The media dynamic surrounding this government shutdown fight is very different from the one in 2018–19.
Hey, remember the federal government shutdown? There was a time — maybe as little as six years ago! — when a government shutdown was big news until it ended. These days, with the fast-moving news cycle and the endless new stories and controversies surrounding the Trump administration, the shutdown turned into just one of several big stories at the start of the month, and lately it seems to have dropped out of the news cycle entirely.
I suspect that the news media’s inability to remain focused on one story for more than a day or two is one of the reasons the Democrats’ “the Republicans will get blamed” strategy isn’t really working. Sure, polling shows the public putting a smidgen more blame on Republicans than Democrats, but it’s a pretty small margin.
Twenty-two days into a government shutdown after Congress hit a budget impasse, 45 percent of registered voters think Republicans in Congress are more responsible for the government shutdown, while 39 percent think Democrats in Congress are more responsible and 11 percent volunteered that they think both parties are equally responsible.
Americans blame Republican lawmakers more than Democratic lawmakers for a partial government shutdown, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that also showed Republican President Donald Trump’s approval rating increasing slightly.
The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, showed Trump’s approval at 42 percent, up 2 percentage points from earlier in the month, within the poll’s 2 point margin of error. Trump’s rating has held between 40 percent and 44 percent since early April.The poll found that 50 percent of respondents see the Republican congressional leadership as deserving the most blame for the shutdown, while 43 percent see top congressional Democrats as the main culprits.
Now, six or seven percentage points is a bit better than the four percentage point split in the AP poll, but . . . it’s not a lot better.
Hey, federal workers, aren’t you glad you haven’t gotten paid for three weeks for this?
Forget the public at large; it feels like the Democratic grassroots have moved on from the government shutdown fight to other issues driving their outrage at Trump — the demolition work on the East Wing of the White House, Trump wanting $230 million from the Department of Justice as restitution for his past investigations, racist group chats, ICE raids, redistricting. . . . It’s not quite that the Democratic chattering class and grassroots have moved on from the arguments about Obamacare subsidies, but that issue is constantly competing for attention with other issues.
What angers Democrats? The fact that Donald Trump is president. There’s no deal that Chuck Schumer could ever negotiate that would solve that problem for his party. He was warned.