,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at a meeting with fellow senators at the White House this week. “Open up the government first.” He told reporters that Republicans are “a united team.”
They shouldn’t negotiate because they have the upper hand on messaging. To wit, the Democrats are holding the country hostage because they want to borrow and spend $1.5 trillion on health care for illegals, Obamacare for the well-to-do, and a host of woke programs the general public doesn’t want.
Third, and perhaps most stunning, is a Rasmussen Reports poll also out this week that finds that 51% of likely voters want the government to remain shut down, including 31% who strongly approve of keeping it that way. Only 41% said they disapprove of it continuing.
True, that’s because two-thirds of Democrats want the shutdown to continue because they hate Trump. But this is another example of Democrats’ cutting off their nose to spite their face.
In this case, keeping the government shut down gives the president the opportunity to permanently shrink it, a prospect that appears to delight Trump.
“We have Darth Vader,” Trump said, referring to the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought. “They call him Darth Vader. I call him a fine man, but he’s cutting Democrat priorities, and they’re never going to get him back. … So, while they thought they were doing maybe bad, maybe indirectly they’re doing good.”
Trump has also managed to find ways to keep paying the military and law enforcement, which has caused Democrats to sputter about how he’s abusing his authority. Or, as Politico put it, “Lawmakers bemoan Trump’s latest power grab: Troop pay.”
Yes, the shutdown is disruptive, but the longer it goes on, the more people (who aren’t on the government’s payroll) will realize that their lives aren’t being affected by it one way or another. As we noted in this space at the start of the current shutdown (see “You Call This a Shutdown“), nearly 70% of the government is on autopilot – and so is unaffected by the shutdown – and much of the rest of what makes up the federal government is waste, fraud, and abuse.
The more people realize this, the weaker the Democrats’ hand becomes. Which, for Democrats – a party built on the notion that a big, powerful, expensive federal government is essential to our everyday lives – is the worst possible outcome.
Our hope is that Republicans maintain their resolve, because the longer the shutdown lasts, the more damage Democrats will suffer. And, in the meantime, Trump will have more time to fire federal workers and shut down federal programs.
More time to shut down wasteful programs and to fire unnecessary government employees.
What happens when the shutdown goes into week 8 of a 7 week spending bill? We are only a month away from that, and the SNAPpers would have nothing on their plates for Thanksgiving. Groceries and convenience stores everywhere will be clamoring for paying customers.
I give it to 11/6/25. By then there will be riots in the streets over no ETB cards and Chuckie will be hiding!
What does happen? If Trump’s people are being paid, the SNAPpers (like that term!) might see the ‘Rat leadership as impotent, and blame them.
Guys like Thune live by polls so hopefully this news will help them stand strong.
EBT cards run empty AND on that same week:
....Donks lose 2 off year elections—or barely squeak by in blue states in which they traditionally win—and it finally hits home.
America is not with you, they’re with MAGA. Schumer Shutdown is on the Donks. Time to open it up before it gets worse.
It will end when blacks are slaughtered in the streets for looting.
As I see it, the longer that the shutdown continues, the more that people will come to understand that we neither need or can afford this bloated, parasitic Federal Leviathan.
This is the best part.
After the so-called shutdown ends, we still have to deal with Congress’s refusal to end their use of baseline budgeting...
“SNAPpers would have nothing on their plates for Thanksgiving“
Ghettopotami can survive months without food. They’ll be fine.
Not so fast...look for desparate Ghettopotami ...they do NOT know what a fast is, and their feeling starved will have them lashing out, imho.
Donks? Are we using the urban meaning of big wheel cars? If so self explanatory, and a good use of the term!
My daughter is a Civil Servant for the DoD. Her specialty is computer security. She was declared essential last week. She’s working for no pay.
She is not upset, good conservative woman!
From your keyboard to God's ear.
In the past if anyone felt the effect of a shutdown, it was because the Democrats went out of their way to make it painful. They’d rent barricades and use more people to keep something closed than were needed to keep it open.
More time, also, for the “Resistance” to work its way through the court system.
It hasn't affected me at all.
If I had any control over a retail store anywhere where the EBT crowd hangs out, I would prepare for 11/1 by moving most inventory to warehouse and be in readiness to react within minutes to:
- Close the store with everything of any worth locked up;
- Barricade the doors with vehicles that are hard to damage or already worn;
- Have pre-made banners hung as staff are sent home saying “Closed; no EBT” or some phrase that might get it through looters’ heads that there’s nothing to take, maybe; and
- Assure staff that for the duration you’ll pay them for shifts they can’t work (otherwise someone will accidentally forget one of these security steps).
Any PD that doesn’t pre-position forces at likely looting areas ready to decisively act has leaders that want the looting for D optics.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.